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diff --git a/30090-0.txt b/30090-0.txt index b29fe6f..8e2a74b 100644 --- a/30090-0.txt +++ b/30090-0.txt @@ -1,6308 +1,6308 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30090 ***
-
-ROBINETTA
-
-
-
-
-By Kate Douglas Wiggin
-
-ROBINETTA. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.10 net. Postage, 10 cents.
-
-REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM. Holiday Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
-
-SUSANNA AND SUE. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. Crown 8vo, $1.50
-net. Postage 15 cents.
-
-THE OLD PEABODY PEW. With decorations and illustrations. Large crown 8vo,
-$1.50.
-
-REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM. 12mo, $1.25.
-
-NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 12mo, $1.25.
-
-ROSE O' THE RIVER. Illustrated in color. 12mo, 1.25.
-
-THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.25.
-
-THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00.
-
-A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP, AND PENELOPE'S ENGLISH EXPERIENCES. Illustrated.
-16mo, $1.00.
-
-PENELOPE'S PROGRESS. 16mo, $1.25.
-
-PENELOPE'S IRISH EXPERIENCES. 16mo, $1.25.
-
-PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES. I. England; II. Scotland; III. Ireland; Holiday
-Edition. With many illustrations by Charles E. Brock. 3 vols., each 12mo,
-$2.00; the set, $6.00.
-
-A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP. Holiday Edition, enlarged. Illustrated by C. E.
-Brock. 12mo, $1.50.
-
-THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 50 cents.
-
-THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 60 cents.
-
-A SUMMER IN A CAÑON. A California Story. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25.
-
-TIMOTHY'S QUEST. A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, who cares to read it.
-16mo, $1.00. Holiday Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
-
-POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00. In Riverside School
-Library. 60 cents, net; postpaid.
-
-THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 16mo, $1.00.
-
-MARM LISA. 16mo, $1.00.
-
-NINE LOVE SONGS, AND A CAROL. Music by Mrs. Wiggin. Words by Herrick,
-Sill, and others. Square 8vo, $1.25.
-
-HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
-
-Boston and New York
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-ROBINETTA
-
-by
-
-Kate Douglas Wiggin
-
-Mary Findlater
-
-Jane Findlater
-
-Allan McAulay
-
-BOSTON AND NEW YORK
-
-Houghton Mifflin Company
-
-The Riverside Press, Cambridge
-
-
-
-
-COPYRIGHT, 1910 AND 1911, BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS
-
-COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
-
-ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
-
-Published February 1911
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
- I. THE PLUM TREE 1
- II. THE MANOR HOUSE 7
- III. YOUNG MRS. LORING 19
- IV. A CHILLY RECEPTION 29
- V. AT WITTISHAM 39
- VI. MARK LAVENDAR 54
- VII. A CROSS-EXAMINATION 69
- VIII. SUNDAY AT STOKE REVEL 87
- IX. POINTS OF VIEW 99
- X. A NEW KINSMAN 113
- XI. THE SANDS AT WESTON 127
- XII. LOVE IN THE MUD 151
- XIII. CARNABY TO THE RESCUE 170
- XIV. THE EMPTY SHRINE 181
- XV. "NOW LUBIN IS AWAY" 194
- XVI. TWO LETTERS 210
- XVII. MRS. DE TRACY CROSSES THE FERRY 217
- XVIII. THE STOKE REVEL JEWELS 234
- XIX. LAWYER AND CLIENT 250
- XX. THE NEW HOME 260
- XXI. CARNABY CUTS THE KNOT 273
- XXII. CONSEQUENCES 284
- XXIII. DEATH AND LIFE 299
- XXIV. GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON 309
- XXV. THE BELLS OF STOKE REVEL 324
-
-
-
-
-ROBINETTA
-
-I
-
-THE PLUM TREE
-
-
-At Wittisham several of the little houses had crept down very close to
-the river. Mrs. Prettyman's cottage was just like a hive made for the
-habitation of some gigantic bee; its pointed roof covered with deep,
-close-cut thatch the colour of a donkey's hide. There were small
-windows under the overhanging eaves, a pathway of irregular flat
-stones ran up to the doorway, and a bit of low wall divided the tiny
-garden from the river. The Plum Tree grew just beside the wall, so
-near indeed that it could look at itself on spring days when the water
-was like a mirror. In autumn the branches on that side of the tree
-were the first to be shaken, lest any of the fruit should fall down
-and be lost. Sometimes a village child treading cautiously on bare
-toes amongst the stones along the narrow margin, would pounce upon a
-plum with a squeal of joy, for although the village was surrounded
-with orchards, the fruit of Mrs. Prettyman's tree had a flavour all
-its own.
-
-The tree had been given to her by a nephew who was a gardener in a
-great fruit orchard in the North, and her husband had planted and
-tended it for years. It began life as a slender thing with two or
-three rods of branches, that looked as if the first wind of winter
-would blow it away, but before the storms came, it had begun to
-trust itself to the new earth, and to root itself with force and
-determination. There were good soil and water near it, and plenty of
-sunshine, and, as is the way of Nature, it set itself to do its own
-business at all seasons, unlike the distracted heart of man. The
-traffic of the river came and went; around the headland the big
-ships were steering in, or going out to sea; and in the village
-the human life went on while the Plum Tree grew high enough to look
-over the wall. Its stem by that time had a firm footing; next it took
-a charming bend to the side, and then again threw out new branches
-in that direction. It turned itself from the prevailing wind, throwing
-a new grace into its attitude, and went on growing; returning in
-blossom and leaves and fruit an hundredfold for all that it received
-from the earth and the sun.
-
-In spring it was enchanting; at first, before the blossoms came out,
-with small bright leaves, and buds like pearls, heaped upon the
-branches; then, later, when the whole tree was white, imaged like a
-bride, in the looking-glass of the river. It only wanted a nightingale
-to sing in it by moonlight. There were no nightingales there, but the
-thrushes sang in the dawning, and the little birds whose voices were
-sweet and thin chirruped about it in crowds, while the larks, trilling
-out the ardour of mating time, sometimes rose from their nests in the
-grass and soared over its topmost branches on their skyward flight.
-
-Spring, therefore, was its merriest time, for then every passer-by
-would cry, "What a beautiful tree!" or "Did ye ever see the likes of
-it?"
-
-There were a few days of inevitable sadness a little later when its
-million petals fell and made a delicate carpet of snow on the ground.
-There they lay in a kind of fairy ring, as if there had been a shower
-of mother-of-pearl in the April night; and no human creature would
-have dared set a vandal foot on that magic circle, and mar the
-perfection of its beauty. All the same the Plum Tree had lost its
-petals, and that was hard to bear at first. But though its Wittisham
-neighbours often said to summer trippers, "I wish you could have seen
-it in blossom!" the Plum Tree did not repine, because of the
-secrets--the thousand, thousand secrets--it held under its leaves.
-"The blossoms were but a promise," it thought, "and soon everybody
-will see the meaning of them."
-
-Then the tiny green globes began to appear on every branch and twig;
-crowding, crowding, crowding till it seemed as if there could never be
-room for so many to grow; but the weaker ones fell from the boughs or
-were blown away when the wind was fierce, so the Plum Tree felt no
-anxiety, knowing that it was built for a large family! The little
-green globes grew and grew, and drank in sweet mother-juices, and
-swelled, and when the summer sun touched their cheeks all day they
-flushed and reddened, till when August came the tree was laden with
-purpling fruit; fruit so tempting that its rosy beauty had sometimes
-to be hidden under a veil of grey fishing net, lest the myriad
-bird-friends it had made during the summer should love it too much for
-its own good.
-
-So the Plum Tree grew and flourished, taking its part in the pageant
-of the seasons, unaware that its existence was to be interwoven with
-that of men; or that creatures of another order of being were to owe
-some changes in their fortunes to its silent obedience to the motive
-of life.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-THE MANOR HOUSE
-
-
-The long, low drawing room of the Manor at Stoke Revel was the warmest
-and most genial room in the old Georgian house. It was four-windowed
-and faced south, and even on this morning of a chilly and backward
-spring, the tentative sunshine of April had contrived to put out the
-fire in the steel grate. One of the windows opened wide to the garden,
-and let in a scent which was less of flowers than of the promise of
-flowers--a scent of earth and green leaves, of the leafless daphne
-still a-bloom in the shrubbery, of hyacinths and daffodils and tulips
-and primroses still sheathed in their buds and awaiting a warmer air.
-
-But this promise of spring borne into the room by the wandering breeze
-from the river, was nipped, as it were, by the frigid spirit of age
-and formalism in its living occupants. Mrs. de Tracy, a lady of
-seventy-five, sat at her writing-table. Her companion, Miss Smeardon,
-a person of indeterminate age, nursed the lap-dog Rupert during such
-time as her employer was too deeply engaged to fulfil that agreeable
-duty. Mrs. de Tracy, as she wrote, was surrounded by countless
-photographs of her family and her wide connection, most prominent
-among them two--that of her husband, Admiral de Tracy, who had died
-many years ago, and that of her grandson, his successor, whose
-guardian she was, and whose minority she directed. Her eldest son, the
-father of this boy, who had died on his ship off the coast of Africa;
-his wife, dead too these many years; her other sons as well (she had
-borne four); their wives and children--grown men, fashionable women,
-beautiful children, fat babies: the likenesses of them all were around
-her, standing amid china and flowers and bric-a-brac on the crowded
-tables and what-nots of the not inharmonious and yet shabby Victorian
-room. Mrs. de Tracy, it might at a glance be seen, was no innovator,
-either in furniture, in dress, or probably in ideas. As she was
-dressed now, in the severely simple black of a widow, so she had been
-dressed when she first mourned Admiral de Tracy. The muslin ends of
-her widow's cap fell upon her shoulders, and its border rested on the
-hard lines of iron-grey hair which framed a face small, pale, aquiline
-in character and decidedly austere in expression.
-
-She took one from a docketed pile of letters and held it up under her
-glasses, the sun suddenly striking a dazzle of blue and green from the
-diamond rings on her small, withered hands. Then she read it aloud to
-her companion in an even and chilly voice. She had read it before, in
-the same way, at the same hour, several times. The letter, couched in
-an epistolary style largely dependent upon underlining, appeared to
-contain, nevertheless, some matter of moment. It was dated from Eaton
-Square, in London, some weeks before, and signed Maria Spalding. ("Her
-mother was a Gallup," Mrs. de Tracy would say, if any one asked who
-Maria Spalding was; and this was considered sufficient, for Mrs. de
-Tracy's maiden name had been Gallup,--not euphonious but nevertheless
-aristocratic.)
-
- * * * * *
-
-MY DEAR AUGUSTA (Maria Spalding wrote): I am going to ask you to
-help me out of a _difficulty_. There is no _use_ beating about the
-bush. You know that Cynthia's daughter Robinetta (Loring is her
-_married_ name) has been with me for a month. _American_ or no
-_American_, I meant to have had her for a part of the season, and to
-_present_ her, if possible (so _good_ for these Americans to learn
-what royalty _is_ and to breathe the atmosphere which doth hedge a
-_King_ as Shakespeare says, and which they can never _have_, of
-course, in a country like theirs). I know you can't _approve_, dear
-Augusta, and you will blame me for sentimentality--but I never
-_can_ forget what a _sweet_ creature Cynthia was before she ran away
-with that odious American--and my _greatest_ friend in girlhood, too,
-you must remember. So Robinette, as she is generally called, has
-come to my house as a _home_, but a most _unlucky_ thing has
-happened. I have had influenza so badly that it has affected my
-_heart_ (an old trouble), I am ordered to Nauheim, and Robinette is
-_stranded_, poor dear. She has few friends in London and certainly
-none who can put her up. Tho' she _is_ a widow, she is only twenty-two
-(just _imagine_!), very pretty, and really, tho' you won't believe
-it, _quite_ nice. I am _desperate_, and just wondering if you
-would let by-gones be by-gones, and receive her at Stoke Revel. She
-has set her heart upon seeing the place, and some _picture_ she
-was called after (I can't remember it, so it can't be one of the
-_famous_ Stoke Revel group--a _copy_, I fancy), and on paying a
-visit to Lizzie Prettyman, her mother's old nurse at Wittisham over
-the river. She _promised_ her mother she would do this--and such a
-promise is _sacred_, don't you think? It's such an _old_ story
-now, Cynthia's American marriage, and no fault of _Robinette's_,
-poor dear child. Her wish is almost a _pious_ one, don't you agree, to
-pay respect to her mother's memory and the family, and is _much_ to
-be encouraged in these days of radicalism, when every natural tie
-is loosened and people pay no more _respect_ to their parents than if
-they hadn't any, but had made themselves and brought themselves up
-from the beginning. So don't you think it's a _good_ thing to
-encourage the _right_ kind of feeling in Robinette, especially as
-she is an _American_, you know....
-
- * * * * *
-
-Mrs. de Tracy paused, and replaced the letter in the package from
-which she had withdrawn it.
-
-"Maria Spalding's point of view," she observed, "has, I confess,
-helped me to overcome the extreme reluctance I felt to receive the
-child of that American here. Cynthia de Tracy's elopement nearly broke
-my dear husband's heart. She was the apple of his eye before our
-marriage; so much younger than himself that she was like his child
-rather than his sister."
-
-"What a shock it must have been!" murmured the companion. "What
-ingratitude! Can you really receive her child? Of course you know
-best, Mrs. de Tracy; but it seems a risk."
-
-"Hardly a risk," rejoined Mrs. de Tracy with dignity. "But it is a
-trial to me, and an effort that I scarcely feel called upon to make."
-
-Miss Smeardon was so well versed in her duties that she knew she
-always had to urge her employer to do exactly what she most wanted to
-do, and the poor creature had developed a really wonderful ingenuity
-in divining what these wishes were. Just now, however, she was, to use
-a sporting phrase, "at fault" for a minute. She could not exactly
-tell whether Mrs. de Tracy wanted to be urged to ask her niece to
-Stoke Revel, or whether she wanted to be supplied with a really
-plausible excuse for not doing so. Those of you who have seen a hound
-at fault can imagine the companion at this moment: irresolute, tense,
-desperately anxious to find and follow up the right scent. Compromise,
-that useful refuge, came to her aid.
-
-"It _is_ difficult to know," she faltered. Then Mrs. de Tracy gave her
-the lead.
-
-"Maria Spalding is right when she says that my husband's niece
-contemplates a duty in visiting Stoke Revel," she announced. "The
-young woman is the lawful daughter of Cynthia de Tracy that was: our
-solicitors could never discover anything dubious in the marriage,
-though we long suspected it. Therefore, though I never could have
-invited her here, I admit that the Admiral's niece has a right to
-come, in a way."
-
-"Though her maiden name was Bean!" ejaculated the companion, almost
-under her breath. "There are Pease in the North, as everyone knows;
-perhaps there are Beans somewhere."
-
-"There have never been Beans," said Mrs. de Tracy solemnly and totally
-unconscious of a pun. "Look for yourself!"
-
-Miss Smeardon did not need to rise from her seat and fetch Burke: it
-lay always close at hand. She merely lifted it on to her knee and ran
-her finger down the names beginning with B-e-a.
-
-"Beaton, Beare, Beatty, Beale--" she read out, and she shook her head
-in dismal triumph; "but never a Bean! No! we English have no such
-dreadful names, thank Heavens!"
-
-"This is the beginning of April," pursued Mrs. de Tracy, referring to
-a date-card. "Maria Spalding's course at Nauheim will take three
-weeks. We must allow her a week for going and coming. During that time
-Mrs. David Loring can be my guest."
-
-"A whole month!" cried the companion, as though in ecstasy at her
-employer's generosity. "A whole month at Stoke Revel!"
-
-Mrs. de Tracy took no notice. "Write in my name to Maria Spalding,
-please," she commanded. "Be sure that there is no mistake about dates.
-Mention the departure and arrival of trains, and say that Mrs. David
-Loring will find a fly at the station. That is all, I think."
-
-The companion bent officiously forward. "You remember, of course, that
-young Mr. Lavendar comes down next week upon business?"
-
-"Well, what if he does?" asked Mrs. de Tracy shortly.
-
-"Mrs. David Loring is a widow," murmured the companion darkly; "a
-young American widow; and they are said to be so dangerous!"
-
-Mrs. de Tracy drew herself up. "Do you insinuate that the Admiral's
-niece will lay herself out to attract Mr. Lavendar, a widow in the
-house of a widow! You go rather too far, Miss Smeardon, though you are
-speaking of an American. Besides, allusions of this character are
-extremely distasteful to me. I have been told that the minds of
-unmarried women are always running upon love affairs, but I should
-hardly have thought it of you."
-
-"I'm sure I never imagined any about myself!" murmured Miss Smeardon
-with the pitiable writhe of the trodden-on worm.
-
-"I should suppose not," rejoined Mrs. de Tracy gravely, and the
-companion took up her pen obediently to write to Maria Spalding.
-
-"Shall I send your love to the Admiral's niece?" she humbly enquired,
-"or--or something of the kind?" There was irony in the last phrase,
-but it was quite unconscious.
-
-"Not my love," replied Mrs. de Tracy, "some suitable message. Make no
-mistake about the dates, remember."
-
-Thus a letter containing dates, and though not love, the substitute
-described by Miss Smeardon as "something of the kind" for an unwanted
-niece from an unknown aunt, left Stoke Revel by the afternoon post and
-reached Robinette Loring at breakfast next morning.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-YOUNG MRS. LORING
-
-
-Young Mrs. Loring thought she had never taken so long a drive as that
-from the Weston railway station to Stoke Revel. The way stretched
-through narrow winding roads, always up hill, always between high
-Devonshire hedges. The rain-soaked lanes were slippery and she was
-unpleasantly conscious of the size and weight of the American wardrobe
-trunk that reared its mighty frame in front of her almost to the
-blotting-out of the driver, who steadied it with one hand as he plied
-the whip with the other. It struck her humorously that the trunk was
-larger than most of the cottages they were passing.
-
-It was a late spring that year in England,--Robinette was a new-comer
-and did not know that England runs to late and wet springs, believing
-that they make more conversation than early, fine ones,--and the
-trees were just bursting into leaf. The sun had not shone for three
-days and the landscape, for all its beautiful greenness, looked gloomy
-to an eye accustomed to a good deal of crude sunshine.
-
-As the horse mounted higher and higher Robinette glanced out of the
-windows at the dripping boughs and her face lost something of its
-sparkle of anticipation. She had little to expect in the way of a warm
-welcome, she knew that; or at least her mind knew it, but Robinette's
-heart always expected surprises, although she had lived two and twenty
-summers and was a widow at that.
-
-Her mother had been a de Tracy of Stoke Revel whose connection with
-that ancient family had ceased abruptly when she met an American
-architect while traveling on the Continent, married him out of hand
-and went to his native New England with him. The de Tracys had no
-opinion of America, its government, its institutions, its customs, or
-its people, and when they learned that Cynthia de Tracy had not only
-allied herself with this undesirable nation, but had selected a native
-by the name of Harold Bean, they regarded the incident of the marriage
-as closed.
-
-The union had been a happy one, though the de Tracys of Stoke Revel
-had always regarded the unfortunately named architect more as a
-vegetable than a human being; and the daughter of the marriage was the
-young Mrs. Loring now driving in the station fly to the home of her
-mother's people.
-
-Her father had died when she was fifteen and her mother followed three
-years after, leaving her with a respectable fortune but no relations;
-the entire family (happily, Mrs. de Tracy would have said) having died
-out with Harold. Robinette was unspeakably lonely, even with her
-hundred friends, for there was enough English blood in her to make her
-cry out inwardly for kith and kin, for family ties, for all the dear
-familiar backgrounds of hearth and home. Had a welcoming hand been
-stretched across the sea she would have flown at once to make
-acquaintance with the de Tracys, cold and indifferent as they had
-always been, but no bidding ever came, and the picture of the Manor
-House of Stoke Revel on her dressing-table was the only reminder of
-her connection with that ancient and honourable house.
-
-It is not difficult to see, under the circumstances, how the
-nineteen-year-old Robinette became the wife of the first man in whom
-she inspired a serious passion.
-
-It is incredible that women should confuse the passive process of
-being loved with the active process of loving, but it occurs
-nevertheless, and Robinette drifted into marriage with the vaguest
-possible notions of what it meant; feeling and knowing that she needed
-something, and supposing it must be a husband. It was better fortune,
-perhaps, than she merited, and equally kind for both parties, that her
-husband died before either of them realized the tragic mistake. David
-Loring was too absorbed in his own emotions to note the absence of
-full response on the part of his wife; Robinette was too much a child
-and too inexperienced to be conscious of her own lack of feeling.
-
-It was death, not life, that opened her eyes. When David Loring lay in
-his coffin, Robinette's heart was suddenly seized with growing pains.
-Her vision widened; words and promises took on a new and larger
-meaning, and she became a serious woman for her years, although there
-was an ineradicable gaiety of spirit in her that needed only sunshine
-to make it the dominant note of her nature.
-
-At the moment, Robinette, in the station fly on her way to Stoke
-Revel, was only in the making, although she herself considered her
-life as practically finished. The past and the present were moulding
-her into something that only the future could determine. Sometimes
-April, sometimes July, sometimes witch, sometimes woman; impetuous,
-intrepid, romantic, tempestuous, illogical,--these were but the
-elements of which the coming years of experience had yet to shape a
-character. Young Mrs. Loring had plenty of briars, but she had good
-roots and in favorable soil would be certain to bear roses.
-
-But in the immediate present, the fly with the immense American
-wardrobe trunk beside the driver, turned into the avenue of Stoke
-Revel, and Mrs. David Loring bestowed upon herself those little
-feminine attentions which precede arrival--pattings of the hair behind
-the ears, twitches of the veil, and pullings down about the waist and
-sleeves. A little toy of a purse made of golden chainwork, hanging
-from her wrist, was searched for the driver's fare, and it had hardly
-snapped to again when the fly drew up before the entrance to the
-house. How interesting it looked! Robinette put her head out of the
-carriage window and gazed up at the long row of windows, the old
-weather-coloured stones, and the carved front of the building. Here
-was a house where things might happen, she thought, and her young
-heart gave a sudden bound of anticipation.
-
-But the door was shut, alas! and a blank feeling came over Robinette
-as she looked at it. Some one perhaps would come out and welcome
-her, she thought for a brief moment, but only the butler appeared,
-who, with the formal announcement of her name, ushered her into a
-long, low room with a row of windows on one side and a pleasant
-old-fashioned look of comfort and habitation. She caught a glimpse
-of a tea-table with a steaming urn upon it, heard the furious barking
-of a little dog, saw that there were two figures in the room and
-moved instinctively towards the one beside the window, the figure in
-weeds, neither very tall nor very imposing, yet somehow formidable.
-
-"How do you do?" said an icy voice, and a chill hand held hers for a
-moment, but did not press it. The colour in Robinette's cheeks paled
-and then rushed back, as she drew herself up unconsciously.
-
-"I am very well, thank you, Aunt de Tracy," she answered with
-commendable composure.
-
-"This is my friend and companion, Miss Smeardon," continued Mrs. de
-Tracy, advancing to the tea-table where that useful personage
-officiated. "Mrs. David Loring--Miss Smeardon." Miss Smeardon had the
-dog upon her lap, yapping, clashing his teeth together, and obviously
-thirsting for the visitor's blood. He was quieted with soothing words,
-and Robinette seated herself innocently in the nearest chair, beside
-the table.
-
-"Excuse me!" the companion said with a slight cough; "Mrs. de Tracy's
-chair! Do you mind taking another?" There was something disagreeable
-in her voice, and in Mrs. de Tracy's deliberate scrutiny something so
-nearly insulting that a childish impulse to cry then and there
-suddenly seized upon Robinette. This was her mother's home--and no
-kiss had welcomed her to it, no kind word! There were perfunctory
-questions about her journey, references to the coldness and lateness
-of the spring, enquiries after the health of Maria Spalding (whose
-mother was a Gallup), but no claiming of kinship, no naming of her
-mother's name nor of her native country! Robinette's ardent spirit had
-felt sorrow, but it had never met rebuff nor known injustice, and the
-sudden stir of revolt at her heart was painful with an almost physical
-pain.
-
-After a long drawn hour of this social torture, Mrs. de Tracy rang,
-and a hard-featured elderly maid appeared.
-
-"Show Mrs. Loring to her room, Benson," said the mistress of the
-house, "and help her to unpack."
-
-Robinette followed her conductor upstairs with a sinking heart. Oh!
-but the chill of this English spring was in her bones, and the
-coldness of a reception so frigid that her passionate young spirit
-almost rebelled on the spot, prompting wild ideas and impulsive
-impossibilities; even a flight to her mother's old nurse--to Lizzie
-Prettyman, so often lovingly described, with her little thatched
-cottage beyond the river! Surely she would find the welcome there that
-was lacking here, and the touch of human kindness that one craved in a
-foreign land. But no! Robinette called to her aid her strong American
-common sense and the "grit" that her countrymen admire. Was she to
-confess herself routed in the very first onset--the very first attempt
-in storming the ancestral stronghold? With a characteristically quick
-return of hope, the Admiral's niece exclaimed, "Certainly not!"
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-A CHILLY RECEPTION
-
-
-Mrs. Benson approached the wardrobe trunk with the air of a person who
-has taken an immediate and violent dislike to an object.
-
-"We have all looked at your box, ma'am, but I am sorry to say we are
-not sure that it is set up properly. It is very different from any we
-have ever seen at the Manor, and the men had some difficulty in
-getting it up to the room. I fancy it is upside down, is it not? No?
-We rather thought it was. I would call the boot-and-knife boy to
-unlock it, but he jammed his hand in attempting to force the catches,
-and I thought you would be kind enough to instruct me how to open it,
-perhaps?"
-
-"I am quite able to do it myself," said Robinette, keeping down a
-hysterical laugh. "See how easily it goes when you know the secret!"
-and she deftly turned her key in two locks one after the other, let
-down the mysterious façade of the affair, and pulled out an
-extraordinary rack on which hung so many dresses and wraps that Mrs.
-Benson lost her breath in surprise.
-
-"Would you like me to carry some of your things into another room,
-ma'am?" she asked. "They will never go in the wardrobe; it is only a
-plain English wardrobe, ma'am. We have never had any American
-guests."
-
-"The things needn't be moved," said Robinette, "many of them will be
-quite convenient where they are;--and now you need not trouble about
-me; I am well used to helping myself, if you will be kind enough to
-come in just before dinner for a moment."
-
-Mrs. Benson disappeared below stairs, where she regaled the injured
-boot-and-knife boy and the female servants with the first instalment
-of what was destined to be the most dramatic and sensational serial
-story ever told at the Manor House.
-
-"The lid of the box don't lift up," she explained, "like all the box
-lids as ever I saw, and me with Lady Chitterton for six years,
-traveling constantly. The front of the thing splits in the middle and
-the bottom half falls on the floor. A heathenish kind of tray lifts
-off from its hinges like a door, and a clothes rack pulls out on
-runners. 'T is a sight to curdle your blood; and the number of dresses
-she's brought would make her out to be richer than Crusoe!--though I
-have heard from a cousin of mine who was in service in America that
-the ladies over there spend every penny they can rake and scrape on
-their clothes. Their husbands may work their fingers to the bone, and
-their parents be in the workhouse, but fine frocks they will have!"
-
-"Rather!" said the boot-and-knife boy, nursing his injured thumb.
-
-On the departure of Mrs. Benson from her room, Robinette gave a
-stifled shriek in which laughter and tears were equally mingled. Then
-she flew like a lapwing to the fire-place and lifted off a fan of
-white paper from the grate.
-
-"No possibility of help there!" she exclaimed. "Cold within, cold
-without! How shall I unpack? How shall I dress? How shall I live
-without a fire? Ah! here is the coal box! Empty! Empty, and it is only
-the month of April! 'Oh! to be in England now that April's there!' How
-could Browning write that line without his teeth chattering! How well
-I understand the desire of the British to keep India and South Africa!
-They must have some place to go where they can get warm! Now for
-unpacking, or any sort of manual labour which will put my frozen blood
-in circulation!"
-
-Slapping her hands, beating her breast, stamping her feet, Mrs. Loring
-removed a few dresses from the offending trunk to the mahogany
-wardrobe, and disposed her effects neatly in the drawers of bureau and
-highboy.
-
-"I have made a mistake at the very beginning," she thought. "I
-supposed nothing could be too pretty for the Manor House and now I am
-afraid my worst is too fine. The Manor House of Stoke Revel! Wouldn't
-that appeal to anyone's imagination? Now what for to-night? White
-satin with crystal? Back you go into the trunk! Back goes the
-silver grey chiffon! I'll have it re-hung over flannel! Avaunt!
-heliotrope velvet with amethyst spangles, made with a view to
-ensnaring the High Church clergy! I wish I had a princess dress of
-moleskin with a court train of squirrel hanging from the shoulders!
-Here is the thing; my black Liberty satin two years old. I will
-cover part of my exposed neck and shoulders with a fichu of lace; my
-black silk openwork stockings will be drawn on over a pair of
-balbriggans, and the number of petticoats I shall don would discourage
-a Scotch fishwife! To-morrow I'll write Mrs. Spalding's maid to buy
-me two hot-water bottles, mittens, a box of quinine tablets and a
-Shetland shawl.... What are these--_fans?_ Retire into the depths of
-that tray and never look me in the face again!... _Parasols?_ I
-wonder at your impertinence in coming here! I shall give you cod
-liver oil and make you grow into umbrellas!"
-
-Presently the dinner gong growled through the house, and Robinette,
-still shivering, flung across her shoulders a shimmering scarf of
-white and silver. It fell over her simple black dress in just the
-right way, adding a last touch to the somewhat exotic grace which made
-her a stranger in her mother's home. Then she fled down the darkening
-passages, instinctively aware that unpunctuality was a crime in this
-house. Yet in spite of her haste, she paused before the window of an
-upper lobby, arrested by the scene it framed. Heavy rain still fell,
-and the light, made greenish by the nearness of great trees just
-coming into leaf, was cheerless and singularly cold. But that could
-not mar the majesty of the outlook which made the Manor of Stoke
-Revel, on its height, unique. Far below the house, the broad river
-slipped towards the sea, between woods that rose tier upon tier above
-and beyond--woods of beech and of oak, not yet green, but purplish
-under the rainy mist. On the bank, woods too, and here, where the
-river, in excess of strength, swirled into a creek--a shining
-sand-bank where fishing nets were hung. Then the low, strong tower of
-a church, with the sombreness of cypress beside it, and the thatched
-roofs of cottages.
-
-Something stirred in the heart of Robinette as she looked, that part
-of her blood which her English mother had given her. This scene, so
-indescribably English as hardly to be imaginable in another land, had
-been painted for her again and again by her mother with all the
-retrospective romance of an exile's touch. She knew it, but she did
-not know if she could ever love it, beautiful though it was and
-noble.
-
-But she banished these misgivings and ran down the twisted stairway
-so fast that she was almost panting when she reached the drawing-room
-door.
-
-"I will take your arm, please," said the hostess coldly, while Miss
-Smeardon wore the virtuous and injured air of one who has been kept
-waiting. Mrs. de Tracy laid, on the warm and smooth arm of her guest,
-one of her small, dry hands, sparkling with rings, and the procession
-closed with the companion and the lap-dog.
-
-In the dining room, the shutters were closed, and the candles, in
-branching candlesticks of silver, only partially lit a room long and
-low like the other. The walls were darkened with pictures, and
-Robinette's bright eyes searched them eagerly.
-
-"The Sir Joshua is not here!" she thought. "And it was not in the
-drawing room. Has Aunt de Tracy given, or hidden it away--my very own
-name-picture?"
-
-With all her determination, Robinette somehow could not summon courage
-enough to ask where this picture was. Such a question would involve
-the mention of her mother's name, and from that she shrank. Young Mrs.
-Loring had never before found herself in a society where conversation
-was apparently regarded as a crime, and to fit herself to her
-environment, under the scrutiny of Mrs. de Tracy and the decidedly
-inimical looks of the companion, took all her time. A burden of
-self-consciousness lay upon her such as her light and elastic spirit
-had never known. She found herself morbidly observant of minute
-details; the pattern of the tablecloth; the crest upon the spoons; the
-curious red knobs upon Miss Smeardon's fingers, and the odd mincing
-way she held her fork; the almost athletic efforts of the butler when
-he raised an enormous silver dish-cover, and the curiously frugal and
-unappetizing nature of the viand it disclosed. The wizened face of the
-lap-dog, too, peering over the table's edge, out of Miss Smeardon's
-lap, might have acquired its distrustful expression, Robinette
-thought, from habitual doubts as to whether enough to eat would ever
-be his good fortune. The meal ended with the ceremonious presentation
-to each lady in turn, of three wrinkled apples and two crooked bananas
-in a probably priceless dish of Crown Derby. Then the procession
-re-formed and returned to the drawing room.
-
-"And the evening and the morning were the first day!" sighed Robinette
-to herself in the chilly solitude of her own room. How often could she
-endure the repetition?
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-AT WITTISHAM
-
-
-"May I have a fire to dress by, Benson?" Robinette asked rather
-timidly that night, her head just peeping above the blankets.
-
-"_Fire_?" returned Benson, in italics, with an interrogation point.
-
-Robinette longed to spell the word and ask Benson if it had ever come
-to her notice before, but she stifled her desire and said, "I am quite
-ashamed, Benson, but you see I am not used to the climate yet. If
-you'll pamper me just a little at the beginning, I shall behave better
-presently."
-
-"I will give orders for a fire night and morning, certainly, ma'am,"
-said Benson. "I did not offer it because our ladies never have one in
-their bedrooms at this time of the year. Mrs. de Tracy is very strong
-and active for her age."
-
-"It's my opinion she's a w'eedler," remarked Benson at the housekeeper's
-luncheon table. "She asks for what she wants like a child. She has a
-pretty way with her, I can't deny that, but is she a w'eedler?"
-
-Wheedler or not, Robinette got her fire to dress by, and so was able
-to come down in the morning feeling tolerably warm. It was well that
-she was, for the cold tea and tough toast of the de Tracy breakfast
-had little in them to warm the heart. Conversation languished during
-the meal, and after a walk to the stables Robinette was thankful to
-return to her own room again on the pretext of writing letters. There
-she piled up the fire, drew her chair close up to the hearth, and
-employed herself until noon, when she took her embroidery and joined
-her aunt in the drawing room. Luncheon was announced at half past one,
-and immediately after it Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon went to their
-respective bedrooms for rest.
-
-"Are there indeed only twelve hours in the day?" Robinette asked
-herself desperately as she heard the great, solemn-toned hall clock
-strike two. It seemed quite impossible that it could be only two; the
-whole afternoon had still to be accounted for, and how? Well, she
-might look over her clothes again, re-arranging them in all their
-dainty variety in the wardrobe and drawers; she might put tissue paper
-into the sleeves of each bodice, smoothing out every crease; she might
-even find that some tiny repairs were needed! There were three new
-hats, and several pairs of new gloves to be tried on; her accounts
-must be made up, her cheque book balanced; yet all these things would
-take but a short time. Then the hall clock struck three.
-
-"I must go out," she thought.
-
-Coming through the hall from her room Robinette met her aunt and Miss
-Smeardon descending the staircase.
-
-"We are driving this afternoon," said Mrs. de Tracy, "would you not
-like to come with us?"
-
-The thought turned Robinette to stone: she had visited the stables,
-and seen the coachman lead what seemed to her a palsied horse out into
-the yard. Her sympathetic allusion to the supposed condition of the
-steed had not been well received, for the man had given her to
-understand that this was the one horse of the establishment, but
-Robinette had vowed never to sit behind it.
-
-"I think I'd rather walk, Aunt de Tracy," she said, "I'd like to go
-and see my mother's old nurse, Mrs. Prettyman. Can I do any errands
-for you?"
-
-"None, thank you. To go to Wittisham you have to cross the ferry,
-remember."
-
-"Oh! that must be simple! you may be sure I shall not lose myself!"
-said Robinette.
-
-Both the older women looked curiously at her for a moment; then Mrs.
-de Tracy said:--
-
-"You will kindly not use the public ferry; the footman will row you
-across to Wittisham at any hour you may mention to him."
-
-"Oh, but Aunt de Tracy, I'd really prefer the public ferry."
-
-"Nonsense, impossible; the footman shall row you," said Mrs. de Tracy
-with finality.
-
-Robinette said nothing; she hated the idea of the footman, but it
-seemed inevitable. "Am I never to get away from their dullnesses?" she
-thought. "A public ferry sounds quite lively in place of being rowed
-by William!"
-
-When the shore was reached, however, Robinette discovered that the
-passage across the river in a leaky little boat, rowed by a painfully
-inexperienced servant, was almost too much for her. To see him
-fumbling with the oars, made her tingle to take them herself; she
-could not abide the irritation of a return journey with such a
-boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of
-the three-decker steamer of her native land, the ferry at Wittisham
-was just like an ordinary row-boat; that one rang a bell hanging from
-a picturesque tower; that a nice young man with a sprig of wallflower
-in his cap rowed one across, and that each passenger handed out a
-penny to him on the farther side.
-
-"How enchantingly quaint!" she cried. "William, you can go home; I
-shall return by the public ferry."
-
-William looked surprised but only replied, "Very good, ma'am."
-
-On warm summer afternoons the tiny square of Mrs. Prettyman's garden
-made as delightful a place to sit in as one could wish. There was
-sunshine on the turf, and a thin shade was cast by the drooping boughs
-of the plum tree; just enough to shelter old eyes from the glare. When
-she was very tired with doing her work Mrs. Prettyman would totter out
-into the garden. She was getting terribly lame now, yet afraid to
-acknowledge it, knowing, with the desperate wisdom of poverty, that
-once to give in, very often ended in giving up altogether. So her
-lameness was 'blamed on the weather,' 'blamed on scrubbing the
-floor,' blamed on anything rather than the tragic, incurable fact of
-old age. This afternoon her rheumatism had been specially bad: she had
-an inclination to cry out when she rose from her chair, and every step
-was an effort. Yet the sunshine was tempting; it warmed old and aching
-bones through and through as no fire could do; and Mrs. Prettyman
-thought she must make the effort to go out.
-
-She had just arrived at this conclusion, when a tap came to the door.
-
-"That you, Mrs. Darke?" she called out in her piping old voice. "Come
-in, me dear, I'm that stiff with me rheumatics to-day I can't scarce
-rise out of me chair."
-
-"It's not Mrs. Darke," said Robinette, stooping to enter through the
-tiny doorway. "It's a stranger, Mrs. Prettyman, come all the way from
-America to see you."
-
-"Lor' now, Miss, whoever may you be?" the old woman cried, making as
-if she would rise from her chair. But Robinette caught her arm and
-made her sit still.
-
-"Don't get up; please sit right there where you are, and I'll take
-this chair beside you. Now, Mrs. Prettyman, look at me hard, and tell
-me if you know who I am."
-
-The old woman gazed into Robinette's face, and then a light seemed to
-break over her.
-
-"It's Miss Cynthia's daughter you are!" she cried. "My Miss Cynthia as
-went and married in America!"
-
-She caught Robinette's white ringed hands in hers, and Robinette bent
-down and kissed the wrinkled old face.
-
-"I know that mother loved you, Nurse," she said. "She used often,
-often to tell me about you."
-
-After the fashion of old people, Mrs. Prettyman was too much moved to
-speak. Her face worked all over, and then slow tears began to run down
-her furrowed cheeks. She got up from her chair and walked across the
-uneven floor, leaning on a stick.
-
-"I've something here, Miss, I've something here; something I never
-parts with," she said. A tall chest of drawers stood against the wall,
-and the old woman began to search among its contents as she spoke. At
-last she found a little kid shoe, laid away in a handkerchief.
-
-"See here, Miss! here's my Miss Cynthia's shoe! 'T was tied on to my
-wedding coach the day I got married and left her. My 'usband 'e
-laughed at me cruel because I'd have that shoe with me; but I've kept
-it ever since."
-
-Robinette came and stood beside her, and they both wept together over
-the silly little shoe.
-
-"I want to talk a great deal to you, Nurse; I want to tell you all
-about mother and father, and how they died," said Robinette through
-her tears. How strange that she should have to come to this cottage
-and to this poor old woman before she found anyone to whom she could
-speak of her beloved dead! Her heart was so full that she could
-scarcely speak. A crowd of memories rushed into her mind; last scenes
-and parting words; those innumerable unforgettable details that are
-printed once for all upon the heart that loves and feels.
-
-"I'd like to tell you about it out of doors, Nurse dear," she said
-tearfully; "can you come out under the plum tree in your garden? It's
-lovely there."
-
-"Yes, dearie, yes, we'll come out under the plum tree, we will,"
-echoed Mrs. Prettyman.
-
-"See, Nursie, take my arm, I'll help you out into the warm sunshine,"
-Robinette said.
-
-They progressed very slowly, the old woman leaning with all her weight
-upon the arm of her strong young helper. Then under the flickering
-shade of the tree they sat down together for their talk.
-
-So much to tell, so much to hear, the afternoon slipped away unknown
-to them, and still they were sitting there hand in hand talking and
-listening; sometimes crying a little, sometimes laughing; a queerly
-assorted couple, these new-made friends.
-
-But when all the recollections had been talked over and wept over,
-when Mrs. Prettyman had told Robinette, with the extraordinary detail
-that old people can put into their memories of long ago, all that she
-remembered of Cynthia de Tracy's childhood, then Robinette began to
-question the old woman about her own life. Was she comfortable? Was
-she tolerably well off? Or had she difficulty in making ends meet?
-
-To these questions Mrs. Prettyman made valiant answers: she had a fine
-spirit, and no wish to let a stranger see the skeleton in the
-cupboard. But Robinette's quick instinct pierced through the veil of
-well-meant bravery and touched the truth.
-
-"Nurse dear," she said, "you say you're comfortable, and well off, but
-you won't mind my telling you that I just don't quite believe you."
-
-"Oh, my dear heart, what's that you be sayin'? callin' of me a liar?"
-chuckled the old woman fondly.
-
-Robinette rose from her seat on the bench and stood back to
-scrutinize the cottage. It was exquisitely picturesque, but this
-very picturesqueness constituted its danger; for the place was a
-perfect death trap. The crumbling cob-walls that had taken on those
-wonderful patches of green colour, soaked in the damp like a sponge:
-the irregularity of the thatched roof that looked so well, admitted
-trickles of rain on wet nights; and the uneven mud floor of the
-kitchen revealed the fact that the cottage had been built without any
-proper foundation. The door did not fit, and in cold weather a
-knife-like draught must run in under it. All this Robinette's
-quick, practical glance took in; she gave a little nod or two,
-murmuring to herself, "A new thatch roof, a new door, a new cement
-floor." Then she came and sat down again.
-
-"Tell me now, how much do you have to live on every week, Nurse?" she
-asked.
-
-"Oh, Miss Robinette--ma'am, I should say--'t is wonderful how I gets
-on; and then there's the plum tree--just see the flourish on it,
-Missie dear! 'T will have a crop o' plums come autumn will about drag
-down the boughs! I don't know how 't would be with me without I had
-the plum tree."
-
-"Do you really make something by it?" Robinette asked.
-
-The old woman chuckled again. "To be sure I makes; makes jam every
-autumn; a sight o' jam. Come inside again, me dear, an' see me jam
-cupboard and you'll know."
-
-She hobbled into the kitchen, and opened the door of a wall press in
-the corner. There, row above row stood a solid phalanx of jam pots; it
-seemed as if a whole town might be supplied out of Mrs. Prettyman's
-cupboard.
-
-"'T is well thought of, me jam," the old woman said, grinning with
-pleasure. "I be very careful in the preparing of 'en; gets a penny the
-pound more for me jam than others, along of its being so fine."
-
-Robinette was charmed to see that here Mrs. Prettyman had a reliable
-source of income, however slender.
-
-"How much do you reckon to get from it every year?" she asked.
-
-"Going five pounds, dear: four pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence,
-last autumn; and please the Lord there's a better crop this season, so
-'t will be the clear five pounds. Oh! I do be loving me plum tree like
-a friend, I do."
-
-They turned back into the sunshine again, that Robinette should admire
-this wonderful tree-friend once more. She stood under its shadow with
-great delight, as the Bible says, gazing up through the intricate
-network of boughs and blossom to the cloudless blue above her.
-
-"It's heavenly, Nurse, just heavenly!" she sighed as she came and sat
-down beside the old woman again.
-
-"Then there's me duck too, Missie! Lard, now I don't know how I'd be
-without I had me duck. Duckie I calls 'er and Duckie she is; company
-she is, too, to me mornin's, with her 'Quack, Quack,' under the
-winder."
-
-So the old woman prattled on, giving Robinette all the history of her
-life, with its tiny joys and many struggles, till it seemed to the
-listener that she had always known Mrs. Prettyman, the plum tree, and
-her duck--known them and loved them, all three.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-MARK LAVENDAR
-
-
-Hundreds of years ago the street of Stoke Revel village, if street it
-could be called, and the tower of the ancient church, must have looked
-very much the same as now.
-
-On such a day, when the oak woods were budding, and the English birds
-singing, and the spring sun was hot in a clear sky, a knight riding
-down the steep lane would have taken the same turn to the left on his
-way to the Manor. Were he a young man, he would probably have reined
-up his horse for a moment, and looked, as Mark Lavendar did now, at
-the blithe landscape before him. Only then the accessories would have
-been so different: the great horse, somewhat tired by long hours of
-riding, the armour that glinted in the sun, the casque pushed up to
-let the fresh air play upon the rider's face; such a figure must have
-often stood just at that turn where the lane wound up the little hill.
-The landscape was the same, and young men in all ages are very much
-the same, so--although this one had merely arrived by train, and
-walked from the nearest station--Mark Lavendar stopped and leaned over
-the low wall when he came to the turn of the road, and looked down at
-the river.
-
-He boasted no war horse nor armour; none of the trappings of the older
-world added to his distinction, and yet he was a very pleasing figure
-of a man.
-
-The gaunt brown face was quite hard and solemn in expression; ugly,
-but not commonplace, for as a friend once said of him, "His eyes seem
-to belong to another person." It was not this, but only that the eyes,
-blue as Saint Veronica's flower, showed suddenly a different aspect of
-the man, an unexpected tenderness that flatly contradicted the hard
-features of his face. He looked very nice when he laughed too, so
-that most people when they had found out the trick, tried to make him
-laugh as often as possible.
-
-"What a day! Heavens! what a lovely day," he said to himself as he
-leaned on the low wall. "I want to be courting Amaryllis somewhere in
-these woods, and instead I've got to go and talk business with that
-old woman;" and he looked ruefully towards the Manor House; for this
-was not his first visit by any means, and he knew only too well the
-hours of boredom that awaited him. Mrs. de Tracy, strange to say, had
-a soft side towards this young man, the son of her family solicitor.
-Mark was invariably sent down by his father when there was any
-business to be transacted at Stoke Revel. The older man was fond of a
-good dinner, and hated circumlocution about affairs, and it was only
-when a death in the family, or some other crucial event, made his
-presence absolutely necessary that he came down himself. Mark was
-sacrificed instead, and many a wearisome hour had he spent in that
-house. However on this occasion he had been glad enough to get out of
-London for a while; the country was divine, and even the de Tracy
-business did not occupy the whole day. There would be hours on the
-river; afternoons spent riding along those green lanes through which
-he had just passed, where the banks were starred with little vivid
-flowers. Mark had an almost childish delight in such beauty. He had
-loitered on the way along, flung himself down on a bank for a few
-minutes, and burying his face amongst the flowers, listened with a
-smile upon his mouth to the birds that chirruped in the branches of
-the oak above him.
-
-Now he leaned on the low wall, and gazed at the shining reaches of the
-river. "What a day!" he said to himself again. "What a divine
-afternoon"; then he added quite simply, "I wish I were in love;
-everyone under eighty ought to be, on such a day!"
-
-Even at the age of thirty most men of any personal attractions have
-some romantic memories. Lavendar had his share, but somehow that
-morning he was disconcertingly candid to himself. It may have been the
-sudden change from London air and London noise; something in the clear
-transparency of the April day, in the flute-like melody of the birds'
-song, in the dream-like beauty of the scene before him, that made all
-the moth and rust that had consumed the remembrances of the past more
-apparent. There was little of the treasure of heaven there,--it had
-mostly been nonsense or vanity or worse. He wanted, oh, how he wanted,
-to be able just for once to surrender himself to what was absolutely
-ideal; to have a memory when he was an old man, of something that had
-no fault in it.
-
-"No, I've never been really in love," he said to himself, "I may as
-well confess it; and I daresay I never shall be, but marry on an
-impulse like most men, make the best of it afterwards, and have a
-sort of middle-class happiness in the end of the day."
-
-"One, Two, Three," said the church clock from the ancient tower,
-booming out the note, and Lavendar started, and rubbed his hands
-across his dazzled eyes. "Luncheon is a late meal in that awful house,
-if I remember," he said, "but it must be over by this time. I really
-must go in. Let me collect my thoughts; the business is 'just things
-in general,' but especially the sale of some cottage or other and the
-land it stands on. Yes, yes, I remember; the papers are all right. Now
-for the old ladies."
-
-He made his entrance into the Manor drawing room a few minutes later
-with a charming smile.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy actually walked a few steps to meet him, with a greeting
-less frigid than usual.
-
-"I'm glad to see you, Mark," said she. "Bates said you preferred to
-walk from the station."
-
-Mark turned his kind eyes on Miss Smeardon, and held her knuckly hand
-in his own almost tenderly. It was a very bad habit, which had led to
-some mischief in the past, that when he was sorry for a thing he
-wanted to be very kind to it; and this made him unusually pleasing,
-and dangerous!
-
-"Business first and pleasure afterwards; excellent maxim!" he said to
-himself half an hour later, as he removed the dust of travel from his
-person, preparatory to an interview with Mrs. de Tracy. "Now for it!"
-
-He liked the drawing room at Stoke Revel and always wished it had
-other occupants when he entered it. This afternoon it seemed
-particularly agreeable, the open windows letting in the slanting
-sunshine and a strong scent of jonquils and sweet briar.
-
-"Well, Mrs. de Tracy," said Mark, "I am my father's spokesman, you
-know, and we have serious business to discuss. But tell me first,
-how's my young friend Carnaby?"
-
-"Thank you; my grandson has a severe attack of quinsy," replied Mrs.
-de Tracy. "He is to have sick-leave whenever the Endymion returns to
-Portsmouth."
-
-"Oh! Carnaby will make short work of an attack of quinsy," said
-Lavendar, genially.
-
-"It would please me better," retorted Mrs. de Tracy severely, "if my
-grandson showed signs of mental improvement as well as bodily health.
-His letters are ill-spelled, ill-written, and ill-expressed. They are
-the letters of a school-boy."
-
-"He is not much more than a school-boy, is he?" suggested Mark, "only
-fifteen! The mental improvement will come; too soon, for my taste. I
-like Carnaby as he is!"
-
-The young man had seated himself beside his hostess in an attitude of
-perfect ease. Though bored by his present environment, he was entirely
-at home in it. Just because he greatly dared towards her and was never
-afraid, Mrs. de Tracy liked him. With the mere flicker of an eyelid,
-she dismissed the attendant Smeardon.
-
-"There has been an offer for the land at Wittisham," Lavendar said,
-when they were alone.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy winced. "That is no matter of congratulation with me,"
-she said bleakly.
-
-"But it is with us, for it is a most excellent one!" returned the
-young man hardily. "The firm has had the responsibility of advising
-the sale, which we consider absolutely unavoidable in the present
-financial condition of Stoke Revel. We have advertised for a year, and
-advertisement is costly. Now comes an offer of a somewhat peculiar
-kind, but sound enough." Lavendar here produced a bundle of documents
-tied with the traditional red tape. "An artist," he continued,
-"Waller, R. A.--you know the name?"
-
-"I do not," interpolated Mrs. de Tracy grimly.
-
-"Nevertheless, a well known painter," persisted Mark, "and one, as it
-happens, of the orchard scenery of this part of England. He has known
-Wittisham for a long time, and only last year he made a success with
-the painting of a plum tree which grows in front of one of the
-cottages. It was sold for a large sum, and, as a matter of sentiment,
-I suppose, Waller wishes to buy the cottage and make it into a summer
-retreat or studio for himself."
-
-"He cannot buy it," said Mrs. de Tracy with the snort of a war horse.
-
-"He cannot buy it apart from the land," insinuated Mark, "but he is
-flush of cash and ready to buy the land too--very nearly as much as we
-want to sell, and the bargain merely waits your consent. The sum that
-has been agreed upon is of the kind that a man in the height of his
-triumph offers for a fancy article. No such sum will ever be offered
-for land at Wittisham again; old orchard land, falling into desuetude
-as it is and covered with condemned cottages."
-
-Mrs. de Tracy was sternly silent, and Mark awaited her next words with
-some curiosity. He felt like a torturer drawing the tooth of a Jew in
-the good old days. This sale of land was a bitter pill to the widow,
-as it well might be, for it was the beginning of the end, as the de
-Tracy solicitors could have told you. There had been de Tracys of
-Stoke Revel since Queen Elizabeth's time, but there would not be de
-Tracys of Stoke Revel much longer,--unless young Carnaby married an
-heiress when he came of age--and that no de Tracy had ever done.
-
-"The land across the river," Mrs. de Tracy said at last, "was the
-first land the de Tracys held, but much of it went at the Restoration.
-Well, let this go too!" she added harshly.
-
-Mark blessed himself that indecision was no part of the lady's
-character and sighed with relief. "My father would like to know," he
-said, "what you propose to do with regard to the old woman who is the
-present tenant of the cottage."
-
-"Elizabeth Prettyman is not a tenant," said Mrs. de Tracy coldly.
-"She is practically a pensioner, since she lives rent-free."
-
-"True, I forgot," said Mark soothingly. "I beg your pardon."
-
-"Do not suppose that it is by my wish," continued Mrs. de Tracy
-coldly. "I have never approved of supporting the peasantry in
-idleness. This woman happened to be for some years nurse to Cynthia de
-Tracy, my husband's younger sister, who deeply offended her family by
-marrying an American named Bean. I see no claim in that to a pension
-of any kind."
-
-"But your husband saw it, I imagine," interpolated Mark quietly, and
-Mrs. de Tracy gave him a fierce look, which he met, however, without a
-sign of flinching.
-
-"My husband had a mistaken idea that Prettyman was poor when she
-became a widow," said Mrs. de Tracy. "On the contrary she had
-relations quite well able to support her, I believe. I never cross the
-river, in these days, and the matter has escaped my memory, so that
-things have been left as they were."
-
-"No great loss," said Mark candidly, "since the cottage in its present
-state is utterly unfit for any tenant. As to Prettyman, is it your
-intention to give her notice to quit?"
-
-"Unquestionably, since the cottage is needed," answered Mrs. de Tracy.
-"She has occupied it too long as it is." The speaker's lips closed
-like a vice over the words.
-
-"God pity Elizabeth Prettyman!" ejaculated Lavendar to himself. "Might
-is Right still, apparently, at Stoke Revel!" Aloud he merely said, "A
-weak deference to public opinion was never a foible of yours, Mrs. de
-Tracy; but I think I would advise you to consider some question of
-compensation to Mrs. Prettyman for the loss of the cottage."
-
-"If you can show me that the woman has any legal claim upon the
-estate, I will consider the question, but not otherwise," said Mrs. de
-Tracy with such an air of finality that Lavendar was inclined to let
-the matter drop for the moment.
-
-"The firm," he said, "will communicate your wishes to Mrs. Prettyman
-by letter."
-
-"Prettyman cannot read," snapped Mrs. de Tracy. "She must be told, and
-the sooner the better."
-
-"Well, Mrs. de Tracy," said the young man with a short laugh,
-"provided it is not I who have to tell her, well and good. I warn you
-the task would not be to my taste unless compensation were offered
-her."
-
-Mrs. de Tracy's features hardened to a degree unusual even to her.
-
-"I am apparently less tender-hearted than you," she said sardonically.
-"I shall, if I think fit, deal with Prettyman in person." The subject
-was dropped, and Lavendar rose to leave the room, but Mrs. de Tracy
-detained him.
-
-"The Admiral's niece, Mrs. David Loring, is my guest at present," she
-said. "It happens that she has crossed the river to Wittisham and is
-paying a visit to Prettyman. I should be obliged, Mark, if you would
-row across and fetch her back, as by some misunderstanding, my servant
-has not waited for her. You are an oarsman, I know."
-
-The young man consented with alacrity. "I shall kill two birds with
-one stone," he said cheerfully, "I shall visit the famous plum tree
-cottage and see Mrs. Prettyman for myself; and I shall have the
-privilege of executing your commission as Mrs. Loring's escort. It
-sounds a very agreeable one!"
-
-"You have no time to lose," said Mrs. de Tracy with a glance at the
-clock.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-A CROSS-EXAMINATION
-
-
-Lavendar escaped from the house, where, even in the smoke-room, it
-seemed unregenerate to light a cigar, and took the path to the shore.
-
-"I wonder if one woman staying in a house full of men would find life
-as depressing as I do cooped up here under precisely opposite
-circumstances," he thought, as he made his way through the little
-churchyard. "It cannot be the atmosphere of femininity that bores me,
-however, for Mrs. de Tracy has a strongly masculine flavour and Miss
-Smeardon is as nearly neuter as a person can be."
-
-He took a couple of oars from the boat-house as he passed, and going
-to the little landing stage untied the boat and started for the
-farther shore.
-
-It was good to feel the water parting under his vigorous strokes and
-delightful to exert his strength after the hours of stifled irritation
-at the Manor. It was a bright, calm close of day, when in the rarefied
-evening air each sound began to acquire the sharpness that marks the
-hour. He could hear the rush of the waters behind the boat and the
-voices of the fishers farther up the stream. As he drew up to the bank
-and took in his oars the stillness was so great that you could have
-heard a pin fall, when suddenly from a tree above him a bird broke
-into one little finished song and then was still, as if it had uttered
-all it wished to say.
-
-"What a heavenly evening!" thought Lavendar, "and what a lovely spot!
-That must be the cottage just above me. Mrs. de Tracy said I should
-know it by the plum tree. Ah, there it is!" Tying up the boat he
-sprang up the steps and walked along the flagged path. The plum tree
-these last few days had begun to look its fairest. The blossoms did
-not yet conceal the leaves, but it was a very bower of beauty already.
-There was a little table spread for tea under its branches, and an old
-woman like thousands of old women in thousands of cottages all over
-England, was sitting behind it, precisely as if she had been a
-coloured illustration in a summer number of an English weekly. She was
-on the typical bench in the typical attitude, but instead of the
-typical old man in a clean smock frock who should have occupied the
-end of the bench, there sat beside her a distinctly lovely young
-woman. What struck Lavendar was the wealth of colour she brought into
-the picture: goldy brown hair, brown tweed dress, with a cape of blue
-cloth slipping off her shoulders, and a brown toque with a pert
-upstanding quill that seemed to express spirit and pluck, and a merry
-heart. His quick glance took in the little hands that held the
-withered old ones. Both heads were bowed and in the brown tweed lap
-was a child's shoe,--a wee, worn, fat shoe. Beside it lay an absurd
-bit of crumpled, tear-soaked embroidery that had been intended to do
-duty as a handkerchief but had evidently proved quite unseaworthy.
-
-Waddling about on the flags close to the little table was a large fat
-duck wearing a look of inexpressible greed. "_Quack, quack, quack_!"
-it said, waddling off angrily as Lavendar approached.
-
-At the sound of the duck's raucous voice both the women looked up.
-
-"Is this Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, ma'am?" Lavendar asked with his
-charming smile.
-
-"Yes, sir, 't is indeed, and who may you be, if I may be so bold as to
-ask?"
-
-"I'm Mr. Lavendar, Mrs. de Tracy's lawyer, Mrs. Prettyman. I'm come to
-do some business at Stoke Revel," he added, for the old face had
-clouded over, and Mrs. Prettyman's whole expression changed to one of
-timid mistrust. "I really was sent by Mrs. de Tracy," he went on,
-turning to Robinette, "to take you home; Mrs. Loring, isn't it?"
-
-"Yes, I am Mrs. Loring," she said, frankly holding out her hand to
-him. "I knew you were expected at Stoke Revel, but I sent the footman
-back myself. He spoils the scenery and the river altogether."
-
-"I've got a boat down there; Mrs. de Tracy doesn't quite like your
-taking the ferry; may I have the honour of rowing you across? My
-orders were to bring you back as soon as possible."
-
-"I'm blest if I hurry," was his unspoken comment as Robinette gaily
-agreed, and, having bidden good-bye to the old woman, with a quick
-caress that astonished him a good deal, she laid down the little shoe
-gently upon the bench, and turned to accompany him to the boat.
-
-The river was like a looking-glass; the air like balm. "We'll
-take some time getting across, against the tide," said Lavendar
-reflectively, as he resolved that the little voyage should be
-prolonged to its fullest possible extent. He was not going into
-the Manor a moment earlier than he could help, when this charming
-person was sitting opposite to him. So this was Mrs. Loring! How
-different from the stout middle-aged lady whom Mrs. de Tracy's
-words had conjured up when he set out to find her!
-
-"Old Mrs. Prettyman was my mother's nurse," Robinette remarked as
-Lavendar dipped his oars gently into the stream and began to row. "I
-went to see her feeling quite grown up, and she seemed to consider me
-still a child; I was feeling about four years old at the moment when
-you appeared and woke me to the real world again."
-
-She had dried her eyes now and had pulled her hat down so as to shade
-her face, but Lavendar could see the traces of her weeping, and the
-dear little ineffectual rag of a handkerchief was still in one hand.
-
-"What on earth was she crying about?" he thought, as with lowered eyes
-he rowed very slowly across, only just keeping the boat's head
-against the current, and glancing now and then at the young woman.
-
-Was it possible that this lovely person was going to be his
-fellow-guest in that dull house? "My word! but she's pretty! and what
-were the tears about ... and the little shoe? Did it belong to a child
-of her own? Can she be a widow, I wonder," said Lavendar to himself.
-
-"I often think," he said suddenly, raising his head, "that when two
-people meet for the first time as utter strangers to each other, they
-should be encouraged, not forbidden, to ask plain questions. It may be
-my legal training, but I'd like all conversation to begin in that way.
-As a child I was constantly reproved for my curiosity, especially when
-I once asked a touchy old gentleman, 'Which is your glass eye? The one
-that moves, or the one that stands still?'"
-
-The tears had dried, the hat was pushed back again, the young woman's
-face broke into an April smile that matched the day and the weather.
-
-"Oh, come, let us do it," she exclaimed. "I'd love to play it like a
-new game: we know nothing at all about each other, any more than if we
-had dropped from the moon into the boat together. Oh! do be quick!
-We've so little time; the river is quite narrow; who's to open the
-ball?"
-
-"I'll begin, by right of my profession; put the witness in the box,
-please.--What is your name, madam?"
-
-"Robinette Loring," she said demurely, clasping her hands on her knee,
-an almost childlike delight in the new game dimpling the corners of
-her mouth from time to time.
-
-"What is your age, madam?" Lavendar hesitated just for a moment before
-putting this question.
-
-"I refuse to answer; you must guess."
-
-"Contempt of Court--"
-
-"Well, go on; I'm twenty-two and six weeks."
-
-"Thank you, you are remarkably well preserved. I can hardly
-believe--those six-weeks! What nationality?"
-
-"American, of course, or half and half; with an English mother and
-American ideas."
-
-"Thank you. Where is your present place of residence?"
-
-"Stoke Revel Manor House."
-
-"What is the duration of the visit?"
-
-"Fixed at a month, but may be shortened at any time for bad
-behaviour."
-
-"Your purpose in coming to Stoke Revel?"
-
-"A Sentimental Journey, in search of fond relations."
-
-"Have you found these relations?"
-
-"I've found them; but the fondness is still to seek."
-
-"Have you left your family in America?"
-
-"I have no one belonging to me in the world," she answered simply, and
-her bright face clouded suddenly.
-
-There was a moment's rather embarrassed silence. "It's getting to be a
-sad game"; she said. "It's my turn now. I'll be the cross-examiner,
-but not having had your legal training, I'll tell you a few facts
-about this witness to begin with. He's a lawyer; I know that already.
-Your Christian name, sir?"
-
-"Mark."
-
-"Mark Lavendar. 'Mark the perfect man.' Where have I heard that; in
-Pope or in the Bible? Thank you; very good; your age is between thirty
-and thirty-five, with a strong probability that it is thirty-three. Am
-I right?"
-
-"Approximately, madam."
-
-"You are unmarried, for married men don't play games like this; they
-are too sedate."
-
-"You reassure me! Am I expected to acknowledge the truth of all your
-observations?"
-
-"You have only to answer my questions, sir."
-
-"I am unmarried, madam."
-
-"Your nationality?"
-
-"English of course. You don't count a French grandmother, I suppose?"
-
-Robinette clapped her hands. "Of course I do; it accounts for this
-game; it just makes all the difference.--Why have you come to Stoke
-Revel; couldn't you help it?"
-
-A twinkle passed from the blue eyes to the brown ones.
-
-"I am here on business connected with the estate."
-
-"For how long?"
-
-"An hour ago I thought all might be completed in a few days, but these
-affairs are sometimes unaccountably prolonged!" (Was there another
-twinkle? Robinette could hardly say.) They were half-way across the
-river now. She leaned over and looked at herself in the water for a
-moment.
-
-Lavendar rested on his oars, and began to rub the palms of his hands,
-smiling a little to himself as he bent his head.
-
-"Yours is an odd Christian name," he said. "I've never heard it
-before."
-
-"Then you haven't visited your National Gallery faithfully enough,"
-said Mrs. Loring. "Robinetta is one of the Sir Joshua pictures there,
-you know, and it was a great favourite of my mother's in her girlhood.
-Indeed she saved up her pin-money for nearly two years that she might
-have a good copy of it made to hang in her bedroom where she could
-look at it night and morning."
-
-"Then you were named after the picture?"
-
-"I was named from the memory of it," said Robinette, trailing her hand
-through the clear water. "Mother took nothing to America with her but
-my father's love (there was so much of that, it made up for all she
-left behind), so the picture was thousands of miles away when I was
-born. Mother told me that when I was first put into her arms she
-thought suddenly, as she saw my dark head, 'Here is my own Robinetta,
-in place of the one I left behind,' and fell asleep straight away,
-full of joy and content."
-
-"And they shortened the name to Robinette?"
-
-"I was christened properly enough," she answered. "It was the world
-that clipped my name's little wings; the world refuses to take me
-seriously; I can't think why, I'm sure; I never regarded _it_ as a
-joke."
-
-"A joke," said Lavendar reflectively; "it's a sort of grim one at
-times; and yet it's funny too," he said, suddenly raising his eyes.
-
-"Now that's the odd thing I was thinking as I looked at you just now,"
-Robinette said frankly. "You seem so deadly solemn until you look up
-and laugh--and then you _do_ laugh, you know. That's the French
-grandmother again! It was nice in her to marry your grandfather! It
-helped a lot!"
-
-He laughed then certainly, and so did she, and then pointed out to him
-that they were being slowly drifted out of their course, and that if
-he meant to get across to the landing-stage he must row a little
-harder.
-
-"I have met American women casually;" he said, bending to his oars,
-"but I have never known one well."
-
-"It's rather too bad to disturb the tranquillity of your impressions,"
-returned Mrs. Loring composedly.
-
-Lavendar looked up with another twinkle. She seemed to provoke
-twinkles; he did not realize he had so many in stock.
-
-"You mean American women are not painted in quite the right colours?"
-
-"I suppose black _is_ a colour?"
-
-"Oh! I see your point of view!" and Lavendar twinkled again.
-
-"I can tell you in five sentences exactly what you have heard about
-us. Will you say whether I am right? If you refuse I'll put you in the
-witness box and then you'll be forced to speak!"
-
-"Very well; proceed."
-
-"One: We are clever, good conversationalists, and as cold as
-icicles."
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Two: We dress beautifully and use extravagant means to compass our
-ends in this direction."
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Three: We keep our overworked husbands under strict discipline."
-
-"Yes! I say,--I don't like this game."
-
-"Neither do I, but it's very much played,--"
-
-"Four: We prefer hotels to home life and don't bring up our children
-well."
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Five: We interfere with the proper game laws by bagging English
-husbands instead of staying on our own preserves. That's about all, I
-think. Were not those rumours tolerably familiar to you in the
-ha'penny papers and their human counterparts?"
-
-Lavendar was so amused by this direct storming of his opinion that he
-could hardly keep his laughter within bounds. "I've heard one other
-criticism," he said, "that you were all pretty and all had small feet
-and hands! I am now able to declare that to be a base calumny and to
-hope that all the others will prove just as false!" Then Robinette
-laughed too; eyes, lips, cheeks! When Lavendar looked at her he wished
-that his father would keep him at Stoke Revel for a month.
-
-The sun was going down now, and the rising tide came swelling up from
-the sea, lifting itself and silently swelling the volume of the river,
-in a way that had something awful about it. The whole current of the
-great stream was against it, but behind was the force of the sea and
-so it filled and filled with hardly a ripple, as the heart is filled
-with a new desire. Up from the mouth of the river came a faint breeze
-bringing the taste of the ocean into the deeply wooded creeks. It had
-freshened into a little wind, as they drew up at the boat-house, that
-flapped Robinette's blue cape about her, and dyed the colour in her
-cheeks to a livelier tint. As they walked up the narrow pathway to the
-house a deep silence fell between them that neither attempted to
-break.
-
-At the top of the hill, she paused to take breath, and look across the
-river. It was half dark already there, on the other side in the deep
-shadow of the hill; and a lamp in the window of the cottage shone like
-a star beside the faintly green shape of the budding plum tree.
-
-As Robinette entered the door of the Manor House she took out her
-little gold-meshed purse and handed Mark Lavendar a penny.
-
-"It's none too much," she said, meeting his astonished gaze with a
-smile. "I should have had to pay it on the public ferry, and you were
-ever so much nicer than the footman!"
-
-Lavendar put the penny in his waistcoat pocket and has never spent it
-to this day. It is impossible to explain these things; one can only
-state them as facts. Another fact, too, that he suddenly remembered,
-when he went to his room, was, that the moment her personality touched
-his he was filled with curiosity about her. He had met hundreds of
-women and enjoyed their conversation, but seldom longed to know on the
-instant everything that had previously happened to them.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-SUNDAY AT STOKE REVEL
-
-
-On Sundays, the Stoke Revel household was expected to appear at church
-in full strength, visitors included.
-
-"We meet in the hall punctually at a quarter to eleven," it was Miss
-Smeardon's duty to announce to strangers. "Mrs. de Tracy always
-prefers that the Stoke Revel guests should walk down together, as it
-sets a good example to the villagers."
-
-"What Nelson said about going to church with Lady Hamilton!" Lavendar
-had once commented, irrepressibly, but the allusion, rather
-fortunately, was lost upon Miss Smeardon. Mark began to picture the
-familiar Sunday scene to himself; Miss Smeardon in the hall at a
-quarter to eleven punctually, marshalling the church-goers; and Mrs.
-Loring,--she would be late of course, and come fluttering downstairs
-in some bewitching combination of flowery hat and floating scarf that
-no one had ever seen before. What a lover's opportunity in this
-lateness, thought the young man to himself; but one could enjoy a walk
-to church in charming company, though something less than a lover.
-
-It was Mrs. de Tracy's custom, on Sunday mornings, to precede her
-household by half an hour in going to the sanctuary. No infirmities of
-old age had invaded her iron constitution, and it was nothing to her
-to walk alone to the church of Stoke Revel, steep though the hill was
-which led down through the ancient village to the yet more ancient
-edifice at its foot. During this solitary interval, Mrs. de Tracy
-visited her husband's tomb, and no one knew, or dared, or cared to
-enquire, what motive encouraged this pious action in a character so
-devoid of tenderness and sentiment. Was it affection, was it duty, was
-it a mere form, a tribute to the greatness of an owner of Stoke
-Revel, such as a nation pays to a dead king? Who could tell?
-
-The graveyard of Stoke Revel owned a yew tree, so very, very old that
-the count of its years was lost and had become a fable or a fairy
-tale. It was twisted, gnarled, and low; and its long branches, which
-would have reached the ground, were upheld, like the arms of some
-dying patriarch, by supports, themselves old and moss-grown. Under the
-spreading of this ancient tree were graves, and from the carved,
-age-eaten porch of the church, a path led among them, under the green
-tunnel, out into the sunny space beyond it. The Admiral lay in a vault
-of which the door was at the side of the church, for no de Tracy, of
-course, could occupy a mere grave, like one of the common herd; and
-here walked the funereal figure of Mrs. de Tracy, fair weather or
-foul, nearly every Sunday in the year.
-
-In justice to Mrs. de Tracy, it must be made plain that with all her
-faults, small spite was not a part of her character. Yet to-day, her
-anger had been stirred by an incident so small that its very
-triviality annoyed her pride. It was Mark Lavendar's custom, when his
-visits to Stoke Revel included a Sunday, cheerfully to evade
-church-going. His Sundays in the country were few, he said, and he
-preferred to enjoy them in the temple of nature, generally taking a
-long walk before lunch. But to-day he had announced his intention of
-coming to service, and well Mrs. de Tracy, versed in men and in human
-nature, knew why. Robinette would be there, and Lavendar followed, as
-the bee follows a basket of flowers on a summer day. As Mrs. de Tracy,
-like the Stoic that she was, accepted all the inevitable facts of
-life,--birth, death, love, hate (she had known them all in her day),
-she accepted this one also. But in that atrophy of every feeling
-except bitterness, that atrophy which is perhaps the only real
-solitude, the only real old age, her animosity was stirred. It was as
-though a dead branch upon some living tree was angry with the spring
-for breathing on it. As she returned, herself unseen in the shadow of
-the yew tree, she saw Lavendar and Robinette enter together under the
-lych-gate, the figure of the young woman touched with sunlight and
-colour, her lips moving, and Lavendar smiling in answer. In the
-clashing of the bells--bells which shook the air, the earth, the
-ancient stones, the very nests upon the trees--their voices were
-inaudible, but in their faces was a young happiness and hope to which
-the solitary woman could not blind herself.
-
-Presently in the lukewarm air within, Robinette was finding the
-church's immemorial smell of prayer-books, hassocks, decaying wood,
-damp stones, matting, school-children, and altar flowers, a harmonious
-and suggestive one if not pleasant. What an ancient air it was, she
-thought; breathed and re-breathed by slow generations of Stoke
-Revellers during their sleepy devotions! The very light that entered
-through the dim stained glass seemed old and dusty, it had seen so
-much during so many hundred years, seen so much, and found out so many
-secrets! Soon the clashing of the bells ceased and upon the still
-reverberating silence there broke the small, snoring noises of a
-rather ineffectual organ, while the amiable curate, Rev. Tobias Finch,
-made his appearance, and the service began.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy had entered the pew first, naturally; Miss Smeardon sat
-next, then Robinetta. Lavendar occupied the pew in front, alone, and
-through her half-closed eyelids Robinetta could see the line of his
-lean cheek and bony temple. He had not wished to sit there at all and
-he was so unresigned as to be badly in need of the soothing influences
-of Morning Prayer. Robinetta was beginning to wonder dreamily what
-manner of man this really was, behind his plain face and non-committal
-manner, when the muffled slam of a door behind, startled her, followed
-as it was by a quick step upon the matted aisle. Then without further
-warning, a big, broad-shouldered boy, in the uniform of a British
-midshipman, thrust himself into the pew beside her, hot and breathless
-after running hard. Mrs. Loring guessed at once that this must be
-Carnaby de Tracy, the young hopeful and heir of Stoke Revel of whom
-Mr. Lavendar had so often spoken, but the startling and unconventional
-nature of his appearance was not at all what one expected in a member
-of his family. Robinette stole more than one look at him as the
-offertory went round; a robust boy with a square chin, a fair face
-burnt red by the sun, a rollicking eye and an impudent nose; not
-handsome certainly, indeed quite plain, but he looked honest and
-strong and clean, and Robinette's frolicsome youth was drawn to his,
-all ready for fun. Carnaby hitched about a good deal, dropped his
-hymn-book, moved the hassock, took out his handkerchief, and on
-discovering a huge hole, turned crimson.
-
-Service over, the congregation shuffled out into the sunshine, and
-Mrs. de Tracy, after a characteristically cool and disapproving
-recognition of her grandson, became occupied with villagers.
-Lavendar made known young Carnaby to Mrs. David Loring, but the
-midshipman's light grey eyes had discovered the pretty face without
-any assistance.
-
-"This lady is your American cousin, Carnaby," said Mark. "Did you know
-you had one?"
-
-"I don't think I did," answered the boy, "but it's never too late to
-mend!" He attempted a bow of finished grown-upness, failed somewhat,
-and melted at once into an engaging boyishness, under which his
-frank admiration of his new-found relative was not to be hidden. "I
-say, are you stopping at Stoke Revel?" he asked, as though the news
-were too good to be true. "Jolly! Hullo--" he broke off with
-animation as the cassocked figure of the Rev. Tobias Finch fluttered
-out from the porch--"here's old Toby! Watch Miss Smeardon now! She
-expects to catch him, you know, but he says he's going to be a
-celly--celly-what-d'you-call-'em?"
-
-"Celibate?" suggested Lavendar, with laughing eyes.
-
-"The very word, thank you!" said Carnaby. "Yes: a celibate. Not so
-easily nicked, good old Toby--you bet!"
-
-"Do the clergymen over here always dress like that?" inquired
-Robinetta, trying to suppress a tendency to laugh at his slang.
-
-"Cassock?" said Carnaby. "Toby wouldn't be seen without it. High, you
-know! Bicycles in it. Fact! Goes to bed in it, I believe."
-
-"Carnaby, Carnaby! Come away!" said Lavendar. "Restrain these flights
-of imagination! Don't you see how they shock Mrs. Loring?"
-
-Before the Manor was reached, Robinetta and Carnaby had sworn eternal
-friendship deeper than any cousinship, they both declared. They met
-upon a sort of platform of Stoke Revel, predestined to sympathy upon
-all its salient characteristics; two naughty children on a holiday.
-
-"Do you get enough to eat here?" asked Carnaby in a hollow whisper, in
-the drawing-room before lunch.
-
-"Of course I have enough, Middy," answered Robinetta with unconscious
-reservation. She had rejected "Carnaby" at once as a name quite
-impossible: he was "Middy" to her almost from the first moment of
-their acquaintance.
-
-"Enough?" he ejaculated, "_I_ don't! I'd never be fed if it weren't
-for old Bates and Mrs. Smith and Cooky." Bates was the butler, Mrs.
-Smith the housekeeper, and Cooky her satellite. "Nobody gets enough to
-eat in this house!" added Carnaby darkly, "except the dog."
-
-At the lunch-table, the antagonism natural between a hot-blooded
-impetuous boy and a grandmother such as Mrs. de Tracy became rather
-painfully apparent. He had already been hauled over the coals for his
-arrival on Sunday and his indecorous appearance in church after
-service had begun.
-
-"It does not appear to me that you are at all in need of sick-leave,"
-said Mrs. de Tracy suspiciously.
-
-Carnaby, sensitive for all his robustness, flushed hotly, and then
-became impertinent. "My pulse is twenty beats too quick still, after
-quinsy. If you don't believe the doctor, ma'am, it's not my fault."
-
-"Carnaby has committed indiscretions in the way of growing since I
-last saw him," Lavendar broke in hastily. "At sixteen one may easily
-outgrow one's strength!"
-
-"Indeed!" said Mrs. de Tracy, frigidly. The situation was saved by the
-behaviour of the lap-dog, which suddenly burst into a passion of
-barking and convulsive struggling in Miss Smeardon's arms. His enemy
-had come, and Carnaby had fifty ways of exasperating his grandmother's
-favourite, secrets between him and the bewildered dog. Rupert was a
-Prince Charles of pedigree as unquestioned as his mistress's and an
-appearance dating back to Vandyke, but Carnaby always addressed him as
-"Lord Roberts," for reasons of his own. It annoyed his grandmother and
-it infuriated the dog, who took it for a deadly insult.
-
-"Lord Roberts! Bobs, old man, hi! hi!" Carnaby had but to say the
-words to make the little dog convulsive. He said them now, and the
-results seemed likely to be fatal to a dropsical animal so soon after
-a full meal.
-
-"You'll kill him!" whispered Robinette as they left the dining room.
-
-"I mean to!" was the calm reply. "I'd like to wring old Smeardon's
-neck too!" but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling
-eyes, belied these truculent words. In spite of infinite powers of
-mischief, there was not an ounce of vindictiveness in Carnaby de
-Tracy, though there might be other qualities difficult to deal with.
-
-"There's a man to be made there--or to be marred!" said Robinette to
-herself.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-POINTS OF VIEW
-
-
-Evenings at Stoke Revel were of a dullness all too deep to be sounded
-and too closely hedged in by tradition and observance to be evaded or
-shortened by the boldest visitor. Lavendar and the boy would have
-prolonged their respite in the smoking room had they dared, but in
-these later days Lavendar found he wished to be below on guard. The
-thought of Robinette alone between the two women downstairs made him
-uneasy. It was as though some bird of bright plumage had strayed into
-a barnyard to be pecked at by hens. Not but what he realised that this
-particular bird had a spirit of her own, and plenty of courage, but no
-man with even a prospective interest in a pretty woman, likes to think
-of the object of his admiration as thoroughly well able to look after
-herself. She must needs have a protector, and the heaven-sent one is
-himself.
-
-He had to take up arms in her defense on this, the first night of his
-arrival. Mrs. Loring had gone up to her room for some photographs of
-her house in America, and as she flitted through the door her scarf
-caught on the knob, and he had been obliged to extricate it. He had
-known her exactly four hours, and although he was unconscious of it,
-his heart was being pulled along the passage and up the stairway at
-the tail-end of that wisp of chiffon, while he listened to her
-retreating footsteps. Closing the door he came back to Mrs. de Tracy's
-side.
-
-"Her dress is indecorous for a widow," said that lady severely.
-
-"Oh, I don't see that," replied Lavendar. "She is in reality only a
-girl, and her widowhood has already lasted two years, you say."
-
-"Once a widow always a widow," returned Mrs. de Tracy sententiously,
-with a self-respecting glance at her own cap and the half-dozen dull
-jet ornaments she affected. Lavendar laughed outright, but she rather
-liked his laughter: it made her think herself witty. Once he had told
-her she was "delicious," and she had never forgotten it.
-
-"That's going pretty far, my dear lady," he replied. "Not all women
-are so faithful to a memory as you. I understand Americans don't wear
-weeds, and to me her blue cape is a delightful note in the landscape.
-Her dresses are conventional and proper, and I fancy she cannot
-express herself without a bit of colour."
-
-"The object of clothing, Mark, is to cover and to protect yourself,
-not to express yourself," said Mrs. de Tracy bitingly.
-
-"The thought of wearing anything bright always makes me shrink,"
-remarked Miss Smeardon, who had never apparently observed the tip of
-her own nose, "but some persons are less sensitive on these points
-than others."
-
-Mrs. de Tracy bowed an approving assent to this. "A widow's only
-concern should be to refrain from attracting notice," she said, as
-though quoting from a private book of proverbial philosophy soon to be
-published.
-
-"Then Mrs. Loring might as well have burned herself on her husband's
-funeral pyre, Hindoo fashion!" argued Lavendar. "A woman's life hasn't
-ended at two and twenty. It's hardly begun, and I fear the lady in
-question will arouse attention whatever she wears."
-
-"Would she be called attractive?" asked Mrs. de Tracy with surprise.
-
-"Oh, yes, without a doubt!"
-
-"In gentlemen's eyes, I suppose you mean?" said Miss Smeardon.
-
-"Yes, in gentlemen's eyes," answered Lavendar, firmly. "Those of women
-are apparently furnished with different lenses. But here comes the
-fair object of our discussion, so we must decide it later on."
-
-The question of ancestors, a favourite one at Stoke Revel, came up in
-the course of the next evening's conversation, and Lavendar found
-Robinette a trifle flushed but smiling under a double fire of
-questions from Mrs. de Tracy and her companion. Mrs. de Tracy was in
-her usual chair, knitting; Miss Smeardon sat by the table with a piece
-of fancy-work; Robinette had pulled a foot-stool to the hearthrug and
-sat as near the flames as she conveniently could. She shielded her
-face with the last copy of _Punch_, and let her shoulders bask in the
-warmth of the fire, which made flickering shadows on her creamy neck.
-Her white skirts swept softly round her feet, and her favourite
-turquoise scarf made a note of colour in her lap. She was one of those
-women who, without positive beauty, always make pictures of
-themselves.
-
-Lavendar analyzed her looks as he joined the circle, pretending to
-read. "She isn't posing," he thought, "but she ought to be painted.
-She ought always to be painted, each time one sees her, for
-everything about her suggests a portrait. That blue ribbon in her hair
-is fairly distracting! What the dickens is the reason one wants to
-look at her all the time! I've seen far handsomer women!"
-
-"Do you use Burke and Debrett in your country, Mrs. Loring?" Miss
-Smeardon was enquiring politely, as she laid down one red volume after
-the other, having ascertained the complete family tree of a lady who
-had called that afternoon.
-
-Robinette smiled. "I'm afraid we've nothing but telephone or business
-directories, social registers, and 'Who's Who,' in America," she
-said.
-
-"You are not interested in questions of genealogy, I suppose?" asked
-Mrs. de Tracy pityingly.
-
-"I can hardly say that. But I think perhaps that we are more occupied
-with the future than with the past."
-
-"That is natural," assented the lady of the Manor, "since you have so
-much more of it, haven't you? But the mixture of races in your
-country," she continued condescendingly, "must have made you
-indifferent to purity of strain."
-
-"I hope we are not wholly indifferent," said Robinette, as though she
-were stopping to consider. "I think every serious-minded person must
-be proud to inherit fine qualities and to pass them on. Surely it
-isn't enough to give _old_ blood to the next generation--it must be
-_good_ blood. Yes! the right stock certainly means something to an
-American."
-
-"But if you've nothing that answers to Burke and Debrett, I don't see
-how you can find out anybody's pedigree," objected Miss Smeardon. Then
-with an air of innocent curiosity and a glance supposed to be arch,
-"Are the Red Indians, the Negroes, and the Chinese in your so-called
-directories?"
-
-"As many of them as are in business, or have won their way to any
-position among men no doubt are there, I suppose," answered Robinette
-straightforwardly. "I think we just guess at people's ancestry by the
-way they look, act, and speak," she continued musingly. "You can
-'guess' quite well if you are clever at it. No Indians or Chinese ever
-dine with me, Miss Smeardon, though I'd rather like a peaceful Indian
-at dinner for a change; but I expect he'd find me very dull and
-uneventful!"
-
-"Dull!--that's a word I very often hear on American lips," broke in
-Lavendar as he looked over the top of Henry Newbolt's poems. "I
-believe being dull is thought a criminal offence in your country. Now,
-isn't there some danger involved in this fear of dullness?"
-
-"I shouldn't wonder," Robinette answered thoughtfully, looking into
-the fire. "Yes; I dare say there is, but I'm afraid there are social
-and mental dangers involved in _not_ being afraid of it, too!" Her
-mischievous eyes swept the room, with Mrs. de Tracy's solemn figure
-and Miss Smeardon's for its bright ornaments. "The moment a person or
-a nation allows itself to be too dull, it ceases to be quite alive,
-doesn't it? But as to us Americans, Mr. Lavendar, bear with us for a
-few years, we are so ridiculously young! It is our growing time, and
-what you want in a young plant is growth, isn't it?"
-
-"Y-yes," Lavendar replied: then with a twinkle in his blue eyes he
-added: "Only somehow we don't like to hear a plant grow! It should
-manage to perform the operation quite silently, showing not processes
-but results. That's a counsel of perfection, perhaps, but don't slay
-me for plain-speaking, Mrs. Loring!"
-
-Robinette laughed. "I'll never slay you for saying anything so wise
-and true as that!" she said, and Lavendar, flushing under her praise,
-was charmed with her good humour.
-
-"America's a very large country, is it not?" enquired Miss Smeardon
-with her usual brilliancy. "What is its area?"
-
-"Bigger than England, but not as big as the British Empire!" suggested
-Carnaby, feeling the conversation was drifting into his ken.
-
-"It's just the size of the moon, I've heard!" said Robinette
-teasingly. "Does that throw any light on the question?"
-
-"Moonlight!" laughed Carnaby, much pleased with his own wit. "Ha! ha!
-That's the first joke I've made this holidays. _Moonlight!_ Jolly
-good!"
-
-"If you'd take a joke a little more in your stride, my son," said
-Lavendar, "we should be more impressed by your mental sparkles."
-
-"Straighten the sofa-cushions, Carnaby," said his grandmother, "and
-don't lounge. I missed the point of your so-called joke entirely. As
-to the size of a country or anything else, I have never understood
-that it affected its quality. In fruit or vegetables, for instance, it
-generally means coarseness and indifferent flavour." Miss Smeardon
-beamed at this palpable hit, but Mrs. Loring deprived the situation of
-its point by backing up Mrs. de Tracy heartily. She had no opinion of
-mere size, either, she declared.
-
-"You don't stand up for your country half enough," objected Carnaby to
-his cousin. ("Why don't you give the old cat beans?" was his
-supplement, _sotto voce_.)
-
-"Just attack some of my pet theories and convictions, Middy dear, if
-you wish to see me in a rage," said Robinette lightly, "but my motto
-will never be 'My country right or wrong.'"
-
-"Nor mine," agreed Lavendar. "I'm heartily with you there."
-
-"It's a great venture we're trying in America. I wish every one would
-try to look at it in that light," said Robinette with a slight flush
-of earnestness.
-
-"What do you mean by a venture?" asked Mrs. de Tracy.
-
-"The experiment we're making in democracy," answered Robinette. "It's
-fallen to us to try it, for of course it simply had to be tried. It
-is thrillingly interesting, whatever it may turn out, and I wish I
-might live to see the end of it. We are creating a race, Aunt de
-Tracy; think of that!"
-
-"It's as difficult for nations as for individuals to hit the happy
-medium," said Lavendar, stirring the fire. "Enterprise carried too far
-becomes vulgar hustling, while stability and conservatism often pass
-the coveted point of repose and degenerate into torpor."
-
-"This part of England seems to me singularly free from faults,"
-interposed Mrs. de Tracy in didactic tones. "We have a wonderful
-climate; more sunshine than in any part of the island, I believe. Our
-local society is singularly free from scandal. The clergy, if not
-quite as eloquent or profound as in London (and in my opinion it is
-the better for being neither) is strictly conscientious. We have no
-burglars or locusts or gnats or even midges, as I'm told they
-unfortunately have in Scotland, and our dinner-parties, though quiet
-and dignified, are never dull.... What is the matter, Robinetta?"
-
-"A sudden catch in my throat," said Robinette, struggling with some
-sort of vocal difficulty and avoiding Lavendar's eye. "Thank you," as
-he offered her a glass of water from the punctual and strictly
-temperate evening tray. "Don't look at me," she added under her
-voice.
-
-"Not for a million of money!" he whispered. Then he said aloud: "If I
-ever stand for Parliament, Mrs. Loring, I should like you to help me
-with my constituency!"
-
-The unruffled temper and sweet reasonableness of Robinette's answers
-to questions by no means always devoid of malice, had struck the young
-man very much, as he listened.
-
-"She is good!" he thought to himself. "Good and sweet and generous.
-Her loveliness is not only in her face; it is in her heart." And some
-favorite lines began to run in his head that night, with new
-conviction:--
-
- He that loves a rosy cheek,
- Or a coral lip admires,
- Or from star-like eyes doth seek
- Fuel to maintain his fires,--
- As old Time makes these decay,
- So his flames will waste away.
-
- But a smooth and steadfast mind,
- Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
- Hearts with equal love combined--
-
-but here Lavendar broke off with a laugh.
-
-"It's not come to that yet!" he thought. "I wonder if it ever will?"
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-A NEW KINSMAN
-
-
-Young Mrs. Loring was making her way slowly at Stoke Revel Manor, and
-Mrs. de Tracy, though never affectionate, treated her with a little
-less indifference as the days went on. "The Admiral's niece is a
-lady," she admitted to herself privately; "not perhaps the highest
-type of English lady; that, considering her mixed ancestry and
-American education, would be too much to expect; but in the broad,
-general meaning of the word, unmistakably a lady!"
-
-Mrs. Benson, though not melting outwardly as yet, held more lenient
-views still with regard to the American guest. Bates, the butler, was
-elderly, and severely Church of England; his knowledge of widows was
-confined to the type ably represented by his mistress and he regarded
-young Mrs. Loring as inclined to be "flighty." The footman, who was
-entirely under the butler's thumb in mundane matters, had fallen into
-the habit of sharing his opinions, and while agreeing in the general
-feeling of flightiness, declared boldly that the lady in question gave
-a certain "style" to the dinner-table that it had lacked before her
-advent.
-
-For a helpless victim, however, a slave bound in fetters of steel, one
-would have to know Cummins, the under housemaid, who lighted Mrs.
-Loring's fire night and morning. She was young, shy, country bred, and
-new to service. When Mrs. Benson sent her to the guest's room at eight
-o'clock on the morning after her arrival she stopped outside the door
-in a panic of fear.
-
-"Come in!" called a cheerful voice. "Come in!"
-
-Cummins entered, bearing her box with brush and cloth and kindlings.
-To her further embarrassment Mrs. Loring was sitting up in bed with an
-ermine coat on, over which her bright hair fell in picturesque
-disorder. She had brought the coat for theatre and opera, but as these
-attractions were lacking at Stoke Revel and as life there was, to her,
-one prolonged Polar expedition, with dashes farthest north morning and
-evening, she had diverted it to practical uses.
-
-"Make me a quick fire please, a big fire, a hot fire," she begged, "or
-I shall be late for breakfast; I never can step into that tin tub till
-the ice is melted."
-
-"There's no ice in it, ma'am," expostulated Cummins gently, with the
-voice of a wood dove.
-
-"You can't see it because you're English," said the strange lady, "but
-I can see it and feel it. Oh, you make _such_ a good fire! What is
-your name, please?"
-
-"Cummins, ma'am."
-
-"There's another Cummins downstairs, but she is tall and large. You
-shall be 'Little Cummins.'"
-
-Now every morning the shy maid palpitated outside the bedroom door,
-having given her modest knock; palpitated for fear it should be all a
-dream. But no, it was not! there would be a clear-voiced "Come in!"
-and then, as she entered; "Good morning, Little Cummins. I've been
-longing for you since daybreak!" A trifle later on it was, "Good
-Little Cummins bearing coals of comfort! Kind Little Cummins," and
-other strange and wonderful terms of praise, until Little Cummins felt
-herself consumed by a passion to which Mrs. de Tracy's coals became as
-less than naught unless they could be heaped on the altar of the
-beloved.
-
-So life went on at Stoke Revel, outwardly even and often dull, while
-in reality many subtle changes were taking place below the surface;
-changes slight in themselves but not without meaning.
-
-Robinette ran up to her room directly after breakfast one morning and
-pinned on her hat as she came downstairs. Mark Lavendar had gone to
-London for a few days, but even the dullness of breakfast-table
-conversation had not robbed her of her joy in the early sunshine, made
-more cheery by the prospect of a walk with Carnaby, with whom she was
-now fast friends.
-
-Carnaby looked at her beamingly as they stood together on the steps.
-"You're the best turned-out woman of my acquaintance," he said
-approvingly, with a laughable struggle for the tone of a middle-aged
-man of the world.
-
-"How many ladies of fashion do you know, my child?" enquired
-Robinetta, pulling on her gloves.
-
-"I see a lot of 'em off and on," Carnaby answered somewhat huffily,
-"and they don't call me a child either!"
-
-"Don't they? Then that's because they're timid and don't dare address
-a future Admiral as Infant-in-Arms! Come on, Middy dear, let's walk."
-
-Robinette wore a white serge dress and jacket, and her hat was a rough
-straw turned up saucily in two places with black owls' heads. Mrs.
-Benson and Little Cummins had looked at it curiously while Robinette
-was at breakfast.
-
-"'Tis black underneath and white on top, Mrs. Benson. 'Ow can that be?
-It looks as if one 'at 'ad been clapped on another!"
-
-"That's what it is, Cummins. It's a double hat; but they'll do
-anything in America. It's a double hat with two black owls' heads, and
-I'll wager they charged double price for it!"
-
-"She's a lovely beauty in anythink and everythink she wears," said
-Little Cummins loyally.
-
-"May I call you 'Cousin Robin'?" Carnaby asked as they walked along.
-"Robinette is such a long name."
-
-"Cousin Robin is very nice, I think," she answered. "As a matter
-of fact I ought to be your Aunt Robin; it would be much more
-appropriate."
-
-"Aunt be blowed!" ejaculated Carnaby.
-
-"You're very fond of making yourself out old, but it's no go! When I
-first heard you were a widow I thought you would be grandmother's
-age,--I say--do you think you will marry another time, Cousin Robin?"
-
-"That's a very leading question for a gentleman to put to a lady! Were
-you intending to ask me to wait for you, Middy dear?" asked Robinette,
-putting her arm in the boy's laughingly, quite unconscious of his
-mood.
-
-"I'd wait quick enough if you'd let me! I'd wait a lifetime! There
-never was anybody like you in the world!"
-
-The words were said half under the boy's breath and the emotion in his
-tone was a complete and disagreeable surprise. Here was something that
-must be nipped in the bud, instantly and courageously. Robinette
-dropped Carnaby's arm and said: "We'll talk that over at once, Middy
-dear, but first you shall race me to the top of the twisting path,
-down past the tulip beds, to the seat under the big ash tree.--Come
-on!"
-
-The two reached the tree in a moment, Carnaby sufficiently in advance
-to preserve his self-respect and with a colour heightened by something
-other than the exercise of running.
-
-"Sit down, first cousin once removed!" said Robinette. "Do you know
-the story of Sydney Smith, who wrote apologizing to somebody for not
-being able to come to dinner? 'The house is full of cousins,' he said;
-'would they were "once removed"!'"
-
-"It's no good telling me literary anecdotes!--You're not treating me
-fairly," said Carnaby sulkily.
-
-"I'm treating you exactly as you should be treated, Infant-in-Arms,"
-Robinette answered firmly. "Give me your two paws, and look me
-straight in the eye."
-
-Carnaby was no coward. His steel-grey eyes blazed as he met his
-cousin's look. "Carnaby dear, do you know what you are to me? You are
-my kinsman; my only male relation. I'm so fond of you already, don't
-spoil it! Think what you can be to me if you will. I am all alone in
-the world and when you grow a little older how I should like to depend
-upon you! I need affection; so do you, dear boy; can't I see how you
-are just starving for it? There is no reason in the world why we
-shouldn't be fond of each other! Oh! how grateful I should be to think
-of a strong young middy growing up to advise me and take me about! It
-was that kind of care and thought of me that was in your mind just
-now!"
-
-"You'll be marrying somebody one of these days," blurted Carnaby,
-wholly moved, but only half convinced. "Then you'll forget all about
-your 'kinsman.'"
-
-"I have no intention in that direction," said Robinette, "but if I
-change my mind I'll consult you first; how will that do?"
-
-"It wouldn't do any good," sighed the boy, "so I'd rather you
-wouldn't! You'd have your own way spite of everything a fellow could
-say against it!"
-
-There was a moment of embarrassment; then the silence was promptly
-broken by Robinette.
-
-"Well, Middy dear, are we the best of friends?" she asked, rising from
-the bench and putting out her hand.
-
-The lad took it and said all in a glow of chivalry, "You're the
-dearest, the best, and the prettiest cousin in the world! You don't
-mind my thinking you're the prettiest?"
-
-"Mind it? I delight in it! I shall come to your ship and pour out tea
-for you in my most fetching frock. Your friends will say: 'Who is that
-particularly agreeable lady, Carnaby?' And you, with swelling chest,
-will respond, 'That's my American cousin, Mrs. Loring. She's a nice
-creature; I'm glad you like her!'"
-
-Robinette's imitation of Carnaby's possible pomposity was so amusing
-and so clever that it drew a laugh from the boy in spite of himself.
-
-"Just let anyone try to call you a 'creature'!" he exclaimed. "He'd
-have me to reckon with! Oh! I am so tired of being a boy! The inside
-of me is all grown up and everybody keeps on looking at the outside
-and thinking I'm just the same as I always was!"
-
-"Dear old Middy, you're quite old enough to be my protector and that
-is what you shall be! Now shall we go in? I want you to stand near by
-while I ask your grandmother a favor."
-
-"She won't do it if she can help it," was Carnaby's succinct reply.
-
-"Oh, I am not sure! Where shall we find her,--in the library?"
-
-"Yes; come along! Get up your circulation; you'll need it!"
-
-"Aunt de Tracy, there is something at Stoke Revel I am very anxious to
-have if you will give it to me," said Robinette, as she came into the
-library a few minutes later.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy looked up from her knitting solemnly. "If it belongs to
-me, I shall no doubt be willing, as I know you would not ask for
-anything out of the common; but I own little here; nearly all is
-Carnaby's."
-
-"This was my mother's," said Robinette. "It is a picture hanging in
-the smoking room; one that was a great favorite of hers, called
-'Robinetta.' Her drawing-master found an Italian artist in London who
-went to the National Gallery and made a copy of the Sir Joshua
-picture, and I was named after it."
-
-"I wish your mother could have been a little less romantic," sighed
-Mrs. de Tracy. "There were such fine old family names she might have
-used: Marcia and Elspeth, and Rosamond and Winifred!"
-
-"I am sorry, Aunt de Tracy. If I had been consulted I believe I should
-have agreed with you. Perhaps when my mother was in America the family
-ties were not drawn as tightly as in the former years?"
-
-"If it was so, it was only natural," said the old lady. "However, if
-you ask Carnaby, and if the picture has no great value, I am sure he
-will wish you to have it, especially if you know it to have been your
-mother's property." Here Carnaby sauntered into the room. "That's all
-right, grandmother," he said, "I heard what you were saying; only I
-wish it was a real Sir Joshua we were giving Cousin Robin instead of a
-copy!"
-
-"Thank you, Carnaby dear, and thank you, too, Aunt de Tracy. You can't
-think how much it is to me to have this; it is a precious link between
-mother's girlhood, and mother, and me." So saying, she dropped a timid
-kiss upon Mrs. de Tracy's iron-grey hair, and left the room.
-
-"If she could live in England long enough to get over that excessive
-freedom of manner, your cousin would be quite a pleasing person, but I
-am afraid it goes too deep to be cured," Mrs. de Tracy remarked as she
-smoothed the hairs that might have been ruffled by Robinette's kiss.
-
-Carnaby made no reply. He was looking out into the garden and feeling
-half a boy, half a man, but wholly, though not very contentedly, a
-kinsman.
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-THE SANDS AT WESTON
-
-
-"Thursday morning? Is it possible that this is Thursday morning? And I
-must run up to London on Saturday," said Lavendar to himself as he
-finished dressing by the open window. He looked up the day of the week
-in his calendar first, in order to make quite sure of the fact. Yes,
-there was no doubt at all that it was Thursday. His sense of time must
-have suffered some strange confusion; in one way it seemed only an
-hour ago that he had arrived from the clangour and darkness of London
-to the silence of the country, the cuckoos calling across the river
-between the wooded hills, and the April sunshine on the orchard trees;
-in another, years might have passed since the moment when he first saw
-Robinette Loring sitting under Mrs. Prettyman's plum tree.
-
-"Eight days have we spent together in this house, and yet since that
-time when we first crossed in the boat, I've never been more than half
-an hour alone with her," he thought. "There are only three other
-people in the house after all, but they seem to have the power of
-multiplying themselves like the loaves and fishes (only when they're
-not wanted) so that we're eternally in a crowd. That boy particularly!
-I like Carnaby, if he could get it into his thick head that his
-presence isn't always necessary; it must bother Mrs. Loring too; he's
-quite off his head about her if she only knew it. However, it's my
-last day very likely, and if I have to outwit Machiavelli I'll manage
-it somehow! Surely one lame old woman, and a torpid machine for
-knitting and writing notes like Miss Smeardon, can't want to be out of
-doors all day. Hang that boy, though! He'll come anywhere." Here he
-stopped and sat down suddenly at the dressing-table, covering his face
-with his hands in comic despair. "Mrs. Loring can't like it! She must
-be doing it on purpose, avoiding being alone with me because she sees
-I admire her," he sighed. "After all why should I ever suppose that I
-interest her as much as she does me?"
-
-No one could have told from Lavendar's face, when he appeared fresh
-and smiling at the breakfast table half an hour later, that he was
-hatching any deep-laid schemes.
-
-Robinette entered the dining room five minutes late, as usual, pretty
-as a pink, breathless with hurrying. She wore a white dress again,
-with one rose stuck at her waistband, "A little tribute from the
-gardener," she said, as she noticed Lavendar glance at it. She went
-rapidly around the table shaking hands, and gave Carnaby's red cheeks
-a pinch in passing that made Lavendar long to tweak the boy's ear.
-
-"Good morning, all!" she said cheerily, "and how is my first cousin
-once removed? Is he going to Weston with me this morning to buy
-hairpins?"
-
-"He is!" Carnaby answered joyfully, between mouthfuls of bacon and
-eggs. "He has been out of hairpins for a week."
-
-"Does he need tapes and buttons also?" asked Robinette, taking the
-piece of muffin from his hand and buttering it for herself; an act
-highly disapproved of by Mrs. de Tracy, who hurriedly requested Bates
-to pass the bread.
-
-"He needs everything you need," Carnaby said with heightened colour.
-
-"My hair is giving me a good deal of trouble, lately," remarked
-Lavendar, passing his hand over a thickly thatched head.
-
-"I have an excellent American tonic that I will give you after
-breakfast," said Robinette roguishly. "You need to apply it with a
-brush at ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock, sitting in the sun
-continuously between those hours so that the scalp may be well
-invigorated. Carnaby, will you buy me butter scotch and lemonade and
-oranges in Weston?"
-
-"I will, if Grandmother'll increase my allowance," said Carnaby
-malevolently, "for I need every penny I've got in hand for the
-hairpins."
-
-"I hope you are not hungry, Robinetta," said Mrs. de Tracy, "that you
-have to buy food in Weston."
-
-"No, indeed," said Robinette, "I was only longing to test Carnaby's
-generosity and educate him in buying trifles for pretty ladies."
-
-"He can probably be relied on to educate himself in that line when the
-time comes," Mrs. de Tracy remarked; "and now if you have all finished
-talking about hair, I will take up my breakfast again."
-
-"Oh, Aunt de Tracy, I am so sorry if it wasn't a nice subject, but I
-never thought. Anyway I only talked about hairpins; it was Mr.
-Lavendar who introduced hair into the conversation; wasn't it, Middy
-dear?"
-
-Lavendar thought he could have annihilated them both for their open
-comradeship, their obvious delight in each other's society. Was he to
-be put on the shelf like a dry old bachelor? Not he! He would
-circumvent them in some way or another, although the rôle of
-gooseberry was new to him.
-
-The two young people set off in high spirits, and Mrs. de Tracy and
-Miss Smeardon watched them as they walked down the avenue on their way
-to the station, their clasped hands swinging in a merry rhythm as they
-hummed a bit of the last popular song.
-
-"I hope Robinetta will not Americanize Carnaby," said Mrs. de Tracy.
-"He seems so foolishly elated, so feverishly gay all at once. Her
-manner is too informal; Carnaby requires constant repression."
-
-"Perhaps his temperature has not returned to normal since his attack
-of quinsy," Miss Smeardon observed, reassuringly.
-
-Meanwhile Lavendar sat in Admiral de Tracy's old smoking room for half
-an hour writing letters. Every time that he glanced up from his work,
-and he did so pretty often, his eyes fell on a picture that hung upon
-the opposite wall. It was the copy of Sir Joshua's "Robinetta" made
-long ago and just presented to its namesake.
-
-In the portrait the girl's hair was a still brighter gold; yet
-certainly there was a likeness somewhere about it, he thought; partly
-in the expression, partly in the broad low forehead, and the eyes that
-looked as if they were seeing fairies.
-
-Of course to his mind Mrs. Loring was a hundred times more lovely than
-Sir Joshua's famous girl with a robin. He felt very ill-used because
-Robinette and Carnaby had deliberately gone for an excursion without
-him and had left him toiling over business papers when they had gone
-off to enjoy themselves.
-
-How bright it was out there in the sunshine, to be sure! And why
-should it be Carnaby, not he, who was by this time walking along the
-sea front of Weston, and watching the breeze flutter Robinette's scarf
-and bring a brighter colour to her lips?
-
-There! the last words were written, and taking up his bunch of
-letters, watch in hand, he sought Mrs. de Tracy, and explained that he
-would bicycle to Weston and catch the London post himself.
-
-"I'll send William"--she began; but Lavendar hastily assured her that
-he should enjoy the ride, and hurried off in triumph. Miss Smeardon
-smiled an acid smile as she watched him go. "He has forgotten all
-about poor Miss Meredith, I suppose," she murmured. "Yet it was not so
-long ago that they were supposed to be all in all to each other!"
-
-"It was a foolish engagement, Miss Smeardon," said Mrs. de Tracy in a
-cold voice. "I never thought the girl was suited to Mark, and I
-understand that old Mr. Lavendar was relieved when the whole thing
-came to an end."
-
-"Quite so; certainly; no doubt Miss Meredith would never have made him
-happy," said Miss Smeardon at once, "though it is always more
-agreeable when the lady discovers the fact first. In this case she
-confessed openly that Mr. Lavendar broke her heart with his
-indifference."
-
-"She was an ill-bred young woman," said Mrs. de Tracy, as if the
-subject were now closed. "However, I hope that the son of my family
-solicitor would think it only proper to pay a certain amount of
-attention to the Admiral's niece, were she ever so obnoxious to him."
-
-Miss Smeardon made no audible reply, but her thoughts were to the
-effect that never was an obnoxious duty performed by any man with a
-better grace.
-
-The sea front at Weston was the most prosaic scene in the world, a
-long esplanade with an asphalt path running its full length, and ugly
-jerrybuilt houses glaring out upon it, a gimcrack pier with a
-gingerbread sort of band-stand and glass house at the end;--all that
-could have been done to ruin nature had been determinedly done there.
-But you cannot ruin a spring day, nor youth, nor the colour of the
-sea. Along the level shore, the placid waves swept and broke, and then
-gathered up their white skirts, and retreated to return with the same
-musical laugh. Children and dogs played about on the wet sands. The
-wind blew freshly and the sea stretched all one pure blue, till it met
-on the horizon with the bluer skies.
-
-Weston seemed to Lavendar a very fresh and delightful spot at
-that moment, although had he been in a different mood its sordidness
-only would have struck him. Yes, there they were in the distance;
-he knew Robinette's white dress and the figure of the boy beside
-her. Hang that boy! Were they really going to buy hairpins? If
-so, then a hair-dresser's he must find. Lavendar turned up the
-little street that led from the sea-front, scanning all the
-signs--Boots--Dairies--Vegetable shops--Heavens! were there
-nothing but vegetable and boot shops in Weston? Boots again. At last
-a Hairdresser; Lavendar stood in the doorway until he made sure
-that Robinette and the middy had turned in that direction, and
-then he boldly entered the shop.
-
-To his horror he found himself confronted by a smiling young woman,
-whose own very marvellous erection of hair made him think she must be
-used as an advertisement for the goods she supplied.
-
-In another moment Robinette and the boy would be upon him, and he must
-be found deep in fictitious business. He cast one agonized glance at
-the mysteries of the toilet that surrounded him on every side, then
-clearing his throat, he said modestly but firmly, that he wanted to
-buy a pair of curling tongs for a lady.
-
-"These are the thing if you wish a Marcel wave," was the reply, "but
-just for an ordinary crimp we sell a good many of the plain ones."
-
-"Yes, thank you. They will do; the lady--my sister, also wished--"
-
-"A little 'addition,' was it, sir?" she moved smilingly to a drawer.
-"A few pin curls are very easily adjusted, or would our guinea
-switch--"
-
-At this moment the boy and Robinette entered the shop. Lavendar was
-paying for the curling tongs, and not a muscle of his face relaxed.
-"Oh, here you are. I have just finished my business," he said, turning
-round, "I thought we might encounter one another somewhere!"
-
-Robinette and Carnaby exchanged knowing glances of which Lavendar was
-perfectly conscious, but he stood by while Mrs. Loring bought her
-hairpins, and Carnaby endeavoured to persuade her to invest in a few
-"pin curls." "Not an hour before it is absolutely necessary, Middy
-dear," she said; "then I shall bear it as bravely as I can. Come now,
-carry the hairpins for me, and let me take Mr. Lavendar out of this
-shop, or he will be tempted to buy more than he needs."
-
-"Oh, no!" Lavendar remarked pointedly. "I have what I came for!"
-
-"Don't forget your parcel," Carnaby exclaimed, darting after Lavendar
-as they went into the street. "You've left it on the counter."
-
-"How careless!" said Mark. "It was for my sister."
-
-"You never told me you had a sister," said Robinette, as they walked
-together, Lavendar wheeling his bicycle and Carnaby sulking behind
-them.
-
-"I am blessed with two; one married now; the other, my sister Amy,
-lives at home."
-
-"Well, you see, in spite of all our questions the first time we met,
-we really know very little about each other," she went on lightly. "It
-takes such a long time to get thoroughly acquainted in this country.
-Do they ever count you a friend if you do not know all their aunts and
-second cousins?"
-
-Lavendar laughed. "Willingly would I introduce you to my aunts and my
-uttermost cousins, and lay the map of my life before you, uneventful
-as it has been, if that would further our acquaintance."
-
-Even as he spoke a hateful memory darted into his thoughts, and he
-reddened to his temples, until Mrs. Loring wondered if she had said
-anything to annoy him.
-
-Some fortunate accident at this point ordered that Carnaby should
-meet a friend, another middy about his own age, and they set off
-together in quest of a third boy who was supposed to be in the near
-neighbourhood.
-
-As soon as the lads were out of sight Lavendar found the jests they
-had been bandying together die on his lips. "I'm going down deeper; I
-shall be out of my depth very soon," he thought to himself, as he
-walked in silence by Robinette's side.
-
-"Let us come down to the beach again; we can't go to the station for
-half an hour yet," she said. "I like to look out to sea, and realize
-that if I sailed long enough I could step off that pier, and arrive in
-America."
-
-They stood by the sea-wall together with the fresh wind playing on
-their faces. "Isn't it curious," said Robinette, "how instinctively
-one always turns to look at the sea; inland may be ever so lovely, but
-if the sea is there we generally look in that direction."
-
-"Because it is unbounded, like the future," said Lavendar. He was
-looking as he spoke at some children playing on the sands just
-beside them. There was a gallant little boy among them with a bare
-curly head, who refused help from older sisters and was toiling away
-at his sand castle, his whole soul in his work; throwing up
-spadefuls--tremendous ones for four years old--upon its ramparts,
-as if certain they could resist the advancing tide.
-
-"What a noble little fellow!" exclaimed Robinette, catching the
-direction of Lavendar's glance. "Isn't he splendid? toiling like that;
-stumping about on those fat brown legs!"
-
-"How beautiful to have a child like that, of one's own!" thought
-Lavendar as he looked. On the sands around them, there were numbers of
-such children playing there in the sun. It seemed a happy world to him
-at the moment.
-
-Suddenly he saw his companion turn quickly aside; a nurse in uniform
-came towards them pushing, not a happy crooning baby this time, but a
-little emaciated wisp of a child lying back wearily in a wheel chair.
-Something in Robinette's face, or perhaps the bit of fluttering lace
-she wore upon her white dress, had attracted its notice, and it
-stretched out two tiny skeleton hands towards her as it passed. With a
-quick gesture, brushing tears away that in a moment had rushed to her
-eyes, young Mrs. Loring stepped forward, and put her fingers into the
-wasted hands that were held out to her. She hung above the child for a
-moment, a radiant figure, her face shining with sympathy and a sort of
-heavenly kindness; her eyes the sweeter for their tears.
-
-"What is it, darling?" she asked. "Oh, it's the bright rose!" Then she
-hurriedly unfastened the flower from her waist-belt and turned to
-Lavendar. "Will you please take your penknife and scrape away all the
-little thorns," she asked.
-
-"The rose looked very charming where it was," he remarked, half
-regretfully, as he did what she commanded.
-
-"It will look better still, presently," she answered.
-
-The child's hands were outstretched longingly to grasp the flower, its
-eyes, unnaturally deep and wise with pain, were fixed upon Robinette's
-face. She bent over the chair, and her voice was like a dove's voice,
-Lavendar thought, as she spoke. Then the little melancholy carriage
-was wheeled away. Motherhood always seemed the most sacred, the
-supreme experience to Robinette; a thing high and beautiful like the
-topmost blooms of Nurse Prettyman's plum tree. "If one had to choose
-between that sturdy boy and this wistful wraith, it would be hard,"
-she thought. "All my pride would run out to the boy, but I could die
-for love and pity if this suffering baby were mine!"
-
-Lavendar had turned, and leaned on the wall with averted face. "Sweet
-woman!" he was saying to himself. "It is more than a merry heart that
-is able to give such sympathy; it's a sad old world after all where
-such things can be; but a woman like that can bring good out of
-evil."
-
-Robinette had seated herself on a low wall beside him. Her little
-embroidered futility of a handkerchief was in her hand once more. "A
-rose and a smile! that's all we could give it," she said; "and we
-would either of us share some of that burden if we only could." She
-watched the merry, healthy children playing beside them, and added,
-"After all let us comfort ourselves that brown cheeks and fat legs are
-in the majority. Rightness somehow or other must be at the root of
-things, or we shouldn't be a living world at all."
-
-"Amen," said Lavendar, "but the sight of suffering innocents like
-that, sometimes makes me wish I were dead."
-
-"Dead!" she echoed. "Why, it makes me wish for a hundred lives, a
-hundred hearts and hands to feel with and help with."
-
-"Ah, some women are made that way. My stepmother, the only mother I've
-known, was like that," Lavendar went on, dropping suddenly again into
-personal talk, as they had done before. He and she, it seemed, could
-not keep barriers between them very long; every hour they spent
-together brought them more strangely into knowledge of each other's
-past.
-
-"She was a fine woman," he went on, "with a certain comfortable
-breadth about her, of mind and body; and those large, warm, capable
-hands that seem so fitted to lift burdens."
-
-Lavendar was in an absent-minded mood, and never much given to noting
-details at any time. He bent over on the low wall in retrospective
-silence, looking at the blue sea before them.
-
-Robinette, who was perched beside him, spread her two small hands on
-her white serge knees and regarded them fixedly for a moment.
-
-"I wonder if it's a matter of size," she said after a moment. "I
-wonder! Let's be confidential. When I was a little girl we were not at
-all well-to-do, and my hands were very busy. My father's success came
-to him only two or three years before his death, when his reputation
-began to grow and his plans for great public buildings began to be
-accepted, so I was my mother's helper. We had but one servant, and I
-learned to make beds, to dust, to wipe dishes, to make tea and coffee,
-and to cook simple dishes. If Admiral de Tracy's sister had to work,
-Admiral de Tracy's niece was certainly going to help! Later on came my
-father's illness and death. We had plenty of servants then, but my
-hands had learned to be busy. I gave him his medicines, I changed his
-pillows, I opened his letters and answered such of them as were within
-my powers, I fanned him, I stroked his aching head. The end came, and
-mother and I had hardly begun to take hold of life again when her
-health failed. I wasn't enough for her; she needed father and her face
-was bent towards him. My hands were busy again for months, and they
-held my mother's when she died. Time went on. Then I began again to
-make a home out of a house; to use my strength and time as a good wife
-should, for the comfort of her husband; but oh! so faultily, for I was
-all too young and inexperienced. It was only for a few months, then
-death came into my life for the third time, and I was less than
-twenty. For the first time since I can remember, my hands are idle,
-but it will not be for long. I want them to be busy always. I want
-them to be full! I want them to be tired! I want them ready to do the
-tasks my head and heart suggest."
-
-Lavendar had a strong desire to take those same hands in his and kiss
-them, but instead he rose and spread out his own long brown fingers on
-the edge of the wall, a man's hands, fine and supple, but meant to
-work.
-
-"I seem to have done nothing," he exclaimed. "You look so young, so
-irresponsible, so like a bird on a bough, that I cannot associate dull
-care with you, yet you have lived more deeply than I. Life seems to
-have touched me on the shoulder and passed me by; these hands of mine
-have never done a real day's work, Mrs. Loring, for they've been the
-servants of an unwilling brain. I hated my own work as a younger man,
-and, though I hope I did not shirk it, I certainly did nothing that I
-could avoid." He paused, and went on slowly, "I've thought sometimes,
-of late I mean, that if life is to be worth much, if it is to be real
-life, and not mere existence, one must put one's whole heart into it,
-and that two people--" He stopped; he was silent with embarrassment,
-conscious of having said too much.
-
-"Can help each other. Indeed they can," Mrs. Loring went on serenely,
-"if they have the same ideals. Hardly anyone, fortunately, is so alone
-as I, and so I have to help myself! Your sisters, now; don't they
-help?"
-
-"Not a great deal," Lavendar confessed. "One would, but she's married
-and in India, worse luck! The other is--well, she's a candid sister."
-He laughed, and looked up. "If my best friend could hear my sister
-Amy's view of me, just have a little sketch of me by Amy without fear
-or favour, he, or she, would never have a very high opinion of me
-again, and I am not sure but that I should agree with her."
-
-"Nonsense! my dear friend," exclaimed Robinette in a maternal tone she
-sometimes affected,--a tone fairly agonizing to Mark Lavendar; "we
-should never belittle the stuff that's been put into us! My equipment
-isn't particularly large, but I am going to squeeze every ounce of
-power from it before I die."
-
-"Life is extraordinarily interesting to you, isn't it?"
-
-"Interesting? It is thrilling! So will it be to you when you make up
-your mind to squeeze it," said Robinette, jumping off the wall. "There
-is Carnaby signalling; it is time we went to the station."
-
-"Life would thrill me considerably more if Carnaby were not eternally
-in evidence," said Lavendar, but Robinette pretended not to hear.
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-LOVE IN THE MUD
-
-
-The next day Robinette was once more sitting in the boat opposite to
-Lavendar as he rowed. They were going down the river this time, not
-across it. Somehow they had managed that afternoon to get out by
-themselves, which sounds very simple, but is a wonderfully difficult
-thing to accomplish when there is no special reason for it, and when
-there are several other people in the house.
-
-Fortunately Mrs. de Tracy did not like to be alone, so that wherever
-she went Miss Smeardon had to go too, and there happened to be a sale
-of work at a neighbouring vicarage that afternoon where she considered
-her presence a necessity. Robinette had vanished soon after luncheon
-and the middy had been dull, so after loitering around for a while, he
-too had disappeared upon some errand of his own. Lavendar walked very
-slowly toward the avenue gateway, then he turned and came back. He
-could scarcely believe his good fortune when he saw Mrs. Loring come
-out of the house, and pause at the door as if uncertain of her next
-movements. She looked uncommonly lovely in a white frock with touches
-of blue, while the ribbon in her hair brought out all its gold. She
-wore a flowery garden hat, and a pair of dainty most un-English shoes
-peeped from beneath her short skirt.
-
-"Are you going out, or can I take you on the river?" Lavendar asked,
-trying without much success to conceal the eagerness that showed in
-his voice and eyes.
-
-Robinette stood for a moment looking at him (it seemed as if she read
-him like a book) and then she said frankly, "Why yes, there is nothing
-I should like so much, but where is Carnaby?"
-
-"Hang Carnaby! I mean I don't know, or care. I've had too much of his
-society to-day to be pining for it now."
-
-"Well, he does chatter like a magpie, but I feel he must have such a
-dull time here with no one anywhere near his own age. Elderly as I am,
-I seem a bit nearer than Aunt de Tracy or Miss Smeardon. Aunt de
-Tracy, all the same, will never understand my relations with that boy,
-or with anyone else for that matter. I did try so hard," she went on,
-"when I first arrived, just to strike the right note with her, and
-I've missed it all the time, by that very fact, no doubt. I'm so
-unused to trying--at home."
-
-"You mean in America?"
-
-"Yes, of course; I don't try there at all, and yet my friends seem to
-understand me."
-
-"Does it seem to you that you could ever call England 'home'?"
-
-"I could not have believed that England would so sink into my heart,"
-she said, sitting down in the doorway and arranging the flowers on her
-hat. "During those first dull wet days when I was still a stranger,
-and when I looked out all the time at the dripping cedars, and felt
-whenever I opened my lips that I said the wrong thing, it seemed to me
-I should never be gay for an hour in this country; but the last
-enchanting sunny days have changed all that. I remember it's my
-mother's country, and if only I could have found a little affection
-waiting for me, all would have been perfect."
-
-"You may find it yet." Lavendar could not for the life of him help
-saying the words, but there was nothing in the tone in which he said
-them to make Robinette conscious of his meaning.
-
-"I'm afraid not," she sighed, thinking of Mrs. de Tracy's indifference.
-"I'm much more American than English, much more my father's daughter
-than the Admiral's niece; perhaps my aunt feels that instinctively. Now
-I must slip upstairs and change if we are going boating."
-
-"Never!" cried Lavendar. "If I don't snatch you this moment from the
-devouring crowd I shall lose you! I will keep you safe and dry, never
-fear, and we shall be back well before dark."
-
-They went down the river after leaving the little pier, passing the
-orchards heaped on the hillsides above Wittisham, and Lavendar wanted
-to row out to sea, but Robinette preferred the river; so he rowed
-nearer to the shore, where the current was less swift, and the boat
-rocked and drifted with scarcely a touch of the oars. They had talked
-for some time, and then a silence had fallen, which Robinette broke by
-saying, "I half wish you'd forsake the law and follow lines of lesser
-resistance, Mr. Lavendar. Do you know, you seem to me to be drifting,
-not rowing! I've been thinking ever since of what you said to me on
-the sands at Weston."
-
-"Ungrateful woman!" he exclaimed, trying to evade the subject, "when
-these two faithful arms have been at your service every day since we
-first met! Think of the pennies you would have taken from that tiny
-gold purse of yours for the public ferry! However, I know what you
-mean; I never met anyone so plain-spoken as you, Mrs. Robin; I haven't
-forgotten, I assure you!"
-
-"How about the candid sister? Isn't she plain-spoken?"
-
-"Oh, she attacks the outside of the cup and platter; you question
-motive power and ideals. Well, I confess I have less of the former
-than I ought, and more of the latter than I've ever used." Lavendar
-had rested on his oars now and was looking down, so that the twinkle
-of his eyes was lost. "I suppose I shall go on as I have done
-hitherto, doing my work in a sort of a way, and getting a certain
-amount of pleasure out of things,--unless--"
-
-"Oh, but that's not living!" she exclaimed; "that's only existing.
-Don't you remember:--
-
- It is not growing like a tree
- In bulk doth make man better be.
-
-It's really _living_ I mean, forgetting the things that are behind,
-and going on and on to something ahead, whatever one's aim may be."
-
-"What are you going to do with yourself, if I may ask?" said Lavendar.
-"Don't be too philanthropic, will you? You're so delightfully
-symmetrical now!"
-
-"I shall have plenty to do," cried Robinette ardently. "I've told you
-before, I have so much motive power that I don't know how to use it."
-
-"How about sharing a little of it with a friend!"
-
-Lavendar's voice was full of meaning, but Robinette refused to hear
-it. She had succumbed as quickly to his charm as he to hers, but while
-she still had command over her heart she did not intend parting with
-it unless she could give it wholly. She knew enough of her own nature
-to recognize that she longed for a rowing, not a drifting mate, and
-that nothing else would content her; but her instinct urged that
-Lavendar's indecisions and his uncertainties of aim were accidents
-rather than temperamental weaknesses. She suspected that his
-introspective moods and his occasional lack of spirits had a definite
-cause unknown to her.
-
-"I haven't a large income," she said, after a moment's silence,
-changing the subject arbitrarily, and thereby reducing her companion
-to a temporary state of silent rage.
-
-"Yet no one would expect a woman like this to fall like a ripe plum
-into a man's mouth," he thought presently; "she will drop only when
-she has quite made up her mind, and the bough will need a good deal of
-shaking!"
-
-"I haven't a large income," repeated Robinette, while Lavendar was
-silent, "only five thousand dollars a year, which is of course
-microscopic from the American standpoint and cost of living; so I
-can't build free libraries and swimming baths and playgrounds, or do
-any big splendid things; but I can do dear little nice ones, left
-undone by city governments and by the millionaires. I can sing, and
-read, and study; I can travel; and there are always people needing
-something wherever you are, if you have eyes to see them; one needn't
-live a useless life even if one hasn't any responsibilities. But"--she
-paused--"I've been talking all this time about my own plans and
-ambitions, and I began by asking yours! Isn't it strange that the
-moment one feels conscious of friendship, one begins to want to know
-things?"
-
-"My sister Amy would tell you I had no ambitions, except to buy as
-many books as I wish, and not to have to work too hard," said Mark
-smiling, "but I think that would not be quite true. I have some, of a
-dull inferior kind, not beautiful ones like yours."
-
-"Do tell me what they are."
-
-He shook his head. "I couldn't; they're not for show; shabby things
-like unsuccessful poor relations, who would rather not have too much
-notice taken of them. In a few weeks I am going to drag them out of
-their retreat, brighten them up, inject some poetry into their veins,
-and then display them to your critical judgment."
-
-They were almost at a standstill now and neither of them was noticing
-it at all. As Mrs. Loring moved her seat the boat lurched somewhat to
-one side. Mark, to steady her, placed his hand over hers as it rested
-on the rail, and she did not withdraw it. Then he found the other hand
-that lay upon her knee, and took it in his own, scarcely knowing what
-he did. He looked into her face and found no anger there. "I wish to
-tell you more about myself," he stammered, "something not altogether
-creditable to me; but perhaps you will understand. Perhaps even if you
-don't understand you will forgive."
-
-She drew her hands gently away from his grasp. "I shall try to
-understand, you may rely on that!" she said.
-
-"I'm not going to trouble you with any very dreadful confessions," he
-said, "only it's better to hear things directly from the people
-concerned, and you are sure to hear a wrong version sooner or
-later."--Then stopping suddenly he exclaimed, "Hullo! we're stuck, I
-declare! look at that!"
-
-Robinette turned and saw that their boat was now scarcely surrounded
-with water at all. On every side, as if the flanks of some great whale
-were upheaving from below, there appeared stretches of glistening mud.
-Just in front of them, where there still was a channel of water, was
-an upstanding rock. "Shall we row quickly there?" she cried. "Then
-perhaps we can get out and pull the boat to the other side, where
-there is more water. What has happened?"
-
-"Oh, something not unusual," said Lavendar grimly, "that I'm a fool,
-and the sea-tide has ebbed, as tides have been known to do before. I'm
-afraid a man doesn't watch tides when he has a companion like you! Now
-we're left high, but not at all dry, as you see, till the tide
-turns."
-
-By a swift stroke or two he managed to propel their craft as far as
-the rock. They scrambled up on it, and then he tried to haul the boat
-around the miniature islet; but the more he hauled, the quicker the
-water seemed to run away, and the deeper the wretched thing stuck in
-the mud. He jumped in again, and made an effort to push her off with
-an oar; meanwhile Robinette nearly fell off the rock in her efforts to
-get the head of the boat around towards the current again, and making
-a frantic plunge into the ooze, sank above her ankles in an instant.
-Lavendar caught hold of her and helped her to scramble back into the
-boat. "It's all right; only my skirt wet, and one shoe gone!" she
-panted. "Now, what are we to do?" She spread out her hands in dismay,
-and looked down at her draggled mud-stained skirt, her little feet,
-one shoeless and both covered with mud and slime. "What an object I
-shall be to meet Aunt de Tracy's eye, when, if ever, it does light on
-me again! Meanwhile it seems as if we might be here for some hours.
-The boat is just settling herself into the mud bank, like a rather
-tired fat old woman into an armchair, and pray, Mr. Lavendar, what do
-you propose to do? as Talleyrand said to the lady who told him she
-couldn't bear it."
-
-Lavendar looked about them; the main bed of the river was fifty yards
-away; between it and them was now only an expanse of mud.
-
-"It's perfectly hopeless," he said, "the best thing we can do is to
-beget some philosophy."
-
-"Which at any moment we would exchange for a foot of water," she
-interpolated.
-
-"We must just sit here and wait for the tide. Shall it be in the boat
-or on the rock?"
-
-"I don't see much difference, do you? Except that the passing boats,
-if there are any, might think it was a matter of choice to sit on a
-damp rock for two hours, but no one could think we wanted to sit in a
-boat in the mud."
-
-They landed on the rock for the second time. "For my part it's no
-great punishment," said Lavendar, when they settled themselves, "since
-the place is big enough for two and you're one of them!"
-
-"Wouldn't this be as good a stool of repentance from which to confess
-your faults as any?" asked Robinette, as she tucked her shoeless foot
-beneath her mud-stained skirt and made herself as comfortable as
-possible. "I'll even offer a return of confidence upon my own
-weaknesses, if I can find them, but at present only miles of virtue
-stretch behind me. Ugh! How the mud smells; quite penitential! Now:--
-
- "What have you sought you should have shunned,
- And into what new follies run?"
-
-"Oh, what a bad rhyme!" said Lavendar.
-
-"It's Pythagoras, any way," she explained.
-
-Then suddenly changing his tone, Lavendar went on. "This is not merely
-a jest, Mrs. Loring. Before you admit me really amongst the number of
-your friends I should like you to know that--to put it plainly--my
-own little world would tell you at the moment that I am a heartless
-jilt."
-
-"That is a very ugly expression, Mr. Lavendar, and I shall choose not
-to believe it, until you give me your own version of the story."
-
-"In one way I can give you no other; except that I was just fool
-enough to drift into an engagement with a woman whom I did not really
-love, and just not enough of a fool to make both of us miserable for
-life when I, all too late, found out my mistake."
-
-There passed before him at that moment other foolish blithe little
-loves, like faded flowers with the sweetness gone out of them. They
-had been so innocent, so fragile, so free from blame; all but the
-last; and this last it was that threatened to rise like a shadow
-perhaps, and defeat his winning the only woman he could ever love.
-
-Robinette stared at the stretches of ooze, and then stole a look at
-Mark Lavendar. "The idea of calling that man a jilt," she thought.
-"Look at his eyes; look at his mouth; listen to his voice; there is
-truth in them all. Oh for a sight of the girl he jilted! How much it
-would explain! No, not altogether, because the careless making of his
-engagement would have to be accounted for, as well as the breaking of
-it. Unless he did it merely to oblige her--and men are such idiots
-sometimes,--then he must have fancied he was in love with her. Perhaps
-he is continually troubled with those fancies. Nonsense! you believe
-in him, and you know you do." Then aloud she said, sympathetically,
-"I'm afraid we are apt to make these little experimental journeys in
-youth, when the heart is full of _wanderlust_. We start out on them so
-lightly, then they lead nowhere, and the walking back alone is
-wearisome and depressing."
-
-"My return journey was depressing enough at first," said Lavendar,
-"because the particular She was unkinder to me than I deserved even;
-but better counsels have prevailed and I shall soon be able to meet
-the reproachful gaze of stout matrons and sour spinsters more easily
-than I have for a year past; you see the two families were friends and
-each family had a large and interested connection!"
-
-"If the opinion of a comparative stranger is of any use to you," said
-Robinette, standing on the rock and scraping her stockinged foot free
-of mud, "_I_ believe in you, personally! You don't seem a bit 'jilty'
-to me! I'd let you marry my sister to-morrow and no questions asked!"
-
-"I didn't know you had a sister," cried Lavendar.
-
-"I haven't; that's only a figure of speech; just a phrase to show my
-confidence."
-
-"And isn't it ungrateful to be obliged to say I can't marry your
-sister, after you have given me permission to ask her!"
-
-"Not only ungrateful but unreasonable," said Robinette saucily,
-turning her head to look up the river and discovering from her point
-of vantage a moving object around the curve that led her to make
-hazardous remarks, knowing rescue was not far away. "What have you
-against my sister, pray?"
-
-"Very little!" he said daringly, knowing well that she held him in her
-hand, and could make him dumb or let him speak at any moment she
-desired. "Almost nothing! only that _she_ is not offering me _her_
-sister as a balm to my woes."
-
-"She _has_ no sister; she is an only child!--There! there!" cried
-Robinette, "the tide is coming up again, and the mud banks off in that
-direction are all covered with water! I see somebody in a boat, rowing
-towards us with superhuman energy. Oh! if I hadn't worn a white dress!
-It will _not_ come smooth; and my lovely French hat is ruined by the
-dampness! My one shoe shows how inappropriately I was shod, and
-whoever is coming will say it is because I am an American. He will
-never know you wouldn't let me go upstairs and dress properly."
-
-"It doesn't matter anyway," rejoined Mark, "because it is only Carnaby
-coming. You might know he would find us even if we were at the bottom
-of the river."
-
-
-
-
-XIII
-
-CARNABY TO THE RESCUE
-
-
-At Stoke Revel, in the meantime, the solemn rites of dinner had been
-inaugurated as usual by the sounding of the gong at seven o'clock.
-Mrs. de Tracy, Miss Smeardon, and Bates waited five minutes in silent
-resignation, then Carnaby came down and was scolded for being late,
-but there was no Robinette and no Lavendar.
-
-"Carnaby," said his grandmother, "do you know where Mark intended
-going this afternoon?"
-
-"No, I don't," said Carnaby, sulkily.
-
-"Your cousin Robinetta,"--with meaning,--"perhaps you know her
-whereabouts?"
-
-"Not I!" replied Carnaby with affected nonchalance. "I was ferreting
-with Wilson." He had ferreted perhaps for fifteen minutes and then
-spent the rest of the afternoon in solitary discontent, but he would
-not have owned it for the world.
-
-"Call Bates," commanded Mrs. de Tracy. Bates entered. "Do you know if
-Mr. Lavendar intended going any distance to-day? Did he leave any
-message?"
-
-"Mr. Lavendar, ma'am," said Bates, "Mr. Lavendar and Mrs. Loring they
-went out in the boat after tea. Mr. Lavendar asked William for the
-key, and William he went down and got out the oars and rudder,
-ma'am."
-
-"Does William know where they went?" asked Mrs. de Tracy in high
-displeasure. "Was it to Wittisham?"
-
-"No, ma'am, William says they went down stream. He thinks perhaps they
-were going to the Flag Rock, and he says the gentleman wouldn't have a
-hard pull, as the tide was going out. But Mr. Lavendar knows the river
-well, ma'am, as well as Mr. Carnaby here."
-
-"Then I conclude there is no immediate cause for anxiety," said Mrs.
-de Tracy with satire. "You can serve dinner, Bates; there seems no
-reason why we should fast as yet! However, Carnaby," she continued,
-"as the men cannot be spared at this hour, you had better go at once
-and see what has happened to our guests."
-
-"Right you are," cried Carnaby with the utmost alacrity. He was
-hungry, but the prospect of escape was better than food. He rushed
-away, and his boat was in mid-river before Mrs. de Tracy and Miss
-Smeardon had finished their tepid soup.
-
-A very slim young moon was just rising above the woods, but her tender
-light cast no shadows as yet, and there were no stars in the sky, for
-it was daylight still. The evening air was very fresh and cool; there
-was no wind, and the edges of the river were motionless and smooth,
-although in mid-stream the now in-coming tide clucked and swirled as
-it met the rush. Over at Wittisham one or two lights were beginning to
-twinkle, and there came drifting across the water a smell of wood
-smoke that suggested evening fires. Carnaby handled a boat well, for
-he had been born a sailor, as it were, and his long, powerful strokes
-took him along at a fine pace. But although he was going to look for
-Robinette and Mark, he was rather angry with both of them, and in no
-hurry. He rested on his oars indifferently and let the tide carry him
-up as it liked, while, with infinite zest, he unearthed a cigarette
-case from the recesses of his person, lit a cigarette, and smoked it
-coolly. Under Carnaby's apparent boyishness, there was a certain
-somewhat dangerous quality of precocity, which was stimulated rather
-than checked by his grandmother's repressive system. His smoking now
-was less the monkey-trick of a boy, than an act of slightly cynical
-defiance. He was no novice in the art, and smoked slowly and daintily,
-throwing back his head and blowing the smoke sometimes through his
-lips and sometimes through his nose. He looked for the moment older
-than his years, and a difficult young customer at that. His present
-sulky expression disappeared, however, under the influence of tobacco
-and adventure.
-
-"Where the dickens are they?" he began to wonder, pulling harder.
-
-A bend in the river presently solved the mystery. On a wide stretch of
-mud-bank, which the tide had left bare in going out, but was now
-beginning to cover again, a solitary boat was stranded.
-
-With this clue to guide him, Carnaby's bright eyes soon discovered the
-two dim forms in the distance.
-
-"Ahoy!" he shouted, and received a joyous answer. Robinette and Mark
-were the two derelicts, and their rescuer skimmed towards them with
-all his strength.
-
-He could get only within a few yards of the rock to which their boat
-was tied, and from that distance he surveyed them, expecting to find a
-dismal, ship-wrecked pair, very much ashamed of themselves and
-getting quite weary of each other. On the contrary the faces he could
-just distinguish in the uncertain light, were radiant, and Robinette's
-voice was as gay as ever he had heard it. He leaned upon his oars and
-looked at them with wonder.
-
-"Angel cousin!" cried Robinette. "Have you a little roast mutton about
-you somewhere, we are so hungry!"
-
-"You _are_ a pretty pair!" he remarked. "What have you been and
-done?"
-
-"We just went for a row after tea, Middy dear," said Robinette, "and
-look at the result."
-
-"You're not rowing now," observed Carnaby pointedly.
-
-"No," said Mark, "we gave up rowing when the water left us, Carnaby.
-Conversation is more interesting in the mud."
-
-"But how did you get here? I thought you were going to the Flag Rock?"
-demanded Carnaby.
-
-"Is there a Flag Rock, Middy dear? I didn't know," said Robinette
-innocently. "It shows we shouldn't go anywhere without our first
-cousin once removed. We just began to talk, here in the boat, and the
-water went away and left us." Then she laughed, and Mark laughed too,
-and Carnaby's look of unutterable scorn seemed to have no effect upon
-them. They might almost have been laughing at him, their mirth was so
-senseless, viewed in any other light.
-
-"It's nearly eight o'clock," he said solemnly. "Perhaps you can form
-some idea as to what grandmother's saying, and Bates."
-
-"Well, you're going to be our rescuer, Middy darling, so it doesn't
-matter," said Robinette. "Look! the water's coming up."
-
-But Carnaby seemed in no mood for waiting. He had taken off his boots,
-and rolled up his trousers above his knees.
-
-"I'd let Lavendar wade ashore the best way he could!" he said, "but I
-s'pose I've got to save you or there'd be a howl."
-
-"No one would howl any louder than you, dear, and you know it. Don't
-step in!" shrieked Robinette, "I've confided a shoe already to the
-river-mud! I just put my foot in a bit, to test it, and down the poor
-foot went and came up without its shoe. Oh, Middy dear, if your young
-life--"
-
-"Blow my young life!" retorted Carnaby. He was performing gymnastics
-on the edge of his boat, letting himself down and heaving himself up,
-by the strength of his arms. His legs were covered with mud.
-
-"No go!" he said. "It's as deep as the pit here; sometimes you can
-find a rock or a hard bit. We must just wait."
-
-They had not long to wait after all, for presently a rush of the tide
-sent the water swirling round the stranded boat, and carried Carnaby's
-craft to it.
-
-"Now it'll be all right," said he. "You push with the boat-hook, Mark,
-and I'll pull"; but it took a quarter of an hour's pushing and pulling
-to get the boat free of the mud.
-
-Except for the moon it would have been quite dark when the party
-reached the pier. They mounted the hill in some silence. It was
-difficult for Robinette to get along with her shoeless foot; Lavendar
-wanted to help her, but she demanded Carnaby's arm. He was sulking
-still. There was something he felt, but could not understand, in the
-subtle atmosphere of happiness by which the truant couple seemed to be
-surrounded; a something through which he could not reach; that seemed
-to put Robinette at a distance from him, although her shoulder touched
-his and her hand was on his arm. Growing pangs of his manhood assailed
-him, the male's jealousy of the other male. For the moment he hated
-Mark; Mark talking joyous nonsense in a way rather unlike himself, as
-if the night air had gone to his head.
-
-"I am glad you had the ferrets to amuse you this afternoon," said
-Robinette, in a propitiatory tone. "Ferrets are such darlings, aren't
-they, with their pink eyes?"
-
-"O! _darlings_," assented Carnaby derisively. "One of the darlings
-bit my finger to the bone, not that that's anything to you."
-
-"Oh! Middy dear, I am sorry!" cried Robinette. "I'd kiss the place to
-make it well, if we weren't in such a hurry!"
-
-Carnaby began to find that a dignified reserve of manner was very
-difficult to keep up. His grandmother could manage it, he reflected,
-but he would need some practice. When they came to a place where there
-were sharp stones strewn on the road, he became a mere boy again quite
-suddenly, and proposed a "queen's chair" for Robinette. And so he and
-Lavendar crossed hands, and one arm of Robinette encircled the boy's
-head, while the other just touched Lavendar's neck enough to be
-steadied by it. Their laughter frightened the sleepy birds that night.
-The demoralized remnant of a Bank Holiday party would have been,
-Lavendar observed, respectability itself in comparison with them; and
-certainly no such group had ever approached Stoke Revel before. They
-were to enter by a back door, and Carnaby was to introduce them to
-the housekeeper's room, where he undertook that Bates would feed them.
-Lavendar alone was to be ambassador to the drawing room.
-
-"The only one of us with a boot on each foot, of course we appoint him
-by a unanimous vote," said Robinette.
-
-But the chief thing that Carnaby remembered, after all, of that
-evening's adventure, was Robinette's sudden impulsive kiss as she bade
-him good-night, Lavendar standing by. She had never kissed him before,
-for all her cousinliness, but she just brushed his cool, round cheek
-to-night as if with a swan's-down puff.
-
-"That's a shabby thing to call a kiss!" said the embarrassed but
-exhilarated youth.
-
-"Stop growling, you young cub, and be grateful; half a loaf is better
-than no bread," was Lavendar's comment as he watched the draggled and
-muddy but still charming Robinette up the stairway.
-
-
-
-
-XIV
-
-THE EMPTY SHRINE
-
-
-Lavendar had discovered, much to his dismay, that he must return to
-London upon important business; it was even a matter of uncertainty
-whether his father could spare him again or would consent to his
-returning to Stoke Revel to conclude Mrs. de Tracy's arrangements
-about the sale of the land.
-
-Affairs of the heart are like thunderstorms; the atmosphere may
-sometimes seem charged with electricity, and yet circumstances, like a
-sudden wind that sweeps the clouds away before they break, may cause
-the lovers to drift apart. Or all in a moment may come thunder,
-lightning, and rain from a clear sky, and there is nothing that is apt
-to precipitate matters like an unexpected parting.
-
-When Lavendar announced that he had to leave Stoke Revel, two pairs
-of eyes, Miss Smeardon's and Carnaby's, instantly looked at Robinette
-to see how she received the news, but she only smiled at the moment.
-She was just beginning her breakfast, and like the famous Charlotte,
-"went on cutting bread and butter," without any sign of emotion.
-
-"Hurrah!" thought the boy. "Now we can have some fun, and I'll perhaps
-make her see that old Lavendar isn't the only companion in the
-world."
-
-"She minds," thought Miss Smeardon, "for she buttered that piece of
-bread on the one side a minute ago, and now she's just done it on the
-other--and eaten it too."
-
-"She doesn't care a bit," thought Lavendar. "She's not even changed
-colour; my going or staying is nothing to her; I needn't come back."
-
-He had made up his mind to return just the same, if it were at all
-possible, and he told Mrs. de Tracy so. She remarked graciously that
-he was a welcome guest at any time, and Carnaby, hearing this,
-pinched Lord Roberts till he howled like a fiend, and fled for comfort
-to his mistress's lap.
-
-"You little coward," said Carnaby, "you should be ashamed to bear the
-name of a hero."
-
-"I've mentioned to you before, Carnaby, I think, that I dislike that
-jest," said his grandmother, and Carnaby advancing to the injured
-beast said, "Yes, ma'am, and so does Bobs, doesn't he, Bobs?" reducing
-the lap-dog to paroxysms of fury. "Would it be any better if I called
-him _Kitchener_?" hissing the word into the animal's face. "Jealous,
-Bobs? Eh? _Kitchener_." This last word had a rasping sound that
-irritated the little creature more than ever; his teeth jibbered with
-anger, and Miss Smeardon had to offer him a saucer of cream before he
-could be calmed down enough for the rest of the party to hear
-themselves speak.
-
-"Had you nice letters this morning? Mine were very uninteresting,"
-Robinette remarked to Lavendar as they stood together at the doorway
-in the sunshine, while Carnaby chased the lap-dog round and round the
-lawn.
-
-"I had only two letters; one was from my sister Amy, the candid one!
-her letters are not generally exhilarating."
-
-"Oh, I know, home letters are usually enough to send one straight to
-bed with a headache! They never sound a note of hope from first to
-last; although if you had no home, but only a house, like me, with no
-one but a caretaker in it, you'd be very thankful to get them, doleful
-or not."
-
-"I doubt it," Mark answered, for Amy's letter seemed to be burning a
-hole in his pocket at that moment. He had skimmed it hurriedly
-through, but parts of it were already only too plain.
-
-When the others had gone into the house, he went off by himself, and
-jumping the low fence that divided the lawn from the fields beyond, he
-flung himself down under a tree to read it over again. Carnaby,
-spying him there, came rushing from the house, and was soon pouring
-out a tale of something that had happened somewhere, and throwing
-stones as he talked, at the birds circling about the ivied tower of
-the little church.
-
-The field was full of buttercups up to the very churchyard walls. "I
-must get away by myself for a bit," Lavendar thought. "That boy's
-chatter will drive me mad." At this point Carnaby's volatile attention
-was diverted by the sight of a gardener mounting a ladder to clear the
-sparrows' nests from the water chutes, and he jumped up in a twinkling
-to take his part in this new joy. Lavendar rose, and strolled off with
-his hands in his pockets and his bare head bent. The grass he walked
-in was a very Field of the Cloth of Gold. His shoes were gilded by the
-pollen from the buttercups, his eyes dazzled by their colour; it was a
-relief to pass through the stone archway that led into the little
-churchyard. To his spirit at that moment the chill was refreshing. He
-loitered about for a few minutes, and then seeing that the door was
-open, he entered the church, closing the door gently behind him.
-
-It was very quiet in there and even the chirping of the sparrows was
-softened into a faint twitter. Here at last was a place set apart, a
-moment of stillness when he might think things out by himself.
-
-He took out Amy's letter, smoothing it flat on the prayer books before
-him, and forced himself to read it through. The early paragraphs dealt
-with some small item of family news which in his present state of mind
-mattered to Lavendar no more than the distant chirruping of the birds,
-out there in the sunshine. "You seem determined to stay for some time
-at Stoke Revel," his sister wrote. "No doubt the pretty American is
-the attraction. She sounds charming from your description, but my dear
-man, that's all froth! How many times have I heard this sort of thing
-from you before! Remember I know everything about your former loves."
-
-"You _don't_, then," said Lavendar to himself. Down, down, down at the
-bottom of the well of the heart where truth lies, there is always some
-remembrance, generally a very little one, that can never be told to
-any confidant.
-
-"You will find out faults in Mrs. Loring presently, just like the rest
-of them," continued the pitiless writer. (Amy's handwriting was
-painfully distinct.) "I must tell you that at the Cowleys' the other
-day, I suddenly came face to face with Gertrude Meredith _and Dolly_!
-Dolly looks a good deal older already and fatter, I thought. I fear
-she is losing her looks, for her colour has become fixed, and she
-_will_ wear no collars still, although on a rather thick neck, it's
-not at all becoming. I spoke to her for about three minutes, as it was
-less awkward, when we met suddenly face to face like that. She laughed
-a good deal, and asked for you rather audaciously, I thought. They
-live near Winchester now, and since the Colonel's death are pretty
-badly off, Gertrude says. Dolly is going to Devonshire to stay with
-the Cowleys; you may meet her there any day, remember. It does seem
-incredible to me that a man of your discrimination could have been won
-by the obvious devotion of a girl like Dolly; but having given your
-word I almost think you would better have kept it, rather than suffer
-all this criticism from a host of mutual friends."
-
-Lavendar groaned aloud. He had a good memory, and with all too great
-distinctness did he now remember Dolly Meredith's laugh. How wretched
-it had all been; not a word had ever passed between them that had any
-value now. If he could have washed the thought of her forever from his
-memory, how greatly he would have rejoiced at that moment.
-
-Well, it was over; written down against him, that he had been what the
-world called a jilt and a fool; yes, certainly a fool, but not so
-great a one as to follow his folly to its ultimate conclusion, and tie
-himself for life to a woman he did not love.
-
-Lavendar was extraordinarily sensitive about the breaking of his
-engagement; partly because Miss Meredith herself, in her first rage,
-had avowed his responsibility for her blighted future, giving him no
-chance for chivalrous behaviour; partly because in all his transient
-love affairs he had easily tired of the women who inspired them. He
-seemed thirsty for love, but weary of it almost as soon as the draught
-reached his lips.
-
-And now had he a chance again?--or was it all to end in disappointment
-once more, in that cold disappointment of the heart that has received
-stones for bread? It was not entirely his own fault; he had expected
-much from life, and hitherto had received very little. But Robinette!
-
-"Let me find all her faults now," he said to himself, "or evermore
-keep silent; meantime I hope I am not concealing too many of my
-own."
-
-He tried to force himself into criticism; to look at her as a cold
-observer from the outside would have done; for that curious Border
-country of Love which he had entered has not an equable climate at
-all. It is fire and frost alternate; and criticism is either roused
-almost to a morbid pitch, or else the faculty is drugged, and nothing,
-not even the enumeration of a hundred foibles will awaken it for a
-time.
-
-When the cold fit had been upon him the evening before, Lavendar had
-said to himself that her manner was too free--that she had led him on
-too quickly; no, that expression was dishonourable and unjust; he
-repented it instantly; she had been too unself-conscious, too girlish,
-too unthinking, in what she said and did. "But she's a widow after
-all, though she's only two and twenty," he went on to himself. "Hang
-it! I wish she were not! If her heart were in her husband's grave I
-should be moaning at that; and because I see that it is not, I become
-critical. There's nothing quite perfect in life!"
-
-He had begun by noticing some little defects in her personal
-appearance, but he was long past that now; what did such trifles
-matter, here or there? Then he remembered all that he had heard said
-about American women. Did those pretty clothes of hers mean that she
-would be extravagant and selfish to obtain them? Could a young man
-with no great fortune offer her the luxury that was necessary to her?
-and even so, what changes come with time! He had a full realization of
-what the boredom of family life can be, when passion has grown stale.
-
-"At seventy, say, when I am palsied and she is old and fat, will
-romance be alive then? Will such feeling leave anything real behind it
-when it falls away, as the white blossoms on Mrs. Prettyman's plum
-tree will shrink and fall a fortnight hence?"
-
-He looked about him. On the walls of the little church were tablets
-with the de Tracy names; the names of her forefathers amongst them.
-Under his feet were other flags with names upon them too; and out
-there in the sunshine were the grave-stones of a hundred dead. How
-many of them had been happy in their loves?
-
-Not so many, he thought, if all were told, and why should he hope to
-be different? Yet surely this was a new feeling, a worthy one, at
-last. It was not for her charming person that he loved her; not
-because of her beauty and her gaiety only; but because he had seen in
-her something that gave a promise of completion to his own nature, the
-something that would satisfy not only his senses but his empty heart.
-
-He clenched his hands on the carved top of the old pew in front of
-him, which was fashioned into a laughing gnome with the body of a
-duck. "And if this should be all a dream," he asked himself again, "if
-this should all be false too! Good Lord!" he cried half aloud, "I
-want to be honest now! I want to find the truth. My whole life is on
-the throw this time!"
-
-There was a moment's silence after he had uttered the words. He got up
-and moved slowly down the aisle, opening the door, seeing again the
-meadow of buttercups, yellow as gold, and listening again to the
-sparrows chirruping in the sunshine outside.
-
-"I have been in that church a quarter of an hour," he said to himself,
-"and in trying to dive to the depths of myself and find out whether I
-was giving a woman all I had to give, I did not get time to consider
-that woman's probable answer, should I place my uninteresting life and
-liberty at her disposal."
-
-
-
-
-XV
-
-"NOW LUBIN IS AWAY"
-
-
-Lavendar made his adieux after luncheon and went off to London.
-"Good-bye for the present, Mrs. de Tracy; I shall be back on Wednesday
-probably, if I can arrange it," he said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Loring," and
-here he altered the phrase to "Shall I come back on Wednesday?" for
-his hostess had left the open door.
-
-There was no hesitation, but all too little sentiment, about
-Robinette's reply.
-
-"Wednesday, at the latest, are my orders," she answered merrily, and
-with the words ringing in his ears Lavendar took his departure.
-
-"Do you remember that this is the afternoon of the garden party at
-Revelsmere?" Mrs. de Tracy enquired, coming into the drawing room a
-few minutes later, where Mrs. Loring stood by the open window. She
-had allowed herself just five minutes of depression, staring out at
-the buttercup meadow. How black the rooks looked as they flew about it
-and how dreary everything was, now that Lavendar had gone! She was
-woman enough to be able to feel inwardly amused at her own absurdity,
-when she recognized that the ensuing three days seemed to stretch out
-into a limitless expanse of dullness. "The village seemed asleep or
-dead now Lubin was away!" Still, after all, it was an occasion for
-wearing a pretty frock, and she knew herself well enough to feel sure
-that the sight of a few of her fellow-creatures even pretending to
-enjoy themselves, would make her volatile spirits rise like the
-mercury in a thermometer on a hot day.
-
-Miss Smeardon was to be her companion, as Mrs. de Tracy had a headache
-that afternoon and was afraid of the heat, she said. "What heat?"
-Robinette had asked innocently, for in spite of the brilliant sunlight
-the wind blew from the east, keen as a knife. "I shall take a good
-wrap in the carriage in spite of this tropical temperature," she
-thought. Carnaby refused point blank to drive with them; he would
-bicycle to the party or else not go at all, so it was alone with Miss
-Smeardon that Robinette started in the heavy old landau behind the
-palsied horse.
-
-Miss Smeardon gave one glance at Mrs. Loring's dress, and Robinette
-gave one glance at Miss Smeardon's, each making her own comments.
-
-"That white cloth will go to the cleaner, I suppose, after one
-wearing, and as for that thing on her head with lilac wistaria
-drooping over the brim, it can't be meant as a covering, or a
-protection, either from sun or wind; it's nothing but an ornament!"
-Miss Smeardon commented; while to herself Robinette ejaculated,--
-
-"A penwiper, an old, much-used penwiper, is all that Miss Smeardon
-resembles in that black rag!"
-
-Carnaby, watching the start at the door, whistled in open admiration
-as Robinette came down the steps.
-
-"Well, well! we are got up to kill this afternoon; pity old Mark has
-just gone; but cheer up, Cousin Robin, there's always a curate on
-hand!"
-
-For once Robinette's ready tongue played her false, and a sense of
-loneliness overcame her at the sound of Lavendar's name. She gathered
-up her long white skirts and got into the carriage with as much
-dignity as she could muster, while Carnaby, his eyes twinkling with
-mischief, stood ready to shut the door after Miss Smeardon.
-
-"Hope you'll enjoy your drive," he jeered. "You'll need to hold on
-your hats. Bucephalus goes at such fiery speed that they'll be torn
-off your heads unless you do."
-
-"Middy dear, you're not the least amusing," said Robinette quite
-crossly, and with a lurch the carriage moved off.
-
-Miss Smeardon settled herself for conversation. "I'm afraid you will
-find me but a dull companion, Mrs. Loring," she said, glancing
-sideways at Robinette from under the brim of her mushroom hat.
-
-"Oh, you will be able to tell me who everyone is," said Robinette as
-cheerfully as she could.
-
-"I am no gossip," Miss Smeardon protested.
-
-"It isn't necessary to gossip, is it?--but I've a wholesome interest
-in my fellow creatures."
-
-"And it is well to know about people a little; when one comes among
-strangers as you do, Mrs. Loring; one can't be too careful--an
-American, particularly."
-
-Miss Smeardon's voice trailed off upon a note of insinuation; but
-Robinette took no notice of the remark. She did not seem to have
-anything to say, so Miss Smeardon took up another subject.
-
-"What a pity that Mr. Lavendar had to leave before this afternoon; he
-would have been such an addition to our party!"
-
-"Yes, wouldn't he?" Robinette agreed, though she carefully kept out of
-her voice the real passion of assent that was in her heart.
-
-"Mr. Lavendar is so agreeable, I always think," Miss Smeardon went on.
-"Everyone likes him; he almost carries his pleasant ways too far. I
-suppose that was how--" She paused, and added again, "Oh, but as I
-said, I never talk scandal!"
-
-"Do you think it's possible to be too pleasant?" Robinette remarked,
-stupidly enough, scarcely caring what she said.
-
-"Well, when it leads a poor girl to imagine that she is loved! I hear
-that Dolly Meredith is just heart-broken. The engagement kept on for
-quite a year, I believe, and then to break it off so heartlessly!--I
-was reminded of it all by coming here. Miss Meredith is a cousin of
-our hostess, and they met first at Revelsmere when they were quite
-young."
-
-"There is always a certain amount of talk when an engagement has to
-be broken off," said Robinette in a cold voice.
-
-"They seemed quite devoted at first," Miss Smeardon began; but
-Robinette interrupted her.
-
-"The sooner such things are forgotten the better, I think," she said.
-"No one, except the two people concerned, ever knows the real
-truth.--Tell me, Miss Smeardon, whom we are likely to meet at
-Revelsmere? Who is our hostess? What sort of parties does she give?"
-
-Being so firmly switched off from the affairs of Mr. Lavendar and Miss
-Meredith, it was impossible for Miss Smeardon to talk about them any
-more, and she had to turn to a less congenial theme.
-
-"We shall meet the neighbours," she told Robinette, "but I am afraid
-they may not interest you very much. I understand that in America you
-are accustomed to a great deal of the society of gentlemen. Here there
-are so few, and all of them are married."
-
-"All?" laughed Robinette.
-
-"Well, there is Mr. Finch, the curate, but he is a celibate; and young
-Mr. Tait of Strewe, but he is slightly paralysed."
-
-"Why, Carnaby must be quite an eligible bachelor in these parts," said
-Robinette; but Miss Smeardon was so deadly literal that she accepted
-the remark as a serious one.
-
-"Not quite yet; in a few years' time we shall need to be very careful,
-there are so many girls here, but not all of them desirable, of
-course."
-
-"There are? What a dull time they must have with the Married Men, the
-Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby! I'm glad my girlhood wasn't
-spent in Devonshire."
-
-Conversation ended here, for the carriage rumbled up the avenue, and
-Robinette looked about her eagerly. Revelsmere was a nice old house,
-surrounded by fine sloping lawns and a background of sombre
-beechwoods. The lawns to-day were dotted with groups of people, mainly
-women, and elderly at that. As Robinette and Miss Smeardon alighted
-at the door an elderly hostess welcomed them, and an elderly host led
-them across the lawn and straightly they fell into the clutches of
-more and more elderlies.
-
-"It is fairly bewildering!" Robinette cried in her heart; then she saw
-a bevy of girls approaching; such nice-looking girls, happy, well
-dressed, but all unattended by their suitable complement of young
-men.
-
-"For whom do they dress, here? They've a deal of self-respect, I
-think, to go on getting themselves up so nicely for themselves and the
-Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby," thought Robinette, as she
-watched them.
-
-Presently another couple came across the lawn; the young woman was by
-no means a girl, rather heavily built, with a high fixed colour. She
-was attended by a man. "Not the Celibate certainly," thought Mrs.
-Loring with a glance at his bullock-like figure, his thick neck, and
-glossy black hair, "nor the Paralytic; and it's not Carnaby. It must
-be a new arrival!"
-
-At that moment it began to rain, but nothing daunted, their hostess
-approached her, and saying pleasantly that she wished to introduce her
-to Miss Meredith, she left Robinette and the young woman standing
-together under a spreading tree, and took the gentleman away with
-her.
-
-The moment that she heard the name, Robinette realized who Miss
-Meredith was. They seated themselves side by side on a garden bench,
-and Miss Meredith remarked upon the heat, planting a rather fat hand
-upon the arm of the garden seat, and surveying it complacently,
-especially the very bright diamond ring upon the third finger.
-
-After a few preliminary remarks, she asked Mrs. Loring if she were
-stopping in the neighbourhood.
-
-"Yes, I am staying at Stoke Revel for a short time," Robinette
-replied; "Mrs. de Tracy is my aunt, or at least I am Admiral de
-Tracy's niece."
-
-Her companion did not seem to take the least interest in this part of
-the information, only when Stoke Revel was mentioned she looked around
-suddenly as if surprised.
-
-They talked upon indifferent subjects, while Robinette, as she watched
-Miss Meredith, was saying a good deal to herself, although she only
-spoke aloud about the weather and the Devonshire scenery.
-
-"I will be just, if I can't be generous," she thought. "She has (or
-she must once have had) a fine complexion. I dare say she is sincere
-enough; she may be sensible; she might be good-humoured,--when
-pleased."
-
-"There is going to be a shower," said Miss Meredith, "but I've nothing
-on to spoil," she added, glancing at Robinette's hat.
-
-Sitting there on the bench, hearing the spitting rain upon the water
-below them and watching the leaden mists that slowly gathered over the
-landscape, Robinette fell upon a moment of soul sickness very unusual
-to her. Miss Meredith too was silent, absorbed in her own thoughts.
-
-"If she had looked even a little different it would have been so much
-easier to explain," thought Robinette. Then suddenly she glanced up.
-She saw that her companion's face had softened, and changed. There was
-a look,--Robinette caught it just for one moment,--such as a proud
-angry child might have worn: sulky, hurt to the heart, but determined
-not to cry. Instantly a chord was struck in Robinette's soul. "She has
-suffered, anyway," she thought. "May I be forgiven for my harsh
-judgment!"
-
-With a shiver she drew her wrap about her shoulders, and Miss Meredith
-turned towards her. The expression Robinette had noticed passed from
-the high-coloured face and left it as before, self-complacent and
-slightly patronizing. "You seem to feel cold," she said. "I never do;
-which is rather unfortunate, as I'm just going out to India!"
-
-"Indeed? How soon are you going?"
-
-"In about six weeks. I'm just going to be married, and we sail
-directly afterwards," said Miss Meredith. "You saw Mr. Joyce, I think,
-when we came up together a few minutes ago?"
-
-A weight as if of a ton of lead was lifted from Robinette's heart as
-she spoke. She could scarcely refrain from jumping up to throw her
-arms about Dolly Meredith's neck and kiss her. As it was, she bubbled
-over with a kind of sympathetic interest that astonished the other
-woman. It is only too easy to lead an approaching bride to talk about
-her own affairs, for she can seldom take in the existence of even her
-nearest and dearest at such a time, and in a few minutes the two young
-women were deep in conversation. When a quarter of an hour later Miss
-Smeardon appeared to tell Robinette that they must be going, she
-looked up with a start at the sound of footsteps on the gravel path.
-"Oh, you are here, Mrs. Loring; we couldn't think where you had
-gone," said Miss Smeardon, acidly.
-
-"And here is Miss Meredith of all people!" she continued, "I thought
-you were sure to be on the tennis court, Miss Meredith; Mr. Joyce is
-playing now."
-
-"Oh, we have had such a delightful talk," said Dolly, so flushed with
-pleasure that Miss Smeardon gazed at her in astonishment.
-
-"If only I knew her well enough to send her a munificent wedding
-present! How I should love to do so; just to register my own joy,"
-said Robinette to herself. As it was she shook hands very warmly with
-Miss Meredith before they parted, and when half way across the lawn,
-looked back again, and waved her hand gaily. Miss Meredith was pacing
-the grass, and treading heavily beside her, with a very gallant air,
-was her bullock-like young man.
-
-"Mr. Joyce is quite wealthy," said Miss Smeardon. "I understand that
-he is an only son too, and will some day inherit a fine property.
-Miss Meredith is most fortunate, at her age and with her history."
-
-Robinette said nothing. She looked out at the glistening reaches of
-the river, now shining through the silver mist; at the fields yellow
-with buttercups, and the folds of the distant hills. As they drove up
-the lane to the house, the birds, refreshed by the rain, were singing
-like angels. In her heart too, something was singing as blithely as
-any bird amongst them all.
-
-"Sometimes, sometimes our mistakes do not come home to roost!" she
-thought, "but fly away and make nests elsewhere--rich nests in India
-too!"
-
-"How did you enjoy the party, Cousin Robin?" said Carnaby, who
-was waiting for them in the doorway. "I had a good tuck-in of
-strawberries. The ladies were a little young for my taste; just
-immature girls; no one under sixty, and rather frisky, don't you
-think? By the way did you see Number One and her millionaire?"
-
-"I don't know what you mean by Number One," said Robinette, haughtily,
-as she passed in at the door.
-
-"You will, when you're Number Two!" rejoined Carnaby, stooping to
-pinch Lord Roberts' tail till the hero yelped aloud.
-
-
-
-
-XVI
-
-TWO LETTERS
-
-
-Lavendar tore up his fourth sheet of paper and began afresh. "Dear
-Mrs. Loring." No, that would not do; he took another sheet, and began
-again:--
-
-"My dear Mrs. Loring,--Your commission for old Mrs. Prettyman has
-taken some little time to execute, for I had to go to two or three
-shops before finding a chair 'with green cushions, and a wide seat, so
-comfortable that it would almost act as an anæsthetic if her
-rheumatism happened to be bad, and yet quite suitable for a cottage
-room.' These were my orders, I think, and like all your orders they
-demand something better than the mere perfunctory observance. My own
-proportions differing a good deal from those of the old lady, it is
-still an open question whether what seemed comfortable to me will be
-quite the same to her. I can but hope so, and the chair will be
-dispatched at once.
-
-"London is noisy and dusty, and grimy and stuffy, and, to one man at
-least, very, very dull. A boat on Greenshaw ferry seems the only spot
-in the world where any gaiety is to be found. You can hear the cuckoos
-calling across the river as you read this, no doubt, and Carnaby is
-rendered happier than he deserves by being allowed to row you down to
-tell Mrs. Prettyman about the chair. I feel as if, like the Japanese,
-I could journey a hundred miles to worship that wonderful tree.--Don't
-let the blossoms fall until I come!
-
-"There seems a good deal of business to be done. My father unfortunately
-is no better, so he cannot come down to Stoke Revel, and I shall
-probably return upon Wednesday morning. A poem of Browning's runs in my
-head--something about three days--I can't quote exactly.
-
-"If my sister were writing this letter, she would say that I have been
-very hard to please, and uninterested in everything since I came home.
-Indeed it seems as if I were. London in this part of it, in hot
-weather, makes a man weary for green woods, a sliding river, and a
-Book of Verses underneath a Bough. Well, perhaps I shall have all of
-them by Wednesday afternoon. You will think I can do nothing but
-grumble. All the same, into what was the mere dull routine of
-uncongenial work before, your influence has come with a current of new
-energy; like the tide from the sea swelling up into the inland
-river.--I'm at it again! Rivers on the brain evidently.
-
-"I hope meanwhile that Carnaby behaves himself, and is not too much of
-a bore, and that England,--England in spring at least, is gaining a
-corner in your heart? Your mother called it home, remember. Yes, do
-try to remember that!
-
-"Did you go to the garden party? Did you walk? Did you drive? Did you
-like it? Who was there? Were you dull?"
-
- * * * * *
-
-There was a postscript:--
-
-"I have found the verse from Browning, 'So I shall see her in three
-days.'
-
- "M. L."
-
- * * * * *
-
- "Tuesday, 19th.
-
-"Dear Mr. Lavendar: First, many thanks for Nurse's armchair, which
-arrived in perfect order, and is a shining monument to your good
-taste. She does nothing but look at it, shrouding it when she retires
-to bed with an old table-cover, to protect it from the night air.
-
-"Whether she will ever make its acquaintance thoroughly enough to sit
-in it I do not know, but it will give her an enormous amount of
-pleasure. Perhaps her glow of pride in its possession does her as much
-good as the comfort she might take in its use.
-
-"Her 'rheumatics' are very painful just now, and I have a good deal to
-do with Duckie. You remember Duckie? I call her Mrs. Mackenzie, after
-that lady in The Newcomes who talked the Colonel to death. Mrs.
-Mackenzie is heavy, elderly, and strong-willed. I am acquainted with
-every bone, tendon, and sinew in her body, having to lift her into a
-coop behind the cottage where she will not wake Nurse at dawn with her
-eternal quacking. She has heretofore slept under Nurse's bedroom
-window and dislikes change of any kind. So lucky she has no offspring!
-I tremble to think of what maternal example might do in such a
-talkative family!
-
-"Stoke Revel is as it was and ever will be, world without end; only
-Aunt de Tracy is crosser than when you are here and life is not as
-gay, although Carnaby does his dear, cubbish best. If ever you
-desire your mental jewels to shine at their brightest; if ever you
-wish a tolerably good disposition to seem like that of an angel; if
-ever, in a fit of vanity, you would like to appear as a blend of
-Apollo, Lancelot, Demosthenes, Prince Charlie, Ajax, and Solomon,
-just fly to Stoke Revel and become part of the household. Assume
-nothing; simply appear, and the surroundings will do the rest; like
-the penny-in-the-slot arrangements. Seen upon a background of Bates,
-William, Benson, Big Cummins, the Curate, Miss Smeardon, and may I
-dare to add, the lady of the Manor herself,--any living breathing
-man takes on an Olympian majesty. I shouldn't miss you in Boston
-nor in London; perhaps even in Weston I might find a wretched
-substitute, but here you are priceless!
-
-"I have some news for you. On Saturday Miss Smeardon and I went to a
-garden party. That was what it was called. The thermometer was only
-slightly below zero when we started, and that luminary masquerading as
-the sun was pretending to shine. Soon after we arrived at the festive
-scene, there were gusts of wind and rain. I sought the shelter of a
-spreading tree, the kitchen fire not being available, and I was joined
-there by the hostess, who presented her niece, your Miss Meredith.
-
-"Dear Mr. Lavendar, this is a subject we cannot write about, you and
-I. I am loyal to my sex, and what Miss Meredith said, and looked, and
-did, are all as sacred to me as they ought to be. I only want to tell
-you that she is happy; that she has this very week become engaged, and
-is going to India with her husband in a month. Now that little
-cankerworm, that has been gnawing at your roots of life for the last
-year or two, has done its worst, and you are perfectly free to go and
-make other mistakes. I only hope you'll get 'scot free' from those,
-too, for I don't like to see nice men burn their fingers. We became
-such good friends huddled up in that boat when we were stuck in the
-mud--Ugh! I can smell it now!--that I am glad to be the first to send
-you pleasant news.
-
- "Sincerely yours,
- "ROBINETTA LORING."
-
-
-
-
-XVII
-
-MRS. DE TRACY CROSSES THE FERRY
-
-
-Lavendar's blunt refusal, except under certain conditions, to
-announce to Mrs. Prettyman her coming ejection from the cottage at
-Wittisham, was unprofessional enough, as he himself felt; but it
-was final and categorical. Conveying as it did a sort of tacit
-remonstrance, this refusal had an unfortunate effect, for it only
-served to rouse Mrs. de Tracy's formidable obstinacy. She had
-seized upon one point only in their numberless and wearisome
-discussions of the matter: Mrs. Prettyman had no legal claim upon
-Stoke Revel. To give her compensation for the plum tree would be to
-allow that she had; to create a precedent highly dangerous under the
-circumstances. How could one refuse to other old women or old men
-leaving their cottages what one had weakly granted to her? The
-demands would be unceasing, the trouble endless. So arguing, Mrs. de
-Tracy soon brought herself to a state of determination bordering on a
-sort of mania. She was old, and in exaggerated harshness her life was
-retreating as it were into its last stronghold, at bay.
-
-As good as her word, for she had vowed she would warn Mrs. Prettyman
-herself, and she was never one to procrastinate, the lady of the Manor
-proceeded to plan her visit to Wittisham. She had not crossed the
-river for years. Wittisham, one of the loveliest villages in England,
-perhaps, though little known, was a thorn in her side, as it would
-have been in that of any other landlord with empty pockets.
-
-What you could not deal with to your own advantage, it was better to
-ignore, and on this autocratic principle, Mrs. de Tracy had left
-Wittisham to itself.
-
-But now the boat carried her there, alone and fierce--_thrawn_, as
-the Scotch say--bent upon a course of conduct that she knew would
-hold her up to the hatred of every right-thinking person of her
-acquaintance, and bitterly triumphant in the knowledge. The
-meanness of her errand never struck her. On the contrary, she would
-have argued it was one well worthy of her, a part of the scheme in
-the consummation of which she had spent her married life and her whole
-indomitable energy, losing actually her own identity in the process,
-and becoming an inexorable machine. That scheme was the holding
-together of Stoke Revel for the de Tracys, the maintenance of family
-dignity and power, the pre-eminence of a race that had always ruled.
-The river beneath her, carrying her to the fulfilment of her duty,
-the noble river, widening to the sea, subject to its tides and made
-turbulent by its storms, typified to Mrs. de Tracy only the
-greatness of Stoke Revel. From its banks the de Tracys had sent out,
-generation after generation, men who had commanded fleets, who
-had upheld the national honour upon the farthest seas, very often at
-the cost of life. There was no sacrifice of herself at which Mrs.
-de Tracy would have hesitated in upholding this ideal, no sacrifice
-of others, either. What was Lizzie Prettyman in comparison? A bag
-of old bones, fit for nothing but the workhouse!
-
-"A little faster, William," said the widow, sitting upright in the
-stern, and William the footman bent to his oars, the beads of
-perspiration standing on his brow. When Mrs. de Tracy stepped out upon
-the pier, she had to be reminded where the Prettyman cottage was.
-
-"You'll know it by the plum tree, ma'am," said William respectfully,
-"everybody does."
-
-It was not far off on the river side. The tide had ebbed and left a
-stretch of muddy foreshore in front of it, where the rotting poles for
-hanging the fishing nets out to dry stood gauntly up. Mrs. de Tracy
-approached the steps, which merged into the flagged path before the
-door, and paused to survey the property she intended to part with. She
-had no eye for the picturesque. A few white petals from the blossoming
-plum tree, scattered by the breeze, fell upon her black bonnet and
-shoulders. A faint scent of honey came from it and the hum of bees,
-for the day was warm. The tumble-down condition of the cottage engaged
-Mrs. de Tracy's attention.
-
-"And for this," she thought scornfully, "a man will give hundreds of
-pounds! There's truth in the adage that a fool and his money are soon
-parted!"
-
-She mounted the steps that led up to the patch of garden, her keen,
-cold eyes everywhere at once. "A cat can't sneeze without she 'ears
-'im!" her villagers at Stoke Revel were wont to say, disappearing into
-their houses as rabbits into their burrows at sight of a terrier.
-
-Old Elizabeth Prettyman stood at her door, and it took some time to
-make her realize who her august visitor was. She was getting blind;
-she had never been a favourite with Mrs. de Tracy, nor had she entered
-Stoke Revel Manor since her nursling disgraced it by marrying a Bean.
-She curtseyed humbly to the great lady.
-
-"There now, ma'am," she said, "it's not often we have seen you across
-the river. Will you please to come inside and sit down, ma'am? 'T is
-very warm this afternoon, it is." She was a good deal fluttered in her
-welcome, for there was that in Mrs. de Tracy's air that seemed to bode
-misfortune.
-
-"I shall sit down for a few minutes, Elizabeth," was the reply, "while
-I explain my visit to you."
-
-Mrs. Prettyman stood aside respectfully, and Mrs. de Tracy swept past
-her into the cottage and seated herself there. It never occurred to
-her to ask the old woman to sit down in her own house; she expected
-her to stand throughout the interview. Without further preamble,
-then, Mrs. de Tracy came to the point:--
-
-"Elizabeth," she said, "I have come to tell you that I am going to
-sell the land on which this cottage stands, and that you will have to
-find some other home."
-
-The old woman did not understand for a minute. "You be going to sell
-the land, ma'am?" she repeated stupidly.
-
-"Yes, I am. A gentleman from London wishes to buy it; you will need to
-go."
-
-"A gentleman from London! Lor, ma'am, no gentleman from London
-wouldn't live 'ere!" Elizabeth cried, perfectly dazed by the
-statement.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy repeated: "It is not your business, Elizabeth, what he
-intends to do with the place; all you have to do is to remove from the
-house."
-
-The old woman sank down on the nearest chair and covered her face with
-her hands. She was so old and so tired that she had no heart to face
-life under new conditions, even should they be better than those she
-left. A younger woman would have snapped her fingers in Mrs. de
-Tracy's face, so to speak, and wished her joy of her old rattletrap of
-a house, but Elizabeth Prettyman, after a lifetime of struggles, had
-not vitality enough for such an action. She had never dreamed of
-leaving the cottage, and where was she to go? Her furrowed face wore
-an expression of absolute terror now when she looked up.
-
-"But where be I to live, ma'am?" she cried.
-
-"I do not know, Elizabeth; you must arrange that with your relations,"
-said Mrs. de Tracy.
-
-"I don't 'ave but only me niece--'er as married down Exeter way."
-
-"Well, you should write to her then."
-
-"She don't want to keep me, Nettie don't,--she's but a poor man's
-wife, and five chillen she 'as; it's not like as if she were me
-daughter, ma'am."
-
-"You have some small sum of money of your own every year, have you
-not?" Mrs. de Tracy asked.
-
-"Ten pound a year, ma'am; the same that me 'usband left me; two
-'undred pounds 'e 'ad saved and 't is in an annuity; that's all I
-'ave--that and me plum tree."
-
-"The plum tree is not yours, either, Elizabeth; that belongs to the
-land," said Mrs. de Tracy curtly.
-
-"'T was me 'usband planted it, ma'am, years ago. We watched 'en and
-pruned 'en and tended 'en like a child we did--an' now to be told 'er
-ain't mine!"
-
-"You're forgetting yourself, Elizabeth, I think," said Mrs. de Tracy.
-It was simply impossible for her to see with the old woman's eyes; all
-she remembered was the legal fact that any tree planted in Stoke Revel
-ground belonged to the owner of the ground.
-
-"But ma'am, 't is a big part of me living is the plum tree; only
-yesterday I says to the young lady--Miss Cynthia's young lady--I
-says, 'Dear knows how 't would be with me without I had the plum
-tree.'"
-
-"I cannot help that, Elizabeth: the plum tree is not yours, it belongs
-to Stoke Revel."
-
-"Then ma'am, you'll be 'lowing me something for it surely?"
-
-"No," said Mrs. de Tracy obstinately, "you have no legal claim to
-compensation, Elizabeth. I cannot undertake to allow you anything for
-what is not yours. If I did it in your case you know quite well I
-should have to do it in many others."
-
-There was a long and heavy silence. Elizabeth Prettyman was taking in
-her sentence of banishment from her old home; Mrs. de Tracy was merely
-wondering how long it would take her to walk down that nasty steep bit
-of path to the ferry. At last the old woman looked up.
-
-"When must I be goin' then, ma'am?" she asked meekly.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy considered. "The transfer of land from one person to
-another generally takes some time: you will have several weeks here
-still; I shall send you notice later which day to quit."
-
-"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth simply, and added, "The plum tree
-blossoms 'ul be over by that time."
-
-"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mrs. de Tracy, in
-whose heart there was room for no sentiment.
-
-"'T would have been 'arder leavin' it in blossom time," the old woman
-explained; but her hearer could not see the point. She rose slowly
-from her chair and looked around the cottage.
-
-"I am glad to see that you keep your place clean and respectable,
-Elizabeth," she said. "I wish you good afternoon."
-
-Elizabeth never rose from her chair to see her visitor to the door--(an
-omission which Mrs. de Tracy was not likely to overlook)--she just sat
-there gazing stupidly around the tiny kitchen and muttering a word or
-two now and then. At last she got up and tottered to the garden.
-
-"I'll 'ave to leave it all--leave the old bench as me William did put
-for me with his own 'ands, and leave Duckie, Duckie can't never go to
-Exeter if I goes there,--and leave the plum tree." She limped across
-the little bit of sunny turf, and stood under the white canopy of the
-blossoming tree, leaning against its slender trunk. "Pity 't is we
-ain't rooted in the ground same as the trees are," she mused. "Then no
-one couldn't turn us out; only the Lord Almighty cut us down when our
-time came; Lord knows I'm about ready for that now--grave-ripe as you
-may say." She leaned her poor weary old head against the tree stem and
-wept, ready, ah! how ready, at that moment, to lay down the burden of
-her long and toilsome life.
-
-"Good afternoon, Nursie dear!" a clear voice called out in her ear,
-and Elizabeth started to find that Robinette had tip-toed across the
-grass and was standing close beside her. She lifted her tear-stained
-face up to Robinette's as a child might have done.
-
-"I've to quit, Missie," she sobbed, "to leave me 'ome and Duckie and
-the plum tree, an' I've no place to go to, and naught but my ten
-pounds to live on--and 't won't keep me without I've the plum tree,
-not when I've rent to pay from it; not if I don't eat nothing but tea
-an' bread never again!"
-
-In a moment Robinette's arms were about her: her soft young cheeks
-pressed against the withered old face.
-
-"What's this you're saying, Nurse?" she cried. "Leaving your cottage?
-Who said so?"
-
-"It's true, dear, quite true; 'asn't the lady 'erself been here to
-tell me so?"
-
-"Was that what Aunt de Tracy was here about? I met her on the road
-five minutes ago; she said she had been here on business! But tell me,
-Nurse, why does she want you to leave? Are you going to get a better
-cottage? Does she think this one isn't healthy for you?"
-
-"No, no, dear, 't isn't that, she 've sold the cottage over me 'ead,
-that's what 't is, or she's going to sell it, to a gentleman from
-London--Lord knows what a gentleman from London wants wi' 'en--and
-I've to quit."
-
-Robinette tried to be a peacemaker.
-
-"Then you'll get a much more comfortable house, that's quite certain.
-You know, though this one is lovely on fine days like this, that the
-thatch is all coming off, and I'm sure it's damp inside! Just wait a
-bit, and see if you don't get some nice cosy little place, with a
-sound roof and quite dry, that will cure this rheumatism of yours."
-
-But Mrs. Prettyman shook her head.
-
-"No, no, there won't be no cosy place given to me; I'm no more worth
-than an old shoe now, Missie, and I'm to be turned out, the lady said
-so 'erself; said as I must go to Exeter to live with me niece Nettie,
-and 'er don't want us--Nettie don't--and whatever shall I do without I
-'ave Duckie and the plum tree?"
-
-"Oh, but"--Robinette began, quite incredulously, and the old woman
-took up her lament again.
-
-"And I asked the lady, wouldn't I 'ave something allowed me for the
-plum tree--that 'ave about clothed me for years back? And 'No,' she
-says, ''t ain't your plum tree, Elizabeth, 't is mine; I can't 'low
-nothing on me own plum tree.'"
-
-Robinette still refused to believe the story.
-
-"Nurse, dear," she said, "you're a tiny bit deaf now, you know, and
-perhaps you misunderstood about leaving. Suppose you keep your dear
-old heart easy for to-night, and I'll come down bright and early
-to-morrow and tell you what it really is! If you have to leave the
-plum tree you'll get a fine price put on it that may last you for
-years; it's such a splendid tree, anyone can see it's worth a good
-deal."
-
-"That it be, Missie, the finest tree in Wittisham," the old woman
-said, drying her eyes, a little comforted by the assurance in
-Robinette's voice and manner.
-
-"There now, we won't have any more tears: I've brought a new canister
-of tea I sent for to London. I'm just dying to taste if it's good;
-we'll brew it together, Nursie; I shall carry out the little table
-from the kitchen and we'll drink our tea under the plum tree,"
-Robinette cried.
-
-She was carrying a great parcel under her arm, and when Mrs. Prettyman
-opened it, she could scarcely believe that this lovely red tin
-canister, filled with pounds of fragrant tea, could really be hers!
-The sight of such riches almost drove away her former fears. Robinette
-whisked into the kitchen and came out carrying the little round table
-which she set down under the white canopy of the plum tree. Then
-together they brought out the rest of the tea things, and what a merry
-meal they had!
-
-"It's just nonsense and a bit of deafness on your part, Nurse, so we
-won't remember anything about leaving the house, we are only going to
-think of enjoyment," Robinette announced. Then the old woman was
-comforted, as old people are wont to be by the brave assurances of
-those younger and stronger than themselves, forgot the spectre that
-seemed to have risen suddenly across her path, and laughed and talked
-as she sipped the fragrant London tea.
-
-
-
-
-XVIII
-
-THE STOKE REVEL JEWELS
-
-
-"Hullo! Cousin Robin, hurry up, you'll need all your time!" It was
-Carnaby of course who saluted Robinette thus, as she came towards the
-house on her return from Wittisham.
-
-"I'm not late, am I?" she said, consulting her watch.
-
-"I thought you'd be making a tremendous toilette; one of your killing
-ones to-night," Carnaby said. "Do! I love to see you all dressed up
-till old Smeardon's eyes look as if they would drop out when you come
-into the room."
-
-"I'll wear my black dress, and her eyes may remain in her head,"
-Robinette laughed.
-
-"And what about Mark's eyes? Wouldn't you like them to drop out?" the
-boy asked mischievously. "He's come back by the afternoon train while
-you were away at Wittisham."
-
-"Oh, has he?" Robinette said, and Carnaby stared so hard at her, that
-to her intense annoyance she blushed hotly.
-
-"Horrid lynx-eyed boy," she said to herself as she ran upstairs, "He's
-growing up far too quickly. He needs to be snubbed." She dashed to the
-wardrobe, pulled out the black garment, and gave it a vindictive shake.
-"Old, dowdy, unbecoming, deaconess-district-visitor-bible-woman,
-great-grand-auntly thing!" she cried.
-
-Then her eye lighted on a cherished lavender satin. She stood for a
-moment deliberating, the black dress over her arm, her eyes fixed upon
-the lavender one that hung in the wardrobe.
-
-"I don't care," she cried suddenly: "I'll wear the lavender, so here
-goes! Men are all colour blind, so he'll merely notice that I look
-nice. I must conceal from myself and everybody else how depressed I am
-over the interview with Nurse, and how I dread discussing the cottage
-with Aunt de Tracy. That must be done the first thing after dinner, or
-I shall lose what little courage I have."
-
-Lavendar thought he had never seen her look so lovely as when he met
-her in the drawing room a quarter of an hour later. There was nothing
-extraordinary about the dress but its exquisite tint and the sheen of
-the soft satin. The suggestion that lay in the colour was entirely
-lost upon him, however: if asked to name it he would doubtless have
-said "purplish." How he wished that he might have escorted her into
-the dining room, but Mrs. de Tracy was his portion as usual, and
-Robinette was waiting for Carnaby, who seemed unaccountably slow.
-
-"Your arm, Middy, when you are quite ready," she said to him at last.
-Carnaby's extraordinary unreadiness seemed to arise from his trying to
-smuggle some object up his sleeve. This proved, a few moments later,
-to be a bundle of lavender sticks tied with violet ribbon that he had
-discovered in his bureau drawer. He laid it by Robinette's plate with
-a whispered "My compliments."
-
-"What does your cousin want that bunch of lavender for, at the table?"
-Mrs. de Tracy enquired.
-
-"She likes lavender anywhere, ma'am," Carnaby said with a wink on the
-side not visible by his grandmother. "It's a favourite of hers."
-
-Robinette could only be thankful that Lavendar was occupied in a
-_sotto voce_ discussion of wine with Bates, and she was able to
-conceal the bundle of herbs before his eyes met hers, for the fury she
-felt against her precious young kinsman at that moment she could have
-expressed only by blows.
-
-Dinner seemed interminably long. Robinette, for more reasons than one,
-was preoccupied; Lavendar made few remarks, and Carnaby was possessed
-by a spirit of perfectly fiendish mischief, saying and doing
-everything that could most exasperate his grandmother, put her guests
-to the blush, and shock Miss Smeardon.
-
-But at last Mrs. de Tracy rose from the table, and the ladies followed
-her from the room, leaving Lavendar to cope alone with Carnaby.
-
-"My fair American cousin is more than usually lovely to-night, eh, Mr.
-Lavendar?" the boy said, with his laughable assumption of a man of the
-world.
-
-"There, my young friend; that will do! you're talking altogether too
-much," said Lavendar, as he poured himself out a glass of wine and sat
-down by the open window to drink it. Carnaby, perhaps not unreasonably
-offended, lounged out of the room, and left the older man to his own
-meditations.
-
-Robinette in the meantime went into the drawing room with her aunt,
-and they sat down together in the dim light while Miss Smeardon went
-upstairs to write a letter.
-
-"Aunt de Tracy," Robinette began, "I was calling on Mrs. Prettyman
-just after you had been with her this afternoon, and do you know the
-dear old soul had taken the strangest idea into her head! She says you
-are going to ask her to leave the cottage."
-
-"The land on which her cottage stands is about to be sold," said Mrs.
-de Tracy. "It is necessary that she should move."
-
-"Yes, she quite understood that; but she thinks she is not going to
-get another house; that was what was distressing her, naturally. Of
-course she hates to leave the old place, but I believe if she gets
-another nicer cottage, that will quite console her," said Robinette
-quickly.
-
-"I have no vacant cottage on the estate just now," said Mrs. de Tracy
-quietly.
-
-"Then what is she to do? Isn't it impossible that she should move
-until another place is made ready for her?" Robinette rose and stood
-beside the table, leaning the tips of her fingers on it in an attitude
-of intense earnestness. She was trying to conceal the anger and dismay
-she felt at her aunt's reply.
-
-"Mrs. Prettyman has relatives at Exeter," said Mrs. de Tracy without
-the quiver of an eyelid.
-
-"Yes; but they are poor. They aren't very near relations, and they
-don't want her. O Aunt de Tracy, is it necessary to make her leave?
-She depends upon the plum tree so! She makes twenty-five dollars a
-year from the jam!"
-
-"Dollars have no significance for me," said Mrs. de Tracy with an icy
-smile.
-
-"Well, pounds then: five pounds she makes. How is she ever going to
-live without that, unless you give her the equivalent? It's half her
-livelihood! I promised you would consider it? Was I wrong?"
-
-Old bitternesses rose in Mrs. de Tracy's heart, the prejudices and the
-grudges of a lifetime. Everything connected with Robinette's mother
-had been wrong in her eyes, and now everything connected with
-Robinette was wrong too, and becoming more so with startling
-rapidity.
-
-"You had no right whatsoever to make any promises on my behalf," she
-now said harshly. "You have acted foolishly and officiously. This is
-no business of yours."
-
-"I'll gladly make it my business if you'll let me, Aunt de Tracy!"
-pleaded Robinette. "If you don't feel inclined to provide for Mrs.
-Prettyman, mayn't I? She is my mother's old nurse and she shan't want
-for anything as long as I have a penny to call my own!" Robinette's
-eyes filled with tears, but Mrs. de Tracy was not a whit moved by this
-show of emotion, which appeared to her unnecessary and theatrical.
-
-"You are forgetting yourself a good deal in your way of speaking to me
-on this subject," she said coldly. "When I behaved unbecomingly in my
-youth, my mother always recommended me to go upstairs, shut myself up
-alone in my room, and collect my thoughts. The process had invariably
-a calming effect. I advise you to try it."
-
-Robinette did not need to be proffered the hint twice. She rushed out
-of the room like a whirlwind, not looking where she went. In the hall,
-she came face to face with Lavendar, who had just left the dining
-room.
-
-"Mr. Lavendar!" she cried. "Do go into the drawing room and speak to
-my aunt. Preach to her! Argue with her! Convince her that she can't
-and mustn't act in this way; can't go and turn Mrs. Prettyman out, and
-rob her of the plum tree, and leave her with hardly a penny in the
-world or a roof over her head!"
-
-"It's not a very pretty or a very pleasant business, Mrs. Loring, I
-admit," said Lavendar quietly.
-
-"Is it English law?" cried Robinette with indignation. "If it is, I
-call it mean and unjust!"
-
-"Sometimes the laws seem very hard," said Lavendar. "I'd like to
-discuss this affair with you quietly another time."
-
-As he spoke, Carnaby appeared and wanted to be told what the matter
-was, but Robinette discovered that it is not very easy to criticise a
-grandmother to her youthful grandson, more especially when the lady in
-question is your hostess.
-
-"Aunt de Tracy and I have had a little difference of opinion about
-Mrs. Prettyman and her cottage, and the plum tree," she said to the
-boy quietly, and Lavendar nodded approval.
-
-"Prettyman's got the sack, hasn't she?" Carnaby enquired with a boy's
-carelessness.
-
-Robinette looked very grave. "My dear old nurse is to leave her
-cottage," she said with a quiver in her voice. "She's to lose her plum
-tree--"
-
-"But of course she'll get compensation," cried Carnaby.
-
-"No, Middy; she's to get no compensation," said Robinette in a low
-voice.
-
-"Well, I call that jolly hard! It's a beastly shame," said Carnaby,
-evidently pricking up his ears and with a sudden frown that changed
-his face. "I say, Mark--" But Lavendar did not think the moment
-suitable for a discussion of Mrs. Prettyman's wrongs. Besides, he did
-not wish Robinette to be banished from the drawing room for a whole
-interminable evening. He contrived to silence Carnaby for the time
-being.
-
-"Let's bury the hatchet for a little while," he suggested. "Have you
-forgotten, Mrs. Loring, that I made Mrs. de Tracy promise to show off
-the Stoke Revel jewels for your benefit this very night?"
-
-"O! but now I'm in disgrace, she won't!" said Robinette.
-
-"Yes, she will!" said Carnaby. "Nothing puts the old lady in such a
-heavenly temper as showing off the jewels. Don't you miss it, Cousin
-Robin! It's like the Tower of London and Madam Tussaud's rolled into
-one, this show, I can assure you. Come on! Come back into the drawing
-room. Needn't be afraid when Mark's there!"
-
-Robinette found that a black look or two was all that she had to fear
-from Mrs. de Tracy at present, and even these became less severe
-under the alchemy of Lavendar's tact. A reminder that an exhibition of
-the jewelry had been promised was graciously received. Bates and
-Benson were summoned, and armed with innumerable keys, they descended
-to subterranean regions where safes were unlocked and jewel-boxes
-solemnly brought into the drawing room. Mrs. de Tracy wore an air
-almost devotional, as she unlocked the final receptacles with keys
-never allowed to leave her own hands.
-
-"If the proceedings had begun with prayer and ended with a hymn, it
-wouldn't have surprised me in the least!" Robinette said to herself,
-looking silently on. Her silence, luckily for her, was taken for the
-speechlessness of awe, and did a good deal to make up, in the eyes of
-her august relative, for her late indiscretions. As a matter of fact,
-her irreverent thoughts were mostly to the effect that all but the
-historical pieces of the Stoke Revel _corbeille_ would be the better
-of re-setting by Tiffany or Cartier.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy opened an old shagreen case and the firelight flickered
-on the diamonds of a small tiara.
-
-"This is a part of the famous Montmorency set," she announced proudly,
-with the tone of a Keeper of Regalia. Then she took out a rope of
-pearls ending in tassels. "These belonged to Marie Antoinette," she
-said.
-
-An emerald set was next produced, and the emeralds, it was explained,
-had once adorned a crown. Deep green they were, encrusted in their
-diamond setting; costly, unique; but they left Robinette cold, though
-like most American women, she loved precious stones as an adornment.
-One of those emeralds, she was thinking, was worth fifty times more
-than old Lizzie Prettyman's cottage: the sale of one of them would
-have averted that other sale which was to cause so much distress to a
-poor harmless old woman.
-
-"When do you wear your jewels, Aunt de Tracy?" she asked gravely.
-
-"I have not worn them since the Admiral's death," was the virtuous
-reply, "and I have never called or considered them mine, Robinetta.
-They are the de Tracy jewels. When Carnaby takes his place as the head
-of the house, they will be his. He will see that his wife wears them
-on the proper occasions."
-
-"Carnaby's wife!" thought Robinette. "Why! she mayn't be born! He may
-never have a wife! And to think of all those precious stones hiding
-their brightness in these boxes like prisoners in a dungeon for years
-and years, only to be let out now and then by Bates and Benson,
-jingling their keys like jailers! And this house is a prison too!" she
-said to herself; "a prison for souls!" and the thought of its hoarded
-wealth made her indignant; all this hidden treasure in a house where
-there was never enough to eat, where guests shivered in fireless
-bedrooms, where servants would not stay because they were starved! And
-Carnaby, too, whose youth was being embittered by unnecessary
-economies: Carnaby, who had so little pocket-money that he was a
-laughing-stock among his fellows--it was for Carnaby these sacrifices
-were being made! Strange traditions! Fetiches of family pride almost
-as grotesque to her thinking as those of any savages under the sun.
-
-"My poor dear Middy!" she thought. "What chance has he, brought up in
-an atmosphere like this?" But she happened to raise her eyes at the
-moment, and to see the actual Carnaby of the moment, not the Carnaby
-her gloomy imagination was evoking from the future with the "petty
-hoard of maxims preaching down" his heart. He had contrived to get
-hold of the Marie Antoinette pearls without his grandmother's
-knowledge and to hang them around his neck; he had poised the
-Montmorency tiara on his own sleek head; he had forced a heavy
-bracelet by way of collar round Rupert's throat, and now with that
-choking and goggling unfortunate held partner-wise in his arms, he was
-waltzing on tiptoe about the farther drawing room behind the
-unconscious backs of Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon.
-
-"He's only a careless boy," thought Robinette, "a happy-go-lucky,
-devil-may-care, hare-brained youngster. They can't have poisoned his
-nature yet, and I'm sure he has a good heart. If he were at the head
-of affairs at Stoke Revel instead of his grandmother, I wonder what
-would be done in the matter of my poor old nurse?" Robinette stood in
-the doorway for a moment before going up to her room. Her whole
-attitude spoke depression as Carnaby stole up behind her.
-
-"See here, Cousin Robin, I can't bear to have you go on like this.
-Don't take Prettyman's trouble so to heart. We'll do something! I'll
-do something myself! I have a happy thought."
-
-
-
-
-XIX
-
-LAWYER AND CLIENT
-
-
-Robinette had a bad night after the jewel exhibition, and a heavy head
-and aching eyes prompted her to ask Little Cummins to bring her
-breakfast to her bedroom.
-
-It was touching to see that small person hovering over Robinette:
-stirring the fire, sweeping the hearth, looping back the curtains,
-tucking the slippers out of sight, and moving about the room like a
-mother ministering to an ailing child. Finally she staggered in with
-the heavy breakfast tray that she had carried through long halls and
-up the stairs, and put it on the table by the bed.
-
-"There's a new-laid egg, ma'am, that cook 'ad for the mistress, but I
-thought you needed it more; an' I brewed the tea meself, to be sure,"
-she cooed; "an' I've spread the loaf same as you like, an' cut the
-bread thin, an' 'ere's one o' the roses you allers wears to breakfast;
-an' wouldn't your erming coat be a comfort, ma'am?"
-
-"Dear Little Cummins! How did you know I needed comfort? How did you
-guess I was homesick?"
-
-Robinette leaned her head against the housemaid's rough hand, always
-stained with black spots that would give way to no scrubbing. From
-morning to night she was in the coal scuttle or the grate or the
-saucer of black lead, for she did nothing but lay fires, light fires,
-feed fires, and tidy up after fires, for eight or nine months of the
-year.
-
-"You mustn't touch me, ma'am; I ain't fit; there's smut on me, an'
-hashes, this time o' day," said Little Cummins.
-
-"I don't care. I like you better with ashes than lots of people
-without. You mustn't stay in the coal scuttle all your life, Little
-Cummins; you must be my chambermaid some of these days when we can get
-a good substitute for Mrs. de Tracy. Would you like that, if the
-mistress will let you go?"
-
-Little Cummins put her apron up to her eyes, and from its depths came
-inarticulate bursts of gratitude and joy. Then peeping from it just
-enough to see the way to the door, she ran out like a hare and
-secluded herself in the empty linen-room until she was sufficiently
-herself to join the other servants.
-
-Robinette finished her breakfast and dressed. She had lacked courage
-to meet the family party, although she longed for a talk with Mark
-Lavendar. It was entirely normal, feminine, and according to all law,
-human and divine, but it appealed also to her sense of humour, that
-she should feel that this new man-friend could straighten out all the
-difficulties in the path. She waited patiently at her window until she
-saw him walk around the corner of the house, under the cedars, and up
-the twisting path, his head bent and bare, his hands in his pockets.
-Then she flung her blue cape over her shoulders and followed him.
-
-"Mr. Lavendar," she called, as she caught up with his slow step, "you
-said you would advise me a little. Let us sit on this bench a moment
-and find out how we can untangle all the knots into which Aunt de
-Tracy tied us yesterday. I am so afraid of her that I am sure I spoke
-timidly and respectfully to her at first; but perhaps I showed more
-feeling at the end than I should. I am willing to apologize to her for
-any lack of courtesy, but I don't see how I can retract anything I
-said."
-
-"It is hard for you," Lavendar replied, "because you have a natural
-affection for your mother's old nurse; and Mrs. de Tracy, I begin to
-believe, is more than indifferent to her. She has some active dislike,
-perhaps, the source of which is unknown to us."
-
-"But she is so unjust!" cried Robinette. "I never heard of an Irish
-landlord in a novel who would practice such a piece of eviction. If I
-must stand by and see it done, then I shall assert my right to provide
-for Nurse and move her into a new dwelling. After you left the drawing
-room last night, I begged as tactfully as I could that Aunt de Tracy
-would sell me some of the jewels, so that she need not part with the
-land at Wittisham. She was very angry, and wouldn't hear of it. Then I
-proposed buying the plum-tree cottage, that it might be kept in the
-family, and she was furious at my audacity. Perhaps the Admiral's
-niece is _not_ in the family."
-
-"She cannot endure anything like patronage, or even an assumption of
-equality," said Lavendar. "You must be careful there."
-
-"Should I be likely to patronize?" asked Robinette reproachfully.
-
-"No; but your acquaintance with your aunt is a very brief one, and she
-is an extraordinary character; hard to understand. You may easily
-stumble on a prejudice of hers at every step."
-
-"I shouldn't like to understand her any better than I do now," and
-Robinette pushed back her hair rebelliously.
-
-"Will you be my client for about five minutes?" asked Lavendar.
-
-"Yes, willingly enough, for I see nothing before me but to take Nurse
-Prettyman and depart in the first steamer for America."
-
-Mrs. Loring looked as if she were quite capable of this rather radical
-proceeding, and very much, too, as if any growing love for Lavendar
-that she might have, would easily give way under this new pressure of
-circumstances.
-
-"This is the situation in a nutshell," said Lavendar, filling his
-pipe. "Mrs. de Tracy is entirely within her legal rights when she asks
-Mrs. Prettyman to leave the cottage; legally right also when she
-declines to give compensation for the plum tree that has been a source
-of income; financially right moreover in selling cottage and land at a
-fancy price to find money for needed improvements on the estate."
-
-"None of this can be denied, I allow."
-
-"All these legal rights could have been softened if Mrs. de Tracy had
-been willing to soften them, but unfortunately she has been put on the
-defensive. She did not like it when I opposed her in the first place.
-She did not like it when my father advised her to make some small
-settlement, as he did, several days ago. She resented Mrs. Prettyman's
-assumption of owning the plum tree; she was outraged at your valiant
-espousing of your nurse's cause."
-
-"I see; we have simply made her more determined in her injustice."
-
-"Now it is all very well for you to show your mettle," Lavendar went
-on, "for you to endure your aunt's displeasure rather than give up a
-cause you know to be just; but look where it lands us."
-
-Robinette raised her troubled eyes to Lavendar's, giving a sigh to
-show she realized that her landing-place would be wherever the lawyer
-fixed it, not where she wished it.
-
-"Go on," she sighed patiently.
-
-"Your legal adviser regards it as impossible that you should come over
-from America and quarrel with your mother's family;--your only family,
-in point of fact. If this affair is fought to a finish you will feel
-like leaving your aunt's house."
-
-"I shouldn't have to wait for that feeling," said Robinette
-irrepressibly. "Aunt de Tracy would have it first!"
-
-"In such an event I could and would stand by you, naturally."
-
-"_Would_ you?" cried Robinette glowing instantly like a jewel.
-
-Lavendar looked at her in amazement. "Pray what do you take me for? On
-whose side could I, should I be, my dear--my dear Mrs. Loring? But to
-keep to business. In the event stated above, neither my father nor I
-could very well continue to have charge of the estate. That is a small
-matter, but increases the difficulties, owing to a long friendship
-dating back to the Admiral's time. Then we have Carnaby. Carnaby, my
-dear Mrs. Loring, belongs to you. Do you want to give him up? He
-adores you and you will have an unbounded influence on him, if you
-choose to exercise it."
-
-"How can I influence Carnaby--in America?"
-
-This was a blow, but Lavendar made no sign. "You may not always be in
-America," he said. "Now why not let Mrs. de Tracy sell the land and
-cottage and plum tree in the ordinary course of things? Oh, how I wish
-_I_ could buy the blessed thing!" he exclaimed, parenthetically.
-
-"Oh! how I wish _I_ could buy the plum tree, and keep it, always
-blossoming, in my morning-room!" sighed Robinette.
-
-"But unfortunately, Waller R. A. will buy the plum tree, confound him!
-Now, just after Mrs. de Tracy has definitely sold the premises and all
-their appurtenances, suppose you, in your prettiest and most docile
-way (docility not being your strong point!) ask your aunt if she has
-any objection to your taking care of Mrs. Prettyman during the few
-years remaining to her. Meantime keep her from irritating Mrs. de
-Tracy, and make the poor old dear happy with plans for her future. If
-you are short on docility you are long on making people happy!"
-
-"Never did I hear such an argument! It would make Macduff fall into
-the arms of Macbeth; it would tranquillize the Kilkenny cats
-themselves! I'll run in and apologize abjectly to my thrice guilty
-aunt, then I'll reward myself by going over to Wittisham."
-
-"If you'll take the ferry over, I'd like to come and fetch you if I
-may. That shall be my reward."
-
-"Reward for what?"
-
-"For giving you advice very much against my personal inclinations.
-Courses of action founded entirely on policy do not appeal to me very
-strongly."
-
-
-
-
-XX
-
-THE NEW HOME
-
-
-It was in rather a chastened spirit that Robinette set off to see Mrs.
-Prettyman. "I've been foolish, I've been imprudent; oh! dear me! I've
-still so much to learn!" she sighed to herself. "No good is ever done
-by losing one's temper; it only puts everything wrong. I shall have to
-try and take Mr. Lavendar's advice. I must be very prudent with Nurse
-this morning--never show her that I think Aunt de Tracy is in the
-wrong; just persuade her ever so gently to move to another home, and
-arrange with her where it is to be."
-
-It is always difficult for an impetuous nature like Robinette's to
-hold back about anything. She would have liked to run straight into
-Mrs. Prettyman's room, and, flinging her arms round the old woman's
-neck, cry out to her that everything was settled. And instead she
-must come to the point gently, prudently, wisely, "like other people"
-as she said to herself.
-
-The cottage seemed very still that afternoon, and Robinette knocked
-twice before she heard the piping old voice cry out to her to come
-in.
-
-"Why, Nurse dear, where are you? Were you asleep?" Robinette said as
-she entered, for Mrs. Prettyman was not sitting in the fine new chair.
-Then she found that the voice answered from the little bedroom off the
-kitchen, and that the old woman was in bed.
-
-"I ain't ill, so to speak, dear, just weary in me bones," she
-explained, as Robinette sat down beside her. "And Mrs. Darke, me
-neighbour, she sez to me, 'You do take the day in bed, Mrs. Prettyman,
-me dear, an' I'll do your bit of work for 'ee'--so 'ere I be, Missie,
-right enough."
-
-"I'm afraid you were worried yesterday," said Robinette; "worried
-about leaving the house."
-
-"I were, Missie, I were," she confessed.
-
-"That's why I came to-day; you must stop worrying, for I've settled
-all about it. I spoke to my aunt last night, and it's true that you
-have to leave this house; but now I've come to make arrangements with
-you about a new one."
-
-The old woman covered her face with her hands and gave a little cry
-that went straight to Robinette's heart.
-
-"Lor' now, Miss, 'ow am I ever to leave this place where I've been all
-these years? I thought yesterday as you said 'twas a mistake I'd
-made."
-
-"But alas, it wasn't altogether a mistake," Robinette had to confess
-sadly, her eyes filling with tears as she realized how she had only
-doubled her old friend's disappointment. Then she sat forward and took
-Mrs. Prettyman's hand in hers.
-
-"Nursie dear," she said, "I don't want you to grieve about leaving
-the old home, for it isn't an awfully good one; the new one is going
-to be ever so much better!"
-
-"That's so, I'm sure, dearie, only 'tis _new_," faltered Mrs.
-Prettyman. "If you're spared to my age, Missie, you'll find as new
-things scare you."
-
-"Ah, but not a new house, Nursie! Wait till I describe it! Everything
-strong and firm about it, not shaking in the storms as this one
-does; nice bright windows to let in all the sunshine; so no more
-'rheumatics' and no more tears of pain in your dear old eyes!"
-
-Robinette's voice failed suddenly, for it struck her all in a moment
-that her glowing description of the new home seemed to have in it
-something prophetic. That bent little figure beside her, these shaking
-limbs and dim old eyes,--all this house of life, once so carefully
-builded, was crumbling again into the dust, and its tenant indeed
-wanted a new one, quite, quite different! A sob rose in Robinette's
-throat, but she swallowed it down and went on gaily.
-
-"I've settled about another thing, too; you're to have another plum
-tree, or life wouldn't be the same thing to you. And you know they can
-transplant quite big trees now-a-days and make them grow wonderfully.
-Some one was telling me all about how it is done only a few days ago.
-They dig them up ever so carefully, and when they put them into the
-new hole, every tiny root is spread out and laid in the right
-direction in the ground, and patted and coaxed in, and made firm, and
-they just catch hold on the soil in the twinkle of an eye. Isn't it
-marvellous? Well, I'll have a fine new tree planted for you so
-cleverly that perhaps by next year you'll be having a few plums, who
-knows? And the next year more plums! And the next year, jam!"
-
-"'Twill be beautiful, sure enough," said the old woman, kindling at
-last under the description of all these joys. "And do you think,
-Missie, as the new cottage will really be curing of me rheumatics?"
-
-"Why yes, Nurse. Whoever heard of rheumatism in a dry new house?"
-
-"The house be new, but the rheumatics be old," said Mrs. Prettyman
-sagely.
-
-"Well, we can't make _you_ entirely new, but we'll do our best. I'm
-going to enquire about a nice cottage not very far from here; there's
-plenty of time before this one is sold. It shall be dry and warm and
-cosy, and you will feel another person in it altogether."
-
-"These new houses be terrible dear, bain't they?" the old woman said
-anxiously.
-
-"Not a bit; besides that's another matter I want to settle with you,
-Nursie. I'm going to pay the rent always, and you're going to have a
-nice little girl to help you with the work, and there will be
-something paid to you each month, so that you won't have any
-anxiety."
-
-"Oh, Missie, Missie, whatever be you sayin'? _Me_ never to have no
-anxiety again!"
-
-"You never shall, if I can help it; old people should never have
-worries; that's what young people are here for, to look after them and
-keep them happy."
-
-Mrs. Prettyman lay back on the pillow and gazed at Robinette
-incredulously; it wasn't possible that such a solution had come to all
-her troubles. For seventy odd years she had worked and struggled and
-sometimes very nearly starved and here was some one assuring her that
-these struggles were over forever, that she needn't work hard any
-more, or ever worry again. Could it be true? And all to come from Miss
-Cynthia's daughter!
-
-Robinette bent down and kissed the wrinkled old face softly.
-
-"Good-night, Nursie dear," she said. "I'm not going to stay any longer
-with you to-day, because you're tired. Have a good sleep, and waken up
-strong and bright."
-
-"Good-night, Missie, good-night, dear," the old woman said. Her face
-had taken on an expression of such peacefulness as it had never worn
-before.
-
-She turned over on her pillow and closed her eyes, scarcely waiting
-for Robinette to leave the room.
-
-"I've been allowed to do that, anyway," Robinette said to herself,
-standing in the doorway to look back at the quiet sleeper, and then
-looking forward to a little boat nearing the shore. The cottage
-sheltered almost the only object that connected her with her past; the
-boat, she felt, held all her future.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The river, when Lavendar rowed himself across it, was very quiet. "The
-swelling of Jordan," as Robinette called the rising tide, was over;
-now the glassy water reflected every leaf and twig from the trees that
-hung above its banks and dipped into it here and there.
-
-Mooring his boat at the landing, Mark sauntered up to Mrs. Prettyman's
-cottage, and having tapped lightly at the door to let Mrs. Loring
-know of his arrival, as they had agreed he should do, he went along
-the flagged pathway into the garden, and sat down on the edge of the
-low wall that divided it from the river. Just in front of him was the
-little worn bench where he had first seen Robinette as she sat beside
-her old nurse with the tiny shoe on her lap. It was scarcely a
-fortnight ago; yet it seemed to him that he could hardly remember the
-kind of man he had been that afternoon; a new self, full of a new
-purpose, and at that moment of a new hope, had taken the place of the
-objectless being he had been before.
-
-Everything was very still; there was scarcely a sound from the village
-or from the shipping farther down the river. Lavendar fancied he heard
-Robinette's clear voice within the cottage; then he started suddenly
-and the blood rushed to his heart as he listened to her light steps
-coming along the paved footpath.
-
-"Here you are!" she whispered. "Let us not speak too loud, for Nurse
-was just dropping asleep when I left her. I've put a table-cover and
-a blanket over 'Mrs. Mackenzie' to keep her from quacking. Mrs.
-Prettyman has not been very well, poor dear, and is in bed. We've just
-talked about the lovely new home she's going to have, and the
-transplanted plum tree; small, but warranted to bear in a year or two
-and give plums and jam like this one. I left her so happy!"
-
-She stopped and looked up. "Oh! can any new tree be as beautiful as
-this one? Was ever anything in the world more exquisite? It has
-just come to its hour of perfection, Mr. Lavendar; it couldn't
-last,--anything so lovely in a passing world."
-
-She sat down on the low wall, and looked up at the tree. It stood and
-shone there in its perfect hour. Another day, and the blossoms, too
-fully blown, would begin to drift upon the ground with every little
-shaking wind; now it was at its zenith, a miracle of such white beauty
-that it caused the heart to stop and consider. Bees and butterflies
-hummed and flew around it; it cast a delicate shadow on the grass, and
-leaning across the wall it was imaged again in the river like a bride
-in her looking-glass.
-
-Robinette sat gazing at the tree, and Lavendar sat gazing at her. At
-that moment he "feared his fate too much" to break the silence by any
-question that might shatter his hope, as the first breeze would break
-the picture that had taken shape in the glassy water beneath them.
-
-"I feel in a better temper now," said Robinette. "Who could be angry,
-and look at that beautiful thing? I've left dear old Nurse quite happy
-again, and I haven't yet offended Aunt de Tracy irrevocably, and all
-because you persuaded me not to be unreasonable. All the same I could
-do it again in another minute if I let myself go. Doesn't injustice
-ever make people angry in England?"
-
-Lavendar laughed. "It often makes me feel angry, but I've never found
-that throwing the reins on the horses' necks when they wanted to
-bolt, made one go along the right road any faster in the end."
-
-"I often think," said Robinette, "if we could see people really angry
-and disagreeable before we--" She hesitated and added, "get to know
-them well, we should be so much more careful."
-
-"Yes," said Mark, bending down his head and speaking very deliberately,
-"that's why I wish you could have seen me in all my worst moments.
-I'd stand the shame of it, if you could only know, but, alas, one
-can't show off one's worst moments to order; they must be hit upon
-unexpectedly."
-
-"I don't believe thirty years of life would teach one about some
-people--they are so _crevicey_," said Robinette musingly. She had
-risen and leaned against the plum tree for a moment, looking up
-through the white branches.
-
-Lavendar rose and stood beside her. "Thirty years--I shall be getting
-on to seventy in thirty years."
-
-A little gust of wind shook the tree; some petals came drifting down
-upon them, like white moths, like flakes of summer snow, a warning
-that the brief hour of perfection would soon be past ... and under it
-human creatures were talking about thirty years!
-
-
-
-
-XXI
-
-CARNABY CUTS THE KNOT
-
-
-That afternoon, Carnaby was having what he called "an absolutely
-mouldy time," and since his leave was running out and his remaining
-afternoons were few, he considered himself an injured individual.
-Robinette and Lavendar seemed for ever preoccupied either with each
-other or with some subject of discussion, the ins and outs of which
-they had not confided to him.
-
-"It's partly that blessed plum tree," he said to himself; "but of
-course they're spooning too. Very likely they're engaged by this time.
-Didn't I tell her she'd marry again? Well, if she must, it might as
-well be old Lavendar as anyone else. He's a decent chap, or he was,
-before he fell in love."
-
-Carnaby sighed. This effort of generosity towards his rival made him
-feel peculiarly disconsolate. He had fished and rowed on the river all
-the morning; he had ferreted; he had fed Rupert with a private
-preparation of rabbits which infallibly made him sick, the desired
-result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even
-success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to
-work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither
-Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's
-peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for himself how
-the land lay.
-
-"Why is Waller R. A. so keen on the plum tree?" he had enquired.
-
-"He wants to make a quartette of studies," answered Lavendar. "The
-Plum Tree in spring, summer, autumn, and winter."
-
-"What a rotten idea!" said Carnaby simply.
-
-"Far from rotten, my young friend, I can assure you!" Lavendar
-returned. "It will furnish coloured illustrations for countless
-summer numbers of the _Graphic_ and _The Lady's Pictorial_, and fill
-Waller R. A.'s pockets with gold, some of which will shortly filter in
-advance into the Stoke Revel banking account, we hope."
-
-"I'm not so sure about that!" said Carnaby; but he said it to himself,
-while aloud he only asked with much apparent innocence, "Waller R. A.
-wouldn't look at the cottage or the land without the plum tree, I
-suppose?"
-
-"Certainly not," Lavendar had answered. "The plum tree is safeguarded
-in the agreement as I'm sure no plum tree ever was before. Waller R.
-A.'s no fool!"
-
-Digesting this information and much else that he had gleaned, Carnaby
-now climbed to the top of a tree where he had a favourite perch, and
-did some serious and simple thinking.
-
-"It's a beastly shame," he said to himself, "to turn that old woman
-out of her cottage. Cousin Robin thinks it's a beastly shame, and
-what's more, Mark does, and he's a man, and a lawyer into the
-bargain."
-
-Carnaby thought remorsefully of a pot of jam which old Mrs. Prettyman
-had given him once to take back to college. What good jam it had
-been, and how large the pot! He had never given her anything--he had
-never a penny to bless himself with; and now his grandmother was
-taking away from the poor old creature all that she had. "It's
-regular covetousness," he thought, "and that infernal plum tree's at
-the bottom of it all. Naboth's vineyard is a joke in comparison, and
-What's-his-name and the one ewe lamb simply aren't in it." He grew
-hot with mortification. Then he reflected, "If the plum tree weren't
-there, Waller R. A. wouldn't want the cottage, and old Mrs. Prettyman
-could live in it till the end of the chapter." A slow grin dawned upon
-his face, its most mischievous expression, the one which Rupert with
-canine sagacity had learned to dread. He felt and pinched the
-muscle of his arm fondly. (_Mussle_ he always spelled the word
-himself, upon phonetic principles.)
-
-"I may be a fool and a minor" (generally spelt _miner_ by him), he
-said, as he climbed down from his perch, "but at least I can cut down
-a tree!"
-
-He became lost to view forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds
-attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged,
-furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search
-for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant
-cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour
-with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. _Whirr_,
-_whirr_, _whirr_, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly--"_this
-is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that holds it_!"
-
-"You be goin' to do a bit of forestry on your own, Master Carnaby,
-eh?" suggested the grinning owner of the grindstone.
-
-"I am; a very particular bit, Jones!" replied the young master,
-lovingly feeling the edge of the tool, which was now nearly as fine as
-that of a razor.
-
-"You be careful, sir, as you don't chop off one of your own toes with
-that there axe," said the man. "It be full heavy for one o' your age.
-But there! you zailor-men be that handy! 'Tis your trade, so to
-speak!"
-
-"Quite right, Jones, it is!" replied Carnaby. "Good-afternoon and
-thank you for the use of the grindstone." He was already planning
-where he would hide the axe, for he had precise ideas about everything
-and left nothing to chance.
-
-Carnaby went to bed that night at his usual hour. His profession had
-already accustomed him to awaking at odd intervals, and he had more
-than the ordinary boy's knowledge of moon and tide, night and dawn.
-When he slipped out of bed after a few hours of sound sleep, he put on
-a flannel shirt and trousers and a broad belt, and then, carrying his
-boots in his hand, crept out of his room and through the sleeping
-house. He would much rather have climbed out of the window, in a
-manner more worthy of such an adventure, but his return in that
-fashion might offer dangers in daylight. So he was content with an
-unfrequented garden door which he could leave on the latch.
-
-The moon, which had been young when she lighted the lovers in the
-mud-bank adventure, was now a more experienced orb and shed a useful
-light. Carnaby intended to cross the river in a small tub which was
-propelled by a single oar worked at the stern, the rower standing.
-This craft was intended for pottering about the shore; to cross the
-river in it was the dangerous feat of a skilled waterman, but Carnaby
-had a knack of his own with every floating thing. As he balanced
-himself in the rocking tub, bare-headed, bare-necked, bare-armed,
-paddling with the grace and ease of strength and training, he looked
-a man, but a man young with the youth of the gods. The moon shone in
-his keen grey eyes and made them sparkle. A cold sea-wind blew up the
-river, but he did not feel its chill, for blood hot with adventure
-raced in his veins.
-
-Wittisham was in profound darkness when he landed, and the moon having
-gone behind a bank of cloud, he had to grope his way to Mrs.
-Prettyman's cottage, shouldering the axe. The isolated position of the
-house alone made the adventure possible, he reflected; he could not
-have cut down a tree in the hearing of neighbours, and as to old
-Elizabeth herself, he hoped she was deaf. Most old women were, he
-reflected, except unfortunately his grandmother!
-
-Soon he was entering the little garden and sniffing the scent of
-blossom, which was very strong in the night air. He could see the dim
-outline of the plum tree, and just as he wanted light, the moon came
-out and shone upon its whiteness, giving a sort of spiritual beauty
-to the flowering thing that was very exquisite.
-
-"What price, Waller R. A. now?" thought Carnaby impishly. "The plum
-tree in moonlight! eh? Wouldn't he give his eyes to see it! But he
-won't! Not if I know it!" The boy was as blind to the tree's beauty as
-his grandmother had been, but he had scientific ideas how to cut it
-down, for he had watched the felling of many a tree.
-
-First, standing on a lower branch, you lopped off all the side shoots
-as high as you could reach. This made the trunk easy to deal with, and
-its fall less heavy, and Carnaby set to work.
-
-"She goes through them all as slick as butter!" he said to himself in
-high satisfaction. The axe had assumed a personality to him and was
-"she," not "it." "She makes no more noise than a pair of scissors
-cutting flowers; not half so much!" he said proudly. Branch after
-branch fell down and lay about the tree like the discarded garments of
-a bathing nymph. The petals fell upon Carnaby's face, upon his hair
-and shoulders; he was a white figure as he toiled. Frightened birds
-and bats flew about, but he did not notice them. His only care was the
-cottage itself and its inmate. If _she_ should awake! But the little
-habitation, shrouded in thatch and deep in shadow, was dark and silent
-as the grave.
-
-"She must be sound asleep and deaf," thought the boy. "Yes, very
-deaf." He paused. The first stage in his task was accomplished.
-Shivering and naked, one absurd tuft of blossom and leaves at the
-tip--the murdered tree now stood in the moonlight, imploring the _coup
-de grâce_ which should end its shame.
-
-"Jolly well done," said the murderer complacently. He stretched his
-arms, looked at the palms of his hands to see if they had blistered,
-and addressed himself to the second part of his business. Thud! thud!
-went the axe on the trunk of the tree, and the sweat broke out all
-over Carnaby's skin, not with exertion but with nervous terror.
-
-"If that doesn't wake the dead!" he thought--but there was no awaking
-in the cottage. Its tiny window blinked in the moonlight, and Carnaby
-thought he heard the drowsy quack of a duck in an out-house. But the
-danger passed. Thud! went the axe again. The slim severed shaft of the
-tree was poised a moment, motionless, erect before it fell. Then it
-subsided gently among its broken and trodden boughs, and Carnaby's
-task was done.
-
-
-
-
-XXII
-
-CONSEQUENCES
-
-
-Early that morning before the sun had risen, when the light was still
-grey in the coming dawn, Robinette was awakened by a bird that called
-out from a tree close to her open window, every note like the striking
-of a golden bell. She jumped up and looked out, but the little singer,
-silenced, had flown away. Instead, she caught sight of a figure
-stealing across the lawn towards the side door which opened from the
-library. Even in the dim light she could distinguish that it was
-Carnaby, Carnaby with something in his hand. What he carried she could
-not quite make out, but the sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled
-up above his elbows in a fatally business-like way, and he walked with
-an air of stealth.
-
-"What mischief can that boy have been up to at this time of day?"
-thought Robinette as she lay down again, but she was too sleepy to
-wonder long.
-
-She forgot all about it until she saw Carnaby at the breakfast table
-some hours later. Sometimes the gloom of that meal--never a favorite
-or convivial one in the English household, and most certainly neither
-at Stoke Revel--would be enlivened by some of the boy's pranks. He
-would pass over to the sideboard, pepper-pot slyly in hand, and
-Rupert, whose meal at this hour consisted of grape-nuts and cream,
-would unaccountably sneeze and snuffle over his plate.
-
-"Bless it, Bobs!" his tormentor would exclaim tenderly. "Is it
-catching cold? Poor old Kitchener! Hi! _Kitch!_ _Kitch!_" (like a
-violent sneeze) and the outraged Rupert would forget grape-nuts and
-pepper alike in a fit of impotent fury. But this morning the dog fed
-in peace and Carnaby never glanced at him or his basin. Robinette,
-looking at the boy and remembering where she had seen him last,
-noticed that he was rather silent, that his cheeks were redder than
-common, and that under his eyes were lines of fatigue not usually
-there.
-
-"What were you doing on the lawn at four o'clock this morning?" she
-began, but checked herself, suddenly thinking that if Carnaby had been
-up to mischief she must not allude to it before his grandmother.
-
-No one had heard her. The meal dragged on. Robinette and Lavendar
-talked little. Miss Smeardon was preoccupied with the sufferings and
-the moods of Rupert. Mrs. de Tracy alone seemed in better spirits than
-usual; she was talkative and even balmy.
-
-"The work at the spinney begins to-day," she observed complacently,
-addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an
-old copse and the planting of a new one--an improvement she had long
-planned, though hitherto in vain. "The young trees have arrived."
-
-"But where is the money to come from?" enquired Carnaby suddenly, in
-a sepulchral tone. (His voice was at the disagreeable breaking stage,
-an agony and a shame to himself and always a surprise to others.) His
-grandmother stared: the others, too, looked in astonishment at the
-boy's red face.
-
-"I thought it had all been explained to you, Carnaby," said Mrs. de
-Tracy, "but you take so little interest in the estate that I suppose
-what you have been told went in at one ear and out at the other, as
-usual! It is the sale of land at Wittisham which makes these
-improvements possible, advantages drawn from a painful necessity," and
-the iron woman almost sighed.
-
-"There won't be any sale of land at Wittisham,--at least, not of Mrs.
-Prettyman's cottage," said Carnaby abruptly.
-
-"It is practically settled. The transfers only remain to be signed;
-you know that, Carnaby," said Lavendar curtly. He did not wish the
-vexed question to be raised again at a meal.
-
-"It _was_ practically settled--but it's all off now," said the boy,
-looking hard at his grandmother. "Waller R. A. won't want the place
-any more. The bloomin' plum tree's gone--cut down. The bargain's off,
-and old Mrs. Prettyman can stay on in her cottage as long as she
-likes!"
-
-There was a freezing silence, broken only by the stertorous breathing
-of Rupert on Miss Smeardon's lap.
-
-"Repeat, please, what you have just said, Carnaby," said his
-grandmother with dangerous calmness, "and speak distinctly."
-
-"I said that the cottage at Wittisham won't be sold because the plum
-tree's gone," repeated Carnaby doggedly. "It's been cut down."
-
-"How do you know?"
-
-"I've seen it." Carnaby raised his eyes. "I cut it down myself," he
-added, "this morning before daylight."
-
-"Who put such a thing into your head?" Mrs. de Tracy's words were ice:
-her glance of suspicion at Robinette, like the cold thrust of steel.
-"Who told you to cut the plum tree down?"
-
-"My conscience!" was Carnaby's unexpected reply. He was as red as
-fire, but his glance did not falter. Mrs. de Tracy rose. Not a muscle
-of her face had moved.
-
-"Whatever your action has been, Carnaby," she said with dignity--"whether
-foolish and disgraceful, or criminal and dangerous, it cannot be
-discussed here. You will follow me at once to the library, and
-presently I may send for Mark. A lawyer's advice will probably be
-necessary," she added grimly.
-
-Carnaby said not a word. He opened the door for his grandmother and
-followed her out; but as he passed Robinette, he looked at her
-earnestly, half expecting her applause; for one of the motives in his
-boyish mind had certainly been to please her--to shine in her eyes as
-the doer of bold deeds and to avenge her nurse's wrongs. And all that
-he had managed was to make her cry!
-
-For Robinette had put her elbows on the table and had covered her eyes
-with her hands. As he left the room, Carnaby could hear her
-exclamation:--
-
-"To cut down that tree! That beautiful, beautiful, fruitful thing! O!
-how could anyone do it?"
-
-So this was justice; this was all he got for his pains! How
-unaccountable women were!
-
-Lavendar awaited some time his summons to join Mrs. de Tracy and her
-grandson in what seemed to him must be a portentous interview enough,
-trying meanwhile somewhat unsuccessfully to console Mrs. Loring for
-the destruction of the plum tree, and exchanging with her somewhat
-awe-struck comments on the scene they had both just witnessed. No
-summons came, however; but half an hour later, he came across Carnaby
-alone, and an interview promptly ensued. He wanted to plumb the depth
-of the boy-mind and to learn exactly what motives had prompted
-Carnaby to this sudden and startling action in the matter of the plum
-tree.
-
-"Had you a bad quarter of an hour with your grandmother?" was his
-first question. Carnaby, he thought, looked subdued, and not much
-wonder.
-
-The boy hesitated.
-
-"Not so bad as I expected," was his answer. "The old lady was
-wonderfully decent, for her. She gave me a talking to, of course."
-
-"I should hope so!" interpolated Lavendar drily.
-
-"She jawed away about our poverty," continued Carnaby. "She's got
-that on the brain, as you know. She said that this loss of the
-money--Waller R. A.'s money, she means, of course--is an awful blow.
-She _said_ it was, but it seemed to me--" Carnaby paused, looking
-extremely puzzled.
-
-"It seemed to you--?" prompted Lavendar encouragingly.
-
-"That she wasn't so awfully cut up, after all," said Carnaby. "She
-seemed putting it on, if you know what I mean." Lavendar pricked up
-his ears. Mrs. de Tracy's intense reluctance to sell the land recurred
-to him in a flash. To get her consent had been like drawing a tooth,
-like taking her life-blood drop by drop. Could it be that she was not
-very sorry after all that the scheme had fallen through, secretly
-glad, indeed? It was conceivable that this was Mrs. de Tracy's view,
-but her grandson's motive was still obscure.
-
-"Why did you do it, Carnaby?" Lavendar asked with kindness and gravity
-both in his voice. "You have committed a very mischievous action, you
-know, one that would have borne a harsher name had the transfers been
-signed and had the plum tree changed hands."
-
-"But then I shouldn't have done it--you--you juggins, Mark!" cried the
-boy. "I've no earthly grudge against Waller R. A. If he'd actually
-bought the tree, it would have been too late, and his beastly
-money--"
-
-"You need the money, you know," remarked Lavendar. "Remember that, my
-young friend!"
-
-"It would have been dirty money!" said Carnaby, with a sudden
-flash that lit up his rather heavy face with a new expression.
-"You and Cousin Robin have been jolly polite when you thought I was
-listening, but _I_ know what you really thought, and the kind of
-things you were saying to one another about this business! You
-thought it beastly mean to take the cottage away from old Lizzie
-in the way it was being done, and sheer robbery to deprive her of
-the plum tree without paying her for it. I quite agreed with you
-there, and if I felt like that, do you think I could sit still and
-let the money come in to Stoke Revel--money that had been got in
-such a way? What do you take me for?" Lavendar was silent, looking
-at the boy in surprise. "Oh," continued Carnaby, "how I wish I were
-of age! Then I could show Cousin Robin, perhaps, what an English
-landlord can be! I mean that he can be a friend to his tenants, and
-kind and generous as well as just. As it is, Cousin Robin will go
-back to America and tell her friends what selfish brutes we are
-over here, and how jolly glad she was to get away!"
-
-"Mrs. Loring will carry no tales, I am sure," said Lavendar. "But tell
-me, my dear fellow, did you imagine that Mrs. Prettyman would be a
-gainer by your action?"
-
-"Well, why not?" answered the boy. "Didn't you tell me yourself that
-Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage without the tree? What's to
-prevent the old woman living on where she is? Do you think there'll be
-a rush of new tenants for that precious old hovel? Go on! You know
-better than that!"
-
-"But the tree, Carnaby, the plum tree!" cried Lavendar. "My young
-Goth, hadn't you a moment's compunction? That beautiful, flowering
-thing, as your cousin called it; could you destroy it without a
-pang?"
-
-"The _tree_?" echoed Carnaby with unmeasured scorn. "What's a tree?
-It's just a tree, isn't it?"
-
- "A primrose by a river's brim
- A yellow primrose was to him,
- And it was nothing more!"
-
-quoted Mark, despairingly.
-
-"Well; and what more did he expect of a primrose, whoever the Johnny
-was?" asked the contemptuous Carnaby.
-
-"At any rate," commented Lavendar, "it isn't necessary to search as
-far as Peter Bell for an analogy for your character, my young friend!
-You are your grandmother's grandson after all!"
-
-"In some ways I suppose I can't help being," answered Carnaby soberly,
-"but not in all," he added, and suddenly turning red he fumbled in his
-pocket and produced a coin which he held out to Lavendar. "It's only
-ten bob," he said apologetically, "and I wish it was a jolly sight
-more! But please give it to old Mrs. Prettyman to make up a bit for
-the loss of her plums. Daresay I'll manage some more by and by.
-Anyway, I'll make it up to her when I come of age.--I'm nearly sixteen
-already, you know. Be sure you tell her that!"
-
-But Lavendar refused to take the money.
-
-"Mrs. Prettyman is provided for, my boy," he said. "She has become
-your cousin's especial care. You need have no fear about that. The
-poor old woman is very happy and will have a cottage more suited for
-her rheumatism and her general feebleness than the present one. But I
-think your cousin will understand your motives and believe that you
-meant well by old Lizzie in your little piece of midnight madness."
-
-"Though I was a bit rough on the plum tree!" said Carnaby, with a
-broad smile.
-
-"You think it's a laughing matter?" Lavendar asked indignantly. "I
-wish you had my father to deal with, and Waller R. A.! It's all very
-well for you."
-
-But Carnaby only laughed. The blood was still hot in his veins, and
-the joy of his night's adventure. Mark told him that he and Mrs.
-Loring were crossing the river at once to see for themselves the
-extent of his mischief and what effect it had had upon old Mrs.
-Prettyman. Carnaby observed with diabolical meaning that as he had not
-been invited to join the party, he would make himself scarce.
-Gooseberries, he said, were very good fruit, but he wasn't fond of
-them; so he lounged off with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly he
-turned. "See here, old Mark! You'll speak a word for me with Cousin
-Robin, won't you? It's hard on me to have her hate me when I was
-trying to do my best to please her."
-
-"She won't hate you; she couldn't hate anybody," said Lavendar
-absently, watching first the door and then the window.
-
-"You say that because you're in love with her! I've a couple of eyes
-in my head, stupid as you all think me. You can deny it all you like,
-but you won't convince me!"
-
-"I shan't deny it, Carnaby. I am so much in love with her at this
-moment that the room is whirling round and round and I can see two of
-you!"
-
-"Poor old Mark! Do you think she'll take you on?"
-
-"Can't say, Carnaby!"
-
-"You're a lucky beggar if she does; that's my opinion!" said the boy.
-
-"Put it as strong as you like, Carnaby," Lavendar answered. "You can't
-exaggerate my feelings on that subject!"
-
-"If you hadn't fifteen years' start of me I'd give you a run for your
-money!" exclaimed Carnaby with a daring look.
-
-
-
-
-XXIII
-
-DEATH AND LIFE
-
-
-While these incidents were taking place at the Manor House, village
-life at Wittisham had been stirring for hours. Thin blue threads of
-smoke were rising from the other cottages into the windless air: only
-from Nurse Prettyman's there was none. Duckie in the out-house quacked
-and gabbled as she had quacked and gabbled since the light began, yet
-no one came to let her out and feed her. The halfpenny jug of milk had
-been placed on the doorstep long ago, but Mrs. Prettyman had not yet
-opened the door to take it in.
-
-Outside in the garden, where the plum tree stood yesterday, there was
-now only a stump, hacked and denuded, and round about it a ruin of
-broken branches, leaves, and scattered blossoms. Over the wreck the
-bees were busy still, taking what they could of the honey that
-remained; and in the air was the strong odour of juicy green wood and
-torn bark.
-
-The children who brought the milk were the first to discover what had
-happened, and very soon the news spread amongst the other cottagers.
-Then came two neighbours to the scene, wondering and exclaiming. They
-went to the door, but Mrs. Prettyman did not answer their knock or
-their calling. Mrs. Darke looked in through the tiny window.
-
-"She be sleepin' that peaceful in 'er bed in there," she said, "it 'ud
-be a shame to wake 'er. She's deaf now, and belike she never 'eard the
-tree come down, 'ooever's done it. But I'll go and see after Duckie:
-she's makin' noise enough to rouse 'er, anyway."
-
-Then Duckie was released and fed and departed to gabble her wrongs to
-the other white ducks that were preening themselves amongst the deep
-green grass of the adjacent orchard.
-
-"You can 'ear that bird a mile away--she's never done talking!" said
-Mrs. Darke as the indignant gabble grew fainter in the distance. "But
-'ere's my old man a-come to look at the plum tree. Wonder what he'll
-say to it? This be a queer job, sure enough!"
-
-Old Darke, on two sticks, hobbled towards the scene of desolation with
-grunts of mingled satisfaction and dismay. 'Twas a rare sensation,
-though a pity, to be sure!
-
-Mrs. Darke stood by the well at the turn of the road, keeping a sharp
-eye on the cottage while she gossiped with the neighbour who was
-filling her pitcher. She did not want to miss the sight of Mrs.
-Prettyman's face when she opened her door and found out what had
-happened.
-
-"She be sleepin' too long; I'll go and waken her in a minute," said
-Mrs. Darke. "'Tis but right she should be told what's come to 'er
-tree, poor thing."
-
-Then a beggar woman selling bootlaces came along the shore of the
-river; she mounted the cottage steps and the gossips watched her
-trailing up the pathway in her loose old shoes, and knocking at the
-door. She waited for a few minutes: there was no answer, so she turned
-away resignedly and trailed off along the sun-lit lane, in-shore,
-leaving the garden gate swinging to and fro.
-
-"There's summat the matter!" Mrs. Darke had just whispered with
-evident enjoyment, when some one else was seen approaching the cottage
-from the direction of the pier. It was the young lady from the Manor,
-this time. She wore a white dress and a green scarf, and her face was
-tinted with colour. She looked like a young blossoming tree herself,
-all lacy white and pale green, a strange morning vision in a
-work-a-day world! Robinette ran quickly up the pathway and knocked at
-the door, but there was no answer to her knock. She called out in her
-clear voice:--
-
-"Good morning, Nurse! Good morning! Aren't you ready to let me in?
-It's quite late!" But there was no answer to her call. She was just
-trying to open the door, which seemed to be locked, when a gentleman
-came up from the boat and followed her to the cottage. That, the women
-who were watching her thought quite natural, for surely such a young
-lady would be followed by a lover wherever she went! Indeed, Mrs.
-Darke said so.
-
-"'Tis in that there kind," she observed philosophically, "like the
-cuckoo and the bird that follows; never sees one wi'out the other!"
-
-"'Tis quite that way, Mrs. Darke," agreed the neighbour, approvingly.
-
-Robinette turned a white face to Lavendar as he approached.
-
-"Nurse won't answer, and I can't get in!" she cried. "Something must
-have happened. I--I'm afraid to go in alone. The door is locked,
-too."
-
-"It's not locked," said Lavendar, and exerting a little strength, he
-pushed it open and gave a quick glance inside. "I'll go in first," he
-said gently. "Wait here."
-
-He came again to the threshold in a few minutes, a peculiar expression
-on his face which somehow seemed to tell Robinette what had happened.
-
-"Come in, Mrs. Robin," he said very gravely and gently. "You need not
-be afraid."
-
-Robinette instinctively held out her hand to him and they entered the
-little room together.
-
-She need not have feared for the old woman's distress over the ruined
-plum tree, for nothing would ever grieve Nurse Prettyman again. Just
-as she had lain down the night before, she lay upon her bed now,
-having passed away in her sleep. "And they that encounter Death in
-sleep," says the old writer, "go forth to meet him with desire." The
-aged face was turned slightly upwards and wore a look of contentment
-and repose that made life seem almost gaudy; a cheap thing to compare
-with this attainment....
-
-Robinette came out of the cottage a little later, leaving the
-neighbours who had gathered in the room to their familiar and not
-uncongenial duties. She went into the garden, where Mark Lavendar
-awaited her. He longed to try to comfort her; indeed, his whole heart
-ran out to her in a warmth and passion that astounded him; but her
-pale face, stained with weeping, warned him to keep silence yet a
-little while.
-
-"I just came for one branch of the blossom," Robinette said, "if it is
-not all withered. Yes, this is quite fresh still." She took a little
-spray he had found for her and stood holding it as she spoke. "Only
-yesterday it was all so lovely! Oh! Mr. Lavendar, I needn't cry for my
-old Nurse, I'm sure! How should I, after seeing her face? She had come
-to the end of her long life, and she was very tired, and now all that
-is forgotten, and she will never have a moment of vexation about her
-tree. I don't know why I should cry for her; but oh, how could
-Carnaby destroy that beautiful thing!"
-
-"It was a genuine though mistaken act of conscience! You must not be
-too hard on Carnaby!" pleaded Lavendar. "He would not touch the money
-that was to come from the sale of Mrs. Prettyman's cottage under the
-circumstances, so it seemed best to him that the sale should not take
-place, and he prevented it in the directest and simplest way that
-occurred to him. It's like some of the things that men have done to
-please God, Mrs. Robin," Mark added, smiling, "and thought they were
-doing it, too! But Carnaby only wanted to please you!"
-
-"To _please_ me!" exclaimed Robinette, looking round her at the ruin
-before them. "Oh dear!" she sighed, "how confusing the world is, at
-times! I am just going to take this snowy branch and lay it on Nurse's
-pillow. She so loved her tree! See; it's quite fresh and beautiful,
-and the dew still upon it, just like tears!"
-
-"That seemed just right," said Robinette softly as she came out into
-the sunshine again, a few minutes later. "I laid the blossoms in her
-kind old tired hands, the hands that have known so much work and so
-many pains. It is over, and after all, her new home is better than any
-I could have found for her!"
-
-The two walked slowly down the little garden on their way to the gate.
-As they passed, old Mr. Darke, who had hobbled around again to have
-another look at the fallen tree, addressed Lavendar solemnly.
-
-"Best tree in Wittisham 'e was, sir," touching the ruin of the
-branches as he spoke. "'Ooever could ha' thought o' sich a piece of
-wickedness as to cut 'im down? Murder, I calls it! 'Tis well as Mrs.
-Prettyman be gone to 'er rest wi'out knowledge of it; 'twould 'ave
-broken her old 'eart, for certain sure!"
-
-"It nearly breaks mine to see it now, Mr. Darke!" said Robinette in a
-trembling voice. But the old labourer bent down, moving his creaking
-joints with difficulty and steadying himself upon his sticks till he
-could touch the stump of the tree with his rough but skilful hands. He
-pushed away the long grass that grew about the roots and looked up at
-Robinette with a wise old smile.
-
-"'Tisn't dead and done for yet, Missy, never fear!" he said. "Give 'im
-time; give 'im time! 'E's cut above the graft--see! 'E'll grow and
-shoot and bear blossom and fruit same as ever 'e did, given time. See
-to the fine stock of 'im; firm as a rock in the good ground! And the
-roots, they be sound and fresh. 'E'll grow again, Missy; never you
-cry!"
-
-Robinette looked so beautiful as she lifted her luminous eyes and
-parted lips to old Darke, and then turned to him with a gesture of
-hope and joy, that again Lavendar could hardly keep from avowing his
-love; but the remembrance of the old nurse's still shape in the little
-cottage hushed the words that trembled on his lips.
-
-
-
-
-XXIV
-
-GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON
-
-
-The disagreeable duty of announcing Mrs. Prettyman's death to the lady
-of the Manor now lay before Lavendar and his companion, and the
-thought of it weighed upon their spirits as they crossed the river.
-Carnaby also must be told. How would he take it? Robinette, still
-under the shock of the plum tree's undoing, expected perhaps some
-further exhibition of youthful callousness, but Lavendar knew better.
-
-In their concern and sorrow, the young couple had forgotten all minor
-matters such as meals, and luncheon had long been over when they
-reached the house. They could see Mrs. de Tracy's figure in the
-drawing room as they passed the windows, occupying exactly her usual
-seat in her usual attitude. It was her hour for reading and
-disapproving of the daily paper.
-
-Robinette and Lavendar entered quietly, but nothing in the gravity of
-their faces struck Mrs. de Tracy as strange.
-
-"I have a disturbing piece of news to give you," Mark began, clearing
-his throat. "Mrs. Prettyman died last night in her cottage at
-Wittisham."
-
-The erect figure in the widow's weeds remained motionless. Perhaps the
-old hand that lowered the newspaper trembled somewhat, so that its
-diamonds quivered a little more than usual.
-
-"So Mrs. Prettyman is dead?" she said. Then, as the young people stood
-looking at her with an air of some expectancy, she added with a sour
-glance, "Do you expect me to be very much agitated by the news?"
-
-"The death was unexpected," began Lavendar lamely.
-
-"She was seventy-five; my age!" said Mrs. de Tracy with a wintry
-smile. "Is death at seventy-five so unexpected an event?"
-
-Lavendar said nothing; he had nothing to say, and Robinette for
-the same reason was silent. She was gazing at her aunt, almost
-unconsciously, with a wondering look. "At any rate," continued Mrs.
-de Tracy, addressing her niece, "your _protégée_ has been fortunate
-in two ways, Robinette. She will neither be turned out of her
-cottage nor see the destruction of her plum tree. By the way--"
-with a perfectly natural change of tone, dismissing at once both
-Mrs. Prettyman and Death--"the plum tree _is_ down, I suppose? You
-saw it?"
-
-"Very much down!" answered Lavendar. "And certainly we saw it! Carnaby
-does nothing by halves!"
-
-A slight change, a kind of shade of softening, passed over Mrs. de
-Tracy's stern features, as the shadow of a summer cloud may pass over
-a rocky hill. She turned suddenly to Robinette. "Can you tell me on
-your word of honour that you had nothing to do with Carnaby's action;
-that you did not put it into his head to cut the plum tree down!"
-
-"I?" exclaimed Robinette, scarlet with indignation. "_I?_ Why--do you
-want to know what I think of the action? I think it was perfectly
-brutal, and the boy who did it next door to a criminal! There!"
-
-Mrs. de Tracy seemed convinced by the energy of this disclaimer. "I
-have always considered yours a very candid character," she observed
-with condescension. "I believe you when you say that you did not
-influence Carnaby in the matter, though I strongly suspected you
-before."
-
-"Well, upon my word!" ejaculated Robinette when they had got out of
-the room, too completely baffled to be more original. "What does she
-mean? Has any one ever understood the workings of Aunt de Tracy's
-mind?"
-
-"Don't come to me for any more explanations! I've done my best for my
-client!" cried Lavendar. "I give up my brief! I always told you Mrs.
-de Tracy's character was entirely singular."
-
-"Let us hope so!" commented Robinette with energy. "I should be sorry
-for the world if it were plural!"
-
- * * * * *
-
-Carnaby was not in the house, and Lavendar proceeded to look for him
-out of doors. He knew the boy was often to be found in a high part of
-the grounds behind the garden, where he had some special resort of his
-own, and he went there first. The afternoon had clouded over, and a
-slight shower was falling, as Mark followed the wooded path leading up
-hill. A rock-garden bordered it, where ferns and flowers were growing,
-each one of which seemed to be contributing some special and delicate
-fragrance to the damp, warm air. The beech trees here had low and
-spreading branches which framed now and again exquisite glimpses of
-the river far below and the wooded hills beyond it.
-
-Lavendar had not gone far when he found Carnaby, Carnaby intensely
-perturbed, walking up and down by himself.
-
-"You don't need to tell me!" said the boy, with a quick and agitated
-gesture of the hand. "Bates told me. Old Mrs. Prettyman's dead!" His
-merry, square-set face was changed and looked actually haggard, and
-his eyes searched Lavendar's with an expression oddly different from
-their usual fearless and straightforward one. They seemed afraid. "Was
-it my grandmother's--was it our fault?" he asked. "I, I feel like a
-murderer. Upon my soul, I do!"
-
-"Don't encourage morbid ideas, my dear fellow!" said Lavendar in a
-matter-of-fact tone. "There's trouble enough in the world without
-foolish exaggeration. Mrs. Prettyman was 'grave-ripe,' as she often
-said to your cousin; a very feeble old woman, whose time had come. The
-doctor's certificate will tell you how rheumatism had affected her
-heart, and the neighbours would very soon set your mind at rest by
-describing the number of times poor old Lizzie had nearly died
-before."
-
-"Think of it, though!" said Carnaby with wondering eyes. "Think of her
-lying dead in the cottage while I hacked and hewed at the plum tree
-just outside! By Jove! it makes a fellow feel queer!" He shuddered.
-The picture he evoked was certainly a strange one enough: a strange
-picture in the moonlight of a night in spring; the doomed beauty of
-the blossoming tree, the blind, headstrong human energy working for
-its destruction, and Death over all, stealthy and strong!
-
-"What an ass I was!" said Carnaby, summing up the situation in the
-only language in which he could express himself. "Sweating and stewing
-and hacking away--thinking myself so awfully clever! And all the time
-things ... things were being arranged in quite a different manner!"
-
-"We are often made to feel our insignificance in ways like this,"
-said Lavendar. "We are very small atoms, Carnaby, in the path of the
-great forces that sweep us on."
-
-"I should rather think so!" assented the wondering boy. "And yet, can
-a fellow sit tight all the time and just wait till things happen?"
-
-"Ask me something else!" suggested Lavendar ironically.
-
-There was a short pause. "I'm awfully sorry old Mrs. Prettyman's
-dead," Carnaby said in a very subdued tone. "I meant to do a lot for
-her, to try and make up for my grandmother's being such a beast." He
-stopped short, and to Lavendar's astonishment, his face worked, and
-two tears squeezed themselves out of his eyes and rolled over his
-round cheeks as they might have done over a baby's. "It's the j-jam I
-was thinking of," he sniffed. "Once a pal of mine and I were playing
-the fool in old Mrs. Prettyman's garden, pretending to steal the
-plums, and giving her duck bits of bread steeped in beer to make it
-s-squiffy (a duck can be just as drunk as a chap). She didn't mind a
-bit. She was a regular old brick, and gave us a jolly good tea and a
-pot of jam to take away.... And now she's dead and--and...." Carnaby's
-feelings became too much for him again, and a handkerchief that had
-seen better and much cleaner days came into play. Lavendar flung an
-arm round the boy's shoulder.
-
-"This kind of regret comes to us all, Carnaby," he said. "I don't
-suppose there's a man with a heart in his breast who hasn't sometime
-had to say to himself, I might have done better: I might have been
-kinder: it's too late now! But it's never too late!" added Lavendar
-under his breath--"not where Love is!"
-
-The shower was over, and though the sun had not come out, a pleasant
-light lay upon the river as the friends walked down; upon the river
-beyond which old Lizzie Prettyman was sleeping so peacefully, the
-sleep of kings and beggars, and just and unjust, and rich and poor
-alike. Carnaby had dried his eyes but continued in a pensive mood.
-
-"Cousin Robin's still angry with me about the tree," he said,
-uncertainly.
-
-"She won't be angry long!" Lavendar assured him. "You and your Cousin
-Robin are going to be firm friends, friends for life."
-
-Carnaby seemed a good deal comforted. "Mind you don't tell her I
-blubbered!" he said in sudden alarm. "Swear!"
-
-"She wouldn't think a bit the worse of you for that!" said Lavendar.
-
-"Swear, though!" repeated Carnaby in deadly earnest.
-
-And Lavendar swore, of course.
-
- * * * * *
-
-But an influence very unlike Lavendar's and a spirit very different
-from Robinette's enfolded Carnaby de Tracy in his home and fought, as
-it were, for his soul. That night, after the last lamp had been put
-out by the careful Bates, and after Benson had bade a respectful
-good-night to her mistress, a light still burned in Mrs. de Tracy's
-room. Presently, carried in her hand, it flitted out along the silent
-passages, past rows of doors which were closed upon empty rooms or
-upon unconscious sleepers, till it came to Carnaby's door; to the
-Boys' Room, as that far-away and most unluxurious apartment had always
-been called. Mrs. de Tracy was making a pilgrimage to the shrine of
-one of her gods. She opened the door, and closing it gently behind
-her, she stood beside Carnaby's bed and looked at him, intently and
-haggardly.
-
-Mrs. de Tracy's was a singular character, as Mark Lavendar had said.
-The circumstances of her widowhood with its heavy responsibilities had
-perhaps hardly been fair to her. There had been little room for the
-kindlier and softer feelings, though it is to be feared that they
-would not have found much congenial soil in her heart. The personal
-selfishness in her had long been merged in the greater and harder
-selfishness of caste; she had become a mere machine for the keeping up
-of Stoke Revel.
-
-But to-night she was moved by the positively human sentiment which had
-been stirred in her by Carnaby's startling act of cutting the plum
-tree down. Ah! let fools believe if they could that she was angry with
-the boy! She had never felt anger less or pride more. While others
-talked and argued, shilly-shallied, made love, muddled and made
-mistakes, her grandson, the man of the race that always ruled, had cut
-the knot for himself, without hesitation and without compunction,
-without consulting anyone or asking anyone's leave. That was the way
-the de Tracys had always acted. And it seemed to Mrs. de Tracy a
-crowning coincidence, a fitting kind of poetical justice, that
-Carnaby's action should actually have prevented the sale of the land;
-that dreaded, detestable sale of the first land that the de Tracys
-had held upon the banks of the river.
-
-So, since Carnaby was to be a man of the right kind, his grandmother
-had come to look at him, not in love, as other women come to such
-bedsides, but in pride of heart. The boy, after his "white night" at
-Wittisham and the varied emotions of the succeeding day, lay on his
-side, in the deep, recuperative sleep of youth whence its energies are
-drawn and in which its vigors are renewed. His round cheek indented
-the pillow, his rumpled hair stirred in the breeze that blew in at the
-window, his arm and his open hand, relaxed, lay along the sheet.
-Another woman would have straightened the bed-clothes above him;
-another might have touched his hair or hand; another kissed his cheek.
-But not even because he was like her departed husband, like the man
-who five and fifty years before had courted a certain cold and proud,
-handsome and penniless Miss Augusta Gallup, would Mrs. de Tracy do
-these things. She had had her sensation, such as it was, her secret
-moment of emotion, and was satisfied. She left the room as she had
-come, the candle casting exaggerated shadows of herself upon the walls
-where Carnaby's bats and fishing rods and sporting prints hung.
-
-It is sad to be old as Mrs. de Tracy was old, but her age was of her
-own making, a shrinkage of the heart, a drying up of the wells of
-feeling that need not have been.
-
-"I should be better out of the way," her bitterness said within her,
-and alas! it was true. Her great, gaunt room seemed very lonely, very
-full of shadows when she returned to it. Rupert, who always slept at
-her bedside, awaited her. Disturbed at this unwonted hour, he stirred
-in his basket, wheezed and gurgled, turned round and round and could
-not get comfortable, whined, and looked up in his mistress's face. She
-stood watching him with a sort of grim pity, and, strangely enough,
-bestowed upon him the caress she had not found for her grandson.
-
-"Poor Rupert! You are getting too old, like your mistress! Your
-departure, like hers, will be a sorrow to no one!" Rupert seemed to
-wheeze an asthmatical consent, and presently he snuggled down in his
-basket and went to sleep.
-
-
-
-
-XXV
-
-THE BELLS OF STOKE REVEL
-
-
-On Sunday morning Robinette and Lavendar were both ready for church,
-by some strange coincidence, half an hour too soon. He was standing at
-the door as she came down into the hall. Mrs. de Tracy and Miss
-Smeardon were nowhere to be seen; even Carnaby was invisible, but the
-shrill, infuriated yelping of the Prince Charles from the drawing room
-indicated his whereabouts only too plainly.
-
-"We're much too early," said Robinette, glancing at the clock.
-
-"Shall we walk through the buttercup meadow, then--you and I?" asked
-Lavendar. His voice was low, and Robinette answered very softly. She
-wore a white dress that morning without a touch of colour.
-
-"I couldn't wear black to-day for Nurse," she said, in answer to his
-glance, "but I couldn't wear any colour, either."
-
-"You're as white as the plum tree was!" said Lavendar. "I remember
-thinking that it looked like a bride." Robinette made no reply. He
-ventured to look up at her as he spoke, and she was smiling although
-her lip quivered and her eyes were full of tears. Lavendar's heart
-beat uncomfortably fast as they walked through the meadow towards the
-stile which led into the churchyard.
-
-"It's too soon to go in yet," he said. "The bells haven't begun."
-
-"Let's stop here. It's cool in the shadow," said Robinette. She leaned
-on the wall and looked out at the shining reaches of the river. "The
-swelling of Jordan is over now," she said with a little smile and a
-sigh. "The tide has come up, and how quiet everything is!"
-
-The water mirrored the hills and the ships and the gracious sky above
-them. There was scarcely a sound in the air. At the point where they
-stood, the Manor House was hidden from view, and only the squat old
-tower of the church was visible, and the yew tree rising above the
-wall against the golden field. A bush of briar covered with white
-roses hung above them, just behind Robinette, and Lavendar looking at
-her in this English setting on an English Sunday morning, wondered to
-himself, as he had so often done before, if she could ever make this
-country her home.
-
-"Yet she has English blood as well as I," he thought. "Why, the very
-name on the old bells of the church there, records the memory of an
-ancestress of hers! We cannot be so far apart." Looking at her
-standing there, he rehearsed to himself all that he meant to say, oh,
-a great many things both true and eloquent, but at that moment every
-word forsook him. Yet this was probably the best opportunity he would
-have of telling her what was burning in his heart: telling her how she
-had beguiled him at first by her quick understanding and her
-frolicsome wit, because all that sort of thing was so new to him. She
-had come like a mountain spring to a thirsty man. He had been groping
-for inspiration and for help: now he seemed to find them all in her.
-She was so much more than charming, though it was her charm that first
-impressed him; so much more than pretty, though her face attracted him
-at first; so much more than magnetic, though she drew him to her at
-their first meeting with bonds as delicate as they were strong. These
-were tangible, vital, legitimate qualities--but were they all? Could
-lips part so, could eyes shine so, could voice tremble so, if there
-were not something underneath; a good heart, fidelity, warmth of
-nature?
-
-"For the first time," he thought, "I long to be worthy of a woman. But
-I would not tell her how I love her at this moment, unless I felt I
-need not be wholly unequal to her demands. I have never desired
-anything strongly enough to struggle for it, up to now; but she has
-set my springs in motion, and I can work for her until I die!"
-
-All this he thought, but never a word he said. Then the church clock
-struck and the clashing bells began. They shook the air, the earth,
-the ancient stones, the very nests upon the trees, and sent the rooks
-flying black as ink against the yellow buttercups in the meadow.
-
-"We must go, in a few minutes," said Robinette. "Oh, will you pull me
-some of those white roses up there?"
-
-Lavendar swung himself up and drawing down a bunch he pulled off two
-white buds.
-
-"Will you take them?" he asked, holding them out to her. Then suddenly
-he said, very low and very humbly, "Oh, take me too; take me,
-Robinette, though no man was ever so unworthy!"
-
-Robinette laid the roses on the wall beside her.
-
-"For my part," she said, turning to Lavendar with a little laugh that
-was half a sob; "for my part, I like giving better than taking!" She
-put both her hands in his and looked into his face. "Here is my
-life," she said simply. "I want to belong to you, to help you, to live
-by your side."
-
-"I oughtn't to take you at your word," he said, his voice choked with
-emotion. "You are far too good for me!"
-
-"Hush," Robinetta answered, putting a finger on his lip; "it isn't a
-question of how great you are or how wonderful: it's a question of
-what we can be to each other. I'd rather have you than the Duke of
-Wellington or Marcus Aurelius, and I believe you wouldn't change me
-for Helen of Troy!"
-
-"I have nothing to bring you, nothing," said Lavendar again, "nothing
-but my love and my whole heart."
-
-"If all the kingdoms of the earth were offered to me instead, I would
-still take you and what you give me," Robinette answered.
-
-Lavendar laid his cheek against her bright hair and sighed deeply. In
-that sigh there passed away all former things, and behold, all things
-became new. Two cuckoos answered each other from opposite banks of the
-river and two hearts sang songs of joy that met and mingled and
-floated upward.
-
-Again the bells broke out overhead, filling the air with music that
-had rung from them ever since just such another morning hundreds of
-years before, when they rang their first peal from the church tower,
-bearing the legend newly cut upon them: "Pray for the Soul of Anne de
-Tracy, 1538." And Anne de Tracy's memory was forgotten--so long
-forgotten--except for the bells that carried her name!
-
-Yet in these same meadows that she must have known, spring was come
-once more. The Devonshire plum trees had budded and blossomed and shed
-their petals year after year, and year after year, since the bells
-first swung in the air; and now Hope was born once again, and Youth,
-and Love, which is immortal!
-
-
-
-
-The Riverside Press
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-CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
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-REBECCA of SUNNYBROOK FARM
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-By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
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-the most lovable is Rebecca."--_Life, N. Y._
-
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-there."--_Philadelphia Item._
-
-"A character that is irresistible in her quaint, humorous
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-
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-Times._
-
-"Rebecca has come to stay with one for all time, and delight one
-perpetually, like Marjorie Fleming."--_Literary World, Boston._
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-Sinister,' Alfred Ollivant's 'Bob, Son of Battle,' and Jack London's
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-have been devised by the late Frank Stockton. It is a story that is
-well worth reading."--_New York Sun._
-
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-... written with a skilful and delicate touch."--_Springfield
-Republican._
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-water."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
-
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-Burnham._
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-Chronicle._
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-stood practically alone as a charmingly humorous interpreter of child
-life."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
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-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robinetta, by
-Kate Douglas Wiggin and Mary Findlater and Jane Findlater and Allan McAulay
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30090 ***
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30090 *** + +ROBINETTA + + + + +By Kate Douglas Wiggin + +ROBINETTA. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.10 net. Postage, 10 cents. + +REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM. Holiday Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + +SUSANNA AND SUE. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. Crown 8vo, $1.50 +net. Postage 15 cents. + +THE OLD PEABODY PEW. With decorations and illustrations. Large crown 8vo, +$1.50. + +REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM. 12mo, $1.25. + +NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 12mo, $1.25. + +ROSE O' THE RIVER. Illustrated in color. 12mo, 1.25. + +THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.25. + +THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00. + +A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP, AND PENELOPE'S ENGLISH EXPERIENCES. Illustrated. +16mo, $1.00. + +PENELOPE'S PROGRESS. 16mo, $1.25. + +PENELOPE'S IRISH EXPERIENCES. 16mo, $1.25. + +PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES. I. England; II. Scotland; III. Ireland; Holiday +Edition. With many illustrations by Charles E. Brock. 3 vols., each 12mo, +$2.00; the set, $6.00. + +A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP. Holiday Edition, enlarged. Illustrated by C. E. +Brock. 12mo, $1.50. + +THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 50 cents. + +THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 60 cents. + +A SUMMER IN A CAÑON. A California Story. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25. + +TIMOTHY'S QUEST. A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, who cares to read it. +16mo, $1.00. Holiday Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + +POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00. In Riverside School +Library. 60 cents, net; postpaid. + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 16mo, $1.00. + +MARM LISA. 16mo, $1.00. + +NINE LOVE SONGS, AND A CAROL. Music by Mrs. Wiggin. Words by Herrick, +Sill, and others. Square 8vo, $1.25. + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +Boston and New York + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +ROBINETTA + +by + +Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Mary Findlater + +Jane Findlater + +Allan McAulay + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +Houghton Mifflin Company + +The Riverside Press, Cambridge + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1910 AND 1911, BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +Published February 1911 + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE PLUM TREE 1 + II. THE MANOR HOUSE 7 + III. YOUNG MRS. LORING 19 + IV. A CHILLY RECEPTION 29 + V. AT WITTISHAM 39 + VI. MARK LAVENDAR 54 + VII. A CROSS-EXAMINATION 69 + VIII. SUNDAY AT STOKE REVEL 87 + IX. POINTS OF VIEW 99 + X. A NEW KINSMAN 113 + XI. THE SANDS AT WESTON 127 + XII. LOVE IN THE MUD 151 + XIII. CARNABY TO THE RESCUE 170 + XIV. THE EMPTY SHRINE 181 + XV. "NOW LUBIN IS AWAY" 194 + XVI. TWO LETTERS 210 + XVII. MRS. DE TRACY CROSSES THE FERRY 217 + XVIII. THE STOKE REVEL JEWELS 234 + XIX. LAWYER AND CLIENT 250 + XX. THE NEW HOME 260 + XXI. CARNABY CUTS THE KNOT 273 + XXII. CONSEQUENCES 284 + XXIII. DEATH AND LIFE 299 + XXIV. GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON 309 + XXV. THE BELLS OF STOKE REVEL 324 + + + + +ROBINETTA + +I + +THE PLUM TREE + + +At Wittisham several of the little houses had crept down very close to +the river. Mrs. Prettyman's cottage was just like a hive made for the +habitation of some gigantic bee; its pointed roof covered with deep, +close-cut thatch the colour of a donkey's hide. There were small +windows under the overhanging eaves, a pathway of irregular flat +stones ran up to the doorway, and a bit of low wall divided the tiny +garden from the river. The Plum Tree grew just beside the wall, so +near indeed that it could look at itself on spring days when the water +was like a mirror. In autumn the branches on that side of the tree +were the first to be shaken, lest any of the fruit should fall down +and be lost. Sometimes a village child treading cautiously on bare +toes amongst the stones along the narrow margin, would pounce upon a +plum with a squeal of joy, for although the village was surrounded +with orchards, the fruit of Mrs. Prettyman's tree had a flavour all +its own. + +The tree had been given to her by a nephew who was a gardener in a +great fruit orchard in the North, and her husband had planted and +tended it for years. It began life as a slender thing with two or +three rods of branches, that looked as if the first wind of winter +would blow it away, but before the storms came, it had begun to +trust itself to the new earth, and to root itself with force and +determination. There were good soil and water near it, and plenty of +sunshine, and, as is the way of Nature, it set itself to do its own +business at all seasons, unlike the distracted heart of man. The +traffic of the river came and went; around the headland the big +ships were steering in, or going out to sea; and in the village +the human life went on while the Plum Tree grew high enough to look +over the wall. Its stem by that time had a firm footing; next it took +a charming bend to the side, and then again threw out new branches +in that direction. It turned itself from the prevailing wind, throwing +a new grace into its attitude, and went on growing; returning in +blossom and leaves and fruit an hundredfold for all that it received +from the earth and the sun. + +In spring it was enchanting; at first, before the blossoms came out, +with small bright leaves, and buds like pearls, heaped upon the +branches; then, later, when the whole tree was white, imaged like a +bride, in the looking-glass of the river. It only wanted a nightingale +to sing in it by moonlight. There were no nightingales there, but the +thrushes sang in the dawning, and the little birds whose voices were +sweet and thin chirruped about it in crowds, while the larks, trilling +out the ardour of mating time, sometimes rose from their nests in the +grass and soared over its topmost branches on their skyward flight. + +Spring, therefore, was its merriest time, for then every passer-by +would cry, "What a beautiful tree!" or "Did ye ever see the likes of +it?" + +There were a few days of inevitable sadness a little later when its +million petals fell and made a delicate carpet of snow on the ground. +There they lay in a kind of fairy ring, as if there had been a shower +of mother-of-pearl in the April night; and no human creature would +have dared set a vandal foot on that magic circle, and mar the +perfection of its beauty. All the same the Plum Tree had lost its +petals, and that was hard to bear at first. But though its Wittisham +neighbours often said to summer trippers, "I wish you could have seen +it in blossom!" the Plum Tree did not repine, because of the +secrets--the thousand, thousand secrets--it held under its leaves. +"The blossoms were but a promise," it thought, "and soon everybody +will see the meaning of them." + +Then the tiny green globes began to appear on every branch and twig; +crowding, crowding, crowding till it seemed as if there could never be +room for so many to grow; but the weaker ones fell from the boughs or +were blown away when the wind was fierce, so the Plum Tree felt no +anxiety, knowing that it was built for a large family! The little +green globes grew and grew, and drank in sweet mother-juices, and +swelled, and when the summer sun touched their cheeks all day they +flushed and reddened, till when August came the tree was laden with +purpling fruit; fruit so tempting that its rosy beauty had sometimes +to be hidden under a veil of grey fishing net, lest the myriad +bird-friends it had made during the summer should love it too much for +its own good. + +So the Plum Tree grew and flourished, taking its part in the pageant +of the seasons, unaware that its existence was to be interwoven with +that of men; or that creatures of another order of being were to owe +some changes in their fortunes to its silent obedience to the motive +of life. + + + + +II + +THE MANOR HOUSE + + +The long, low drawing room of the Manor at Stoke Revel was the warmest +and most genial room in the old Georgian house. It was four-windowed +and faced south, and even on this morning of a chilly and backward +spring, the tentative sunshine of April had contrived to put out the +fire in the steel grate. One of the windows opened wide to the garden, +and let in a scent which was less of flowers than of the promise of +flowers--a scent of earth and green leaves, of the leafless daphne +still a-bloom in the shrubbery, of hyacinths and daffodils and tulips +and primroses still sheathed in their buds and awaiting a warmer air. + +But this promise of spring borne into the room by the wandering breeze +from the river, was nipped, as it were, by the frigid spirit of age +and formalism in its living occupants. Mrs. de Tracy, a lady of +seventy-five, sat at her writing-table. Her companion, Miss Smeardon, +a person of indeterminate age, nursed the lap-dog Rupert during such +time as her employer was too deeply engaged to fulfil that agreeable +duty. Mrs. de Tracy, as she wrote, was surrounded by countless +photographs of her family and her wide connection, most prominent +among them two--that of her husband, Admiral de Tracy, who had died +many years ago, and that of her grandson, his successor, whose +guardian she was, and whose minority she directed. Her eldest son, the +father of this boy, who had died on his ship off the coast of Africa; +his wife, dead too these many years; her other sons as well (she had +borne four); their wives and children--grown men, fashionable women, +beautiful children, fat babies: the likenesses of them all were around +her, standing amid china and flowers and bric-a-brac on the crowded +tables and what-nots of the not inharmonious and yet shabby Victorian +room. Mrs. de Tracy, it might at a glance be seen, was no innovator, +either in furniture, in dress, or probably in ideas. As she was +dressed now, in the severely simple black of a widow, so she had been +dressed when she first mourned Admiral de Tracy. The muslin ends of +her widow's cap fell upon her shoulders, and its border rested on the +hard lines of iron-grey hair which framed a face small, pale, aquiline +in character and decidedly austere in expression. + +She took one from a docketed pile of letters and held it up under her +glasses, the sun suddenly striking a dazzle of blue and green from the +diamond rings on her small, withered hands. Then she read it aloud to +her companion in an even and chilly voice. She had read it before, in +the same way, at the same hour, several times. The letter, couched in +an epistolary style largely dependent upon underlining, appeared to +contain, nevertheless, some matter of moment. It was dated from Eaton +Square, in London, some weeks before, and signed Maria Spalding. ("Her +mother was a Gallup," Mrs. de Tracy would say, if any one asked who +Maria Spalding was; and this was considered sufficient, for Mrs. de +Tracy's maiden name had been Gallup,--not euphonious but nevertheless +aristocratic.) + + * * * * * + +MY DEAR AUGUSTA (Maria Spalding wrote): I am going to ask you to +help me out of a _difficulty_. There is no _use_ beating about the +bush. You know that Cynthia's daughter Robinetta (Loring is her +_married_ name) has been with me for a month. _American_ or no +_American_, I meant to have had her for a part of the season, and to +_present_ her, if possible (so _good_ for these Americans to learn +what royalty _is_ and to breathe the atmosphere which doth hedge a +_King_ as Shakespeare says, and which they can never _have_, of +course, in a country like theirs). I know you can't _approve_, dear +Augusta, and you will blame me for sentimentality--but I never +_can_ forget what a _sweet_ creature Cynthia was before she ran away +with that odious American--and my _greatest_ friend in girlhood, too, +you must remember. So Robinette, as she is generally called, has +come to my house as a _home_, but a most _unlucky_ thing has +happened. I have had influenza so badly that it has affected my +_heart_ (an old trouble), I am ordered to Nauheim, and Robinette is +_stranded_, poor dear. She has few friends in London and certainly +none who can put her up. Tho' she _is_ a widow, she is only twenty-two +(just _imagine_!), very pretty, and really, tho' you won't believe +it, _quite_ nice. I am _desperate_, and just wondering if you +would let by-gones be by-gones, and receive her at Stoke Revel. She +has set her heart upon seeing the place, and some _picture_ she +was called after (I can't remember it, so it can't be one of the +_famous_ Stoke Revel group--a _copy_, I fancy), and on paying a +visit to Lizzie Prettyman, her mother's old nurse at Wittisham over +the river. She _promised_ her mother she would do this--and such a +promise is _sacred_, don't you think? It's such an _old_ story +now, Cynthia's American marriage, and no fault of _Robinette's_, +poor dear child. Her wish is almost a _pious_ one, don't you agree, to +pay respect to her mother's memory and the family, and is _much_ to +be encouraged in these days of radicalism, when every natural tie +is loosened and people pay no more _respect_ to their parents than if +they hadn't any, but had made themselves and brought themselves up +from the beginning. So don't you think it's a _good_ thing to +encourage the _right_ kind of feeling in Robinette, especially as +she is an _American_, you know.... + + * * * * * + +Mrs. de Tracy paused, and replaced the letter in the package from +which she had withdrawn it. + +"Maria Spalding's point of view," she observed, "has, I confess, +helped me to overcome the extreme reluctance I felt to receive the +child of that American here. Cynthia de Tracy's elopement nearly broke +my dear husband's heart. She was the apple of his eye before our +marriage; so much younger than himself that she was like his child +rather than his sister." + +"What a shock it must have been!" murmured the companion. "What +ingratitude! Can you really receive her child? Of course you know +best, Mrs. de Tracy; but it seems a risk." + +"Hardly a risk," rejoined Mrs. de Tracy with dignity. "But it is a +trial to me, and an effort that I scarcely feel called upon to make." + +Miss Smeardon was so well versed in her duties that she knew she +always had to urge her employer to do exactly what she most wanted to +do, and the poor creature had developed a really wonderful ingenuity +in divining what these wishes were. Just now, however, she was, to use +a sporting phrase, "at fault" for a minute. She could not exactly +tell whether Mrs. de Tracy wanted to be urged to ask her niece to +Stoke Revel, or whether she wanted to be supplied with a really +plausible excuse for not doing so. Those of you who have seen a hound +at fault can imagine the companion at this moment: irresolute, tense, +desperately anxious to find and follow up the right scent. Compromise, +that useful refuge, came to her aid. + +"It _is_ difficult to know," she faltered. Then Mrs. de Tracy gave her +the lead. + +"Maria Spalding is right when she says that my husband's niece +contemplates a duty in visiting Stoke Revel," she announced. "The +young woman is the lawful daughter of Cynthia de Tracy that was: our +solicitors could never discover anything dubious in the marriage, +though we long suspected it. Therefore, though I never could have +invited her here, I admit that the Admiral's niece has a right to +come, in a way." + +"Though her maiden name was Bean!" ejaculated the companion, almost +under her breath. "There are Pease in the North, as everyone knows; +perhaps there are Beans somewhere." + +"There have never been Beans," said Mrs. de Tracy solemnly and totally +unconscious of a pun. "Look for yourself!" + +Miss Smeardon did not need to rise from her seat and fetch Burke: it +lay always close at hand. She merely lifted it on to her knee and ran +her finger down the names beginning with B-e-a. + +"Beaton, Beare, Beatty, Beale--" she read out, and she shook her head +in dismal triumph; "but never a Bean! No! we English have no such +dreadful names, thank Heavens!" + +"This is the beginning of April," pursued Mrs. de Tracy, referring to +a date-card. "Maria Spalding's course at Nauheim will take three +weeks. We must allow her a week for going and coming. During that time +Mrs. David Loring can be my guest." + +"A whole month!" cried the companion, as though in ecstasy at her +employer's generosity. "A whole month at Stoke Revel!" + +Mrs. de Tracy took no notice. "Write in my name to Maria Spalding, +please," she commanded. "Be sure that there is no mistake about dates. +Mention the departure and arrival of trains, and say that Mrs. David +Loring will find a fly at the station. That is all, I think." + +The companion bent officiously forward. "You remember, of course, that +young Mr. Lavendar comes down next week upon business?" + +"Well, what if he does?" asked Mrs. de Tracy shortly. + +"Mrs. David Loring is a widow," murmured the companion darkly; "a +young American widow; and they are said to be so dangerous!" + +Mrs. de Tracy drew herself up. "Do you insinuate that the Admiral's +niece will lay herself out to attract Mr. Lavendar, a widow in the +house of a widow! You go rather too far, Miss Smeardon, though you are +speaking of an American. Besides, allusions of this character are +extremely distasteful to me. I have been told that the minds of +unmarried women are always running upon love affairs, but I should +hardly have thought it of you." + +"I'm sure I never imagined any about myself!" murmured Miss Smeardon +with the pitiable writhe of the trodden-on worm. + +"I should suppose not," rejoined Mrs. de Tracy gravely, and the +companion took up her pen obediently to write to Maria Spalding. + +"Shall I send your love to the Admiral's niece?" she humbly enquired, +"or--or something of the kind?" There was irony in the last phrase, +but it was quite unconscious. + +"Not my love," replied Mrs. de Tracy, "some suitable message. Make no +mistake about the dates, remember." + +Thus a letter containing dates, and though not love, the substitute +described by Miss Smeardon as "something of the kind" for an unwanted +niece from an unknown aunt, left Stoke Revel by the afternoon post and +reached Robinette Loring at breakfast next morning. + + + + +III + +YOUNG MRS. LORING + + +Young Mrs. Loring thought she had never taken so long a drive as that +from the Weston railway station to Stoke Revel. The way stretched +through narrow winding roads, always up hill, always between high +Devonshire hedges. The rain-soaked lanes were slippery and she was +unpleasantly conscious of the size and weight of the American wardrobe +trunk that reared its mighty frame in front of her almost to the +blotting-out of the driver, who steadied it with one hand as he plied +the whip with the other. It struck her humorously that the trunk was +larger than most of the cottages they were passing. + +It was a late spring that year in England,--Robinette was a new-comer +and did not know that England runs to late and wet springs, believing +that they make more conversation than early, fine ones,--and the +trees were just bursting into leaf. The sun had not shone for three +days and the landscape, for all its beautiful greenness, looked gloomy +to an eye accustomed to a good deal of crude sunshine. + +As the horse mounted higher and higher Robinette glanced out of the +windows at the dripping boughs and her face lost something of its +sparkle of anticipation. She had little to expect in the way of a warm +welcome, she knew that; or at least her mind knew it, but Robinette's +heart always expected surprises, although she had lived two and twenty +summers and was a widow at that. + +Her mother had been a de Tracy of Stoke Revel whose connection with +that ancient family had ceased abruptly when she met an American +architect while traveling on the Continent, married him out of hand +and went to his native New England with him. The de Tracys had no +opinion of America, its government, its institutions, its customs, or +its people, and when they learned that Cynthia de Tracy had not only +allied herself with this undesirable nation, but had selected a native +by the name of Harold Bean, they regarded the incident of the marriage +as closed. + +The union had been a happy one, though the de Tracys of Stoke Revel +had always regarded the unfortunately named architect more as a +vegetable than a human being; and the daughter of the marriage was the +young Mrs. Loring now driving in the station fly to the home of her +mother's people. + +Her father had died when she was fifteen and her mother followed three +years after, leaving her with a respectable fortune but no relations; +the entire family (happily, Mrs. de Tracy would have said) having died +out with Harold. Robinette was unspeakably lonely, even with her +hundred friends, for there was enough English blood in her to make her +cry out inwardly for kith and kin, for family ties, for all the dear +familiar backgrounds of hearth and home. Had a welcoming hand been +stretched across the sea she would have flown at once to make +acquaintance with the de Tracys, cold and indifferent as they had +always been, but no bidding ever came, and the picture of the Manor +House of Stoke Revel on her dressing-table was the only reminder of +her connection with that ancient and honourable house. + +It is not difficult to see, under the circumstances, how the +nineteen-year-old Robinette became the wife of the first man in whom +she inspired a serious passion. + +It is incredible that women should confuse the passive process of +being loved with the active process of loving, but it occurs +nevertheless, and Robinette drifted into marriage with the vaguest +possible notions of what it meant; feeling and knowing that she needed +something, and supposing it must be a husband. It was better fortune, +perhaps, than she merited, and equally kind for both parties, that her +husband died before either of them realized the tragic mistake. David +Loring was too absorbed in his own emotions to note the absence of +full response on the part of his wife; Robinette was too much a child +and too inexperienced to be conscious of her own lack of feeling. + +It was death, not life, that opened her eyes. When David Loring lay in +his coffin, Robinette's heart was suddenly seized with growing pains. +Her vision widened; words and promises took on a new and larger +meaning, and she became a serious woman for her years, although there +was an ineradicable gaiety of spirit in her that needed only sunshine +to make it the dominant note of her nature. + +At the moment, Robinette, in the station fly on her way to Stoke +Revel, was only in the making, although she herself considered her +life as practically finished. The past and the present were moulding +her into something that only the future could determine. Sometimes +April, sometimes July, sometimes witch, sometimes woman; impetuous, +intrepid, romantic, tempestuous, illogical,--these were but the +elements of which the coming years of experience had yet to shape a +character. Young Mrs. Loring had plenty of briars, but she had good +roots and in favorable soil would be certain to bear roses. + +But in the immediate present, the fly with the immense American +wardrobe trunk beside the driver, turned into the avenue of Stoke +Revel, and Mrs. David Loring bestowed upon herself those little +feminine attentions which precede arrival--pattings of the hair behind +the ears, twitches of the veil, and pullings down about the waist and +sleeves. A little toy of a purse made of golden chainwork, hanging +from her wrist, was searched for the driver's fare, and it had hardly +snapped to again when the fly drew up before the entrance to the +house. How interesting it looked! Robinette put her head out of the +carriage window and gazed up at the long row of windows, the old +weather-coloured stones, and the carved front of the building. Here +was a house where things might happen, she thought, and her young +heart gave a sudden bound of anticipation. + +But the door was shut, alas! and a blank feeling came over Robinette +as she looked at it. Some one perhaps would come out and welcome +her, she thought for a brief moment, but only the butler appeared, +who, with the formal announcement of her name, ushered her into a +long, low room with a row of windows on one side and a pleasant +old-fashioned look of comfort and habitation. She caught a glimpse +of a tea-table with a steaming urn upon it, heard the furious barking +of a little dog, saw that there were two figures in the room and +moved instinctively towards the one beside the window, the figure in +weeds, neither very tall nor very imposing, yet somehow formidable. + +"How do you do?" said an icy voice, and a chill hand held hers for a +moment, but did not press it. The colour in Robinette's cheeks paled +and then rushed back, as she drew herself up unconsciously. + +"I am very well, thank you, Aunt de Tracy," she answered with +commendable composure. + +"This is my friend and companion, Miss Smeardon," continued Mrs. de +Tracy, advancing to the tea-table where that useful personage +officiated. "Mrs. David Loring--Miss Smeardon." Miss Smeardon had the +dog upon her lap, yapping, clashing his teeth together, and obviously +thirsting for the visitor's blood. He was quieted with soothing words, +and Robinette seated herself innocently in the nearest chair, beside +the table. + +"Excuse me!" the companion said with a slight cough; "Mrs. de Tracy's +chair! Do you mind taking another?" There was something disagreeable +in her voice, and in Mrs. de Tracy's deliberate scrutiny something so +nearly insulting that a childish impulse to cry then and there +suddenly seized upon Robinette. This was her mother's home--and no +kiss had welcomed her to it, no kind word! There were perfunctory +questions about her journey, references to the coldness and lateness +of the spring, enquiries after the health of Maria Spalding (whose +mother was a Gallup), but no claiming of kinship, no naming of her +mother's name nor of her native country! Robinette's ardent spirit had +felt sorrow, but it had never met rebuff nor known injustice, and the +sudden stir of revolt at her heart was painful with an almost physical +pain. + +After a long drawn hour of this social torture, Mrs. de Tracy rang, +and a hard-featured elderly maid appeared. + +"Show Mrs. Loring to her room, Benson," said the mistress of the +house, "and help her to unpack." + +Robinette followed her conductor upstairs with a sinking heart. Oh! +but the chill of this English spring was in her bones, and the +coldness of a reception so frigid that her passionate young spirit +almost rebelled on the spot, prompting wild ideas and impulsive +impossibilities; even a flight to her mother's old nurse--to Lizzie +Prettyman, so often lovingly described, with her little thatched +cottage beyond the river! Surely she would find the welcome there that +was lacking here, and the touch of human kindness that one craved in a +foreign land. But no! Robinette called to her aid her strong American +common sense and the "grit" that her countrymen admire. Was she to +confess herself routed in the very first onset--the very first attempt +in storming the ancestral stronghold? With a characteristically quick +return of hope, the Admiral's niece exclaimed, "Certainly not!" + + + + +IV + +A CHILLY RECEPTION + + +Mrs. Benson approached the wardrobe trunk with the air of a person who +has taken an immediate and violent dislike to an object. + +"We have all looked at your box, ma'am, but I am sorry to say we are +not sure that it is set up properly. It is very different from any we +have ever seen at the Manor, and the men had some difficulty in +getting it up to the room. I fancy it is upside down, is it not? No? +We rather thought it was. I would call the boot-and-knife boy to +unlock it, but he jammed his hand in attempting to force the catches, +and I thought you would be kind enough to instruct me how to open it, +perhaps?" + +"I am quite able to do it myself," said Robinette, keeping down a +hysterical laugh. "See how easily it goes when you know the secret!" +and she deftly turned her key in two locks one after the other, let +down the mysterious façade of the affair, and pulled out an +extraordinary rack on which hung so many dresses and wraps that Mrs. +Benson lost her breath in surprise. + +"Would you like me to carry some of your things into another room, +ma'am?" she asked. "They will never go in the wardrobe; it is only a +plain English wardrobe, ma'am. We have never had any American +guests." + +"The things needn't be moved," said Robinette, "many of them will be +quite convenient where they are;--and now you need not trouble about +me; I am well used to helping myself, if you will be kind enough to +come in just before dinner for a moment." + +Mrs. Benson disappeared below stairs, where she regaled the injured +boot-and-knife boy and the female servants with the first instalment +of what was destined to be the most dramatic and sensational serial +story ever told at the Manor House. + +"The lid of the box don't lift up," she explained, "like all the box +lids as ever I saw, and me with Lady Chitterton for six years, +traveling constantly. The front of the thing splits in the middle and +the bottom half falls on the floor. A heathenish kind of tray lifts +off from its hinges like a door, and a clothes rack pulls out on +runners. 'T is a sight to curdle your blood; and the number of dresses +she's brought would make her out to be richer than Crusoe!--though I +have heard from a cousin of mine who was in service in America that +the ladies over there spend every penny they can rake and scrape on +their clothes. Their husbands may work their fingers to the bone, and +their parents be in the workhouse, but fine frocks they will have!" + +"Rather!" said the boot-and-knife boy, nursing his injured thumb. + +On the departure of Mrs. Benson from her room, Robinette gave a +stifled shriek in which laughter and tears were equally mingled. Then +she flew like a lapwing to the fire-place and lifted off a fan of +white paper from the grate. + +"No possibility of help there!" she exclaimed. "Cold within, cold +without! How shall I unpack? How shall I dress? How shall I live +without a fire? Ah! here is the coal box! Empty! Empty, and it is only +the month of April! 'Oh! to be in England now that April's there!' How +could Browning write that line without his teeth chattering! How well +I understand the desire of the British to keep India and South Africa! +They must have some place to go where they can get warm! Now for +unpacking, or any sort of manual labour which will put my frozen blood +in circulation!" + +Slapping her hands, beating her breast, stamping her feet, Mrs. Loring +removed a few dresses from the offending trunk to the mahogany +wardrobe, and disposed her effects neatly in the drawers of bureau and +highboy. + +"I have made a mistake at the very beginning," she thought. "I +supposed nothing could be too pretty for the Manor House and now I am +afraid my worst is too fine. The Manor House of Stoke Revel! Wouldn't +that appeal to anyone's imagination? Now what for to-night? White +satin with crystal? Back you go into the trunk! Back goes the +silver grey chiffon! I'll have it re-hung over flannel! Avaunt! +heliotrope velvet with amethyst spangles, made with a view to +ensnaring the High Church clergy! I wish I had a princess dress of +moleskin with a court train of squirrel hanging from the shoulders! +Here is the thing; my black Liberty satin two years old. I will +cover part of my exposed neck and shoulders with a fichu of lace; my +black silk openwork stockings will be drawn on over a pair of +balbriggans, and the number of petticoats I shall don would discourage +a Scotch fishwife! To-morrow I'll write Mrs. Spalding's maid to buy +me two hot-water bottles, mittens, a box of quinine tablets and a +Shetland shawl.... What are these--_fans?_ Retire into the depths of +that tray and never look me in the face again!... _Parasols?_ I +wonder at your impertinence in coming here! I shall give you cod +liver oil and make you grow into umbrellas!" + +Presently the dinner gong growled through the house, and Robinette, +still shivering, flung across her shoulders a shimmering scarf of +white and silver. It fell over her simple black dress in just the +right way, adding a last touch to the somewhat exotic grace which made +her a stranger in her mother's home. Then she fled down the darkening +passages, instinctively aware that unpunctuality was a crime in this +house. Yet in spite of her haste, she paused before the window of an +upper lobby, arrested by the scene it framed. Heavy rain still fell, +and the light, made greenish by the nearness of great trees just +coming into leaf, was cheerless and singularly cold. But that could +not mar the majesty of the outlook which made the Manor of Stoke +Revel, on its height, unique. Far below the house, the broad river +slipped towards the sea, between woods that rose tier upon tier above +and beyond--woods of beech and of oak, not yet green, but purplish +under the rainy mist. On the bank, woods too, and here, where the +river, in excess of strength, swirled into a creek--a shining +sand-bank where fishing nets were hung. Then the low, strong tower of +a church, with the sombreness of cypress beside it, and the thatched +roofs of cottages. + +Something stirred in the heart of Robinette as she looked, that part +of her blood which her English mother had given her. This scene, so +indescribably English as hardly to be imaginable in another land, had +been painted for her again and again by her mother with all the +retrospective romance of an exile's touch. She knew it, but she did +not know if she could ever love it, beautiful though it was and +noble. + +But she banished these misgivings and ran down the twisted stairway +so fast that she was almost panting when she reached the drawing-room +door. + +"I will take your arm, please," said the hostess coldly, while Miss +Smeardon wore the virtuous and injured air of one who has been kept +waiting. Mrs. de Tracy laid, on the warm and smooth arm of her guest, +one of her small, dry hands, sparkling with rings, and the procession +closed with the companion and the lap-dog. + +In the dining room, the shutters were closed, and the candles, in +branching candlesticks of silver, only partially lit a room long and +low like the other. The walls were darkened with pictures, and +Robinette's bright eyes searched them eagerly. + +"The Sir Joshua is not here!" she thought. "And it was not in the +drawing room. Has Aunt de Tracy given, or hidden it away--my very own +name-picture?" + +With all her determination, Robinette somehow could not summon courage +enough to ask where this picture was. Such a question would involve +the mention of her mother's name, and from that she shrank. Young Mrs. +Loring had never before found herself in a society where conversation +was apparently regarded as a crime, and to fit herself to her +environment, under the scrutiny of Mrs. de Tracy and the decidedly +inimical looks of the companion, took all her time. A burden of +self-consciousness lay upon her such as her light and elastic spirit +had never known. She found herself morbidly observant of minute +details; the pattern of the tablecloth; the crest upon the spoons; the +curious red knobs upon Miss Smeardon's fingers, and the odd mincing +way she held her fork; the almost athletic efforts of the butler when +he raised an enormous silver dish-cover, and the curiously frugal and +unappetizing nature of the viand it disclosed. The wizened face of the +lap-dog, too, peering over the table's edge, out of Miss Smeardon's +lap, might have acquired its distrustful expression, Robinette +thought, from habitual doubts as to whether enough to eat would ever +be his good fortune. The meal ended with the ceremonious presentation +to each lady in turn, of three wrinkled apples and two crooked bananas +in a probably priceless dish of Crown Derby. Then the procession +re-formed and returned to the drawing room. + +"And the evening and the morning were the first day!" sighed Robinette +to herself in the chilly solitude of her own room. How often could she +endure the repetition? + + + + +V + +AT WITTISHAM + + +"May I have a fire to dress by, Benson?" Robinette asked rather +timidly that night, her head just peeping above the blankets. + +"_Fire_?" returned Benson, in italics, with an interrogation point. + +Robinette longed to spell the word and ask Benson if it had ever come +to her notice before, but she stifled her desire and said, "I am quite +ashamed, Benson, but you see I am not used to the climate yet. If +you'll pamper me just a little at the beginning, I shall behave better +presently." + +"I will give orders for a fire night and morning, certainly, ma'am," +said Benson. "I did not offer it because our ladies never have one in +their bedrooms at this time of the year. Mrs. de Tracy is very strong +and active for her age." + +"It's my opinion she's a w'eedler," remarked Benson at the housekeeper's +luncheon table. "She asks for what she wants like a child. She has a +pretty way with her, I can't deny that, but is she a w'eedler?" + +Wheedler or not, Robinette got her fire to dress by, and so was able +to come down in the morning feeling tolerably warm. It was well that +she was, for the cold tea and tough toast of the de Tracy breakfast +had little in them to warm the heart. Conversation languished during +the meal, and after a walk to the stables Robinette was thankful to +return to her own room again on the pretext of writing letters. There +she piled up the fire, drew her chair close up to the hearth, and +employed herself until noon, when she took her embroidery and joined +her aunt in the drawing room. Luncheon was announced at half past one, +and immediately after it Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon went to their +respective bedrooms for rest. + +"Are there indeed only twelve hours in the day?" Robinette asked +herself desperately as she heard the great, solemn-toned hall clock +strike two. It seemed quite impossible that it could be only two; the +whole afternoon had still to be accounted for, and how? Well, she +might look over her clothes again, re-arranging them in all their +dainty variety in the wardrobe and drawers; she might put tissue paper +into the sleeves of each bodice, smoothing out every crease; she might +even find that some tiny repairs were needed! There were three new +hats, and several pairs of new gloves to be tried on; her accounts +must be made up, her cheque book balanced; yet all these things would +take but a short time. Then the hall clock struck three. + +"I must go out," she thought. + +Coming through the hall from her room Robinette met her aunt and Miss +Smeardon descending the staircase. + +"We are driving this afternoon," said Mrs. de Tracy, "would you not +like to come with us?" + +The thought turned Robinette to stone: she had visited the stables, +and seen the coachman lead what seemed to her a palsied horse out into +the yard. Her sympathetic allusion to the supposed condition of the +steed had not been well received, for the man had given her to +understand that this was the one horse of the establishment, but +Robinette had vowed never to sit behind it. + +"I think I'd rather walk, Aunt de Tracy," she said, "I'd like to go +and see my mother's old nurse, Mrs. Prettyman. Can I do any errands +for you?" + +"None, thank you. To go to Wittisham you have to cross the ferry, +remember." + +"Oh! that must be simple! you may be sure I shall not lose myself!" +said Robinette. + +Both the older women looked curiously at her for a moment; then Mrs. +de Tracy said:-- + +"You will kindly not use the public ferry; the footman will row you +across to Wittisham at any hour you may mention to him." + +"Oh, but Aunt de Tracy, I'd really prefer the public ferry." + +"Nonsense, impossible; the footman shall row you," said Mrs. de Tracy +with finality. + +Robinette said nothing; she hated the idea of the footman, but it +seemed inevitable. "Am I never to get away from their dullnesses?" she +thought. "A public ferry sounds quite lively in place of being rowed +by William!" + +When the shore was reached, however, Robinette discovered that the +passage across the river in a leaky little boat, rowed by a painfully +inexperienced servant, was almost too much for her. To see him +fumbling with the oars, made her tingle to take them herself; she +could not abide the irritation of a return journey with such a +boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of +the three-decker steamer of her native land, the ferry at Wittisham +was just like an ordinary row-boat; that one rang a bell hanging from +a picturesque tower; that a nice young man with a sprig of wallflower +in his cap rowed one across, and that each passenger handed out a +penny to him on the farther side. + +"How enchantingly quaint!" she cried. "William, you can go home; I +shall return by the public ferry." + +William looked surprised but only replied, "Very good, ma'am." + +On warm summer afternoons the tiny square of Mrs. Prettyman's garden +made as delightful a place to sit in as one could wish. There was +sunshine on the turf, and a thin shade was cast by the drooping boughs +of the plum tree; just enough to shelter old eyes from the glare. When +she was very tired with doing her work Mrs. Prettyman would totter out +into the garden. She was getting terribly lame now, yet afraid to +acknowledge it, knowing, with the desperate wisdom of poverty, that +once to give in, very often ended in giving up altogether. So her +lameness was 'blamed on the weather,' 'blamed on scrubbing the +floor,' blamed on anything rather than the tragic, incurable fact of +old age. This afternoon her rheumatism had been specially bad: she had +an inclination to cry out when she rose from her chair, and every step +was an effort. Yet the sunshine was tempting; it warmed old and aching +bones through and through as no fire could do; and Mrs. Prettyman +thought she must make the effort to go out. + +She had just arrived at this conclusion, when a tap came to the door. + +"That you, Mrs. Darke?" she called out in her piping old voice. "Come +in, me dear, I'm that stiff with me rheumatics to-day I can't scarce +rise out of me chair." + +"It's not Mrs. Darke," said Robinette, stooping to enter through the +tiny doorway. "It's a stranger, Mrs. Prettyman, come all the way from +America to see you." + +"Lor' now, Miss, whoever may you be?" the old woman cried, making as +if she would rise from her chair. But Robinette caught her arm and +made her sit still. + +"Don't get up; please sit right there where you are, and I'll take +this chair beside you. Now, Mrs. Prettyman, look at me hard, and tell +me if you know who I am." + +The old woman gazed into Robinette's face, and then a light seemed to +break over her. + +"It's Miss Cynthia's daughter you are!" she cried. "My Miss Cynthia as +went and married in America!" + +She caught Robinette's white ringed hands in hers, and Robinette bent +down and kissed the wrinkled old face. + +"I know that mother loved you, Nurse," she said. "She used often, +often to tell me about you." + +After the fashion of old people, Mrs. Prettyman was too much moved to +speak. Her face worked all over, and then slow tears began to run down +her furrowed cheeks. She got up from her chair and walked across the +uneven floor, leaning on a stick. + +"I've something here, Miss, I've something here; something I never +parts with," she said. A tall chest of drawers stood against the wall, +and the old woman began to search among its contents as she spoke. At +last she found a little kid shoe, laid away in a handkerchief. + +"See here, Miss! here's my Miss Cynthia's shoe! 'T was tied on to my +wedding coach the day I got married and left her. My 'usband 'e +laughed at me cruel because I'd have that shoe with me; but I've kept +it ever since." + +Robinette came and stood beside her, and they both wept together over +the silly little shoe. + +"I want to talk a great deal to you, Nurse; I want to tell you all +about mother and father, and how they died," said Robinette through +her tears. How strange that she should have to come to this cottage +and to this poor old woman before she found anyone to whom she could +speak of her beloved dead! Her heart was so full that she could +scarcely speak. A crowd of memories rushed into her mind; last scenes +and parting words; those innumerable unforgettable details that are +printed once for all upon the heart that loves and feels. + +"I'd like to tell you about it out of doors, Nurse dear," she said +tearfully; "can you come out under the plum tree in your garden? It's +lovely there." + +"Yes, dearie, yes, we'll come out under the plum tree, we will," +echoed Mrs. Prettyman. + +"See, Nursie, take my arm, I'll help you out into the warm sunshine," +Robinette said. + +They progressed very slowly, the old woman leaning with all her weight +upon the arm of her strong young helper. Then under the flickering +shade of the tree they sat down together for their talk. + +So much to tell, so much to hear, the afternoon slipped away unknown +to them, and still they were sitting there hand in hand talking and +listening; sometimes crying a little, sometimes laughing; a queerly +assorted couple, these new-made friends. + +But when all the recollections had been talked over and wept over, +when Mrs. Prettyman had told Robinette, with the extraordinary detail +that old people can put into their memories of long ago, all that she +remembered of Cynthia de Tracy's childhood, then Robinette began to +question the old woman about her own life. Was she comfortable? Was +she tolerably well off? Or had she difficulty in making ends meet? + +To these questions Mrs. Prettyman made valiant answers: she had a fine +spirit, and no wish to let a stranger see the skeleton in the +cupboard. But Robinette's quick instinct pierced through the veil of +well-meant bravery and touched the truth. + +"Nurse dear," she said, "you say you're comfortable, and well off, but +you won't mind my telling you that I just don't quite believe you." + +"Oh, my dear heart, what's that you be sayin'? callin' of me a liar?" +chuckled the old woman fondly. + +Robinette rose from her seat on the bench and stood back to +scrutinize the cottage. It was exquisitely picturesque, but this +very picturesqueness constituted its danger; for the place was a +perfect death trap. The crumbling cob-walls that had taken on those +wonderful patches of green colour, soaked in the damp like a sponge: +the irregularity of the thatched roof that looked so well, admitted +trickles of rain on wet nights; and the uneven mud floor of the +kitchen revealed the fact that the cottage had been built without any +proper foundation. The door did not fit, and in cold weather a +knife-like draught must run in under it. All this Robinette's +quick, practical glance took in; she gave a little nod or two, +murmuring to herself, "A new thatch roof, a new door, a new cement +floor." Then she came and sat down again. + +"Tell me now, how much do you have to live on every week, Nurse?" she +asked. + +"Oh, Miss Robinette--ma'am, I should say--'t is wonderful how I gets +on; and then there's the plum tree--just see the flourish on it, +Missie dear! 'T will have a crop o' plums come autumn will about drag +down the boughs! I don't know how 't would be with me without I had +the plum tree." + +"Do you really make something by it?" Robinette asked. + +The old woman chuckled again. "To be sure I makes; makes jam every +autumn; a sight o' jam. Come inside again, me dear, an' see me jam +cupboard and you'll know." + +She hobbled into the kitchen, and opened the door of a wall press in +the corner. There, row above row stood a solid phalanx of jam pots; it +seemed as if a whole town might be supplied out of Mrs. Prettyman's +cupboard. + +"'T is well thought of, me jam," the old woman said, grinning with +pleasure. "I be very careful in the preparing of 'en; gets a penny the +pound more for me jam than others, along of its being so fine." + +Robinette was charmed to see that here Mrs. Prettyman had a reliable +source of income, however slender. + +"How much do you reckon to get from it every year?" she asked. + +"Going five pounds, dear: four pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence, +last autumn; and please the Lord there's a better crop this season, so +'t will be the clear five pounds. Oh! I do be loving me plum tree like +a friend, I do." + +They turned back into the sunshine again, that Robinette should admire +this wonderful tree-friend once more. She stood under its shadow with +great delight, as the Bible says, gazing up through the intricate +network of boughs and blossom to the cloudless blue above her. + +"It's heavenly, Nurse, just heavenly!" she sighed as she came and sat +down beside the old woman again. + +"Then there's me duck too, Missie! Lard, now I don't know how I'd be +without I had me duck. Duckie I calls 'er and Duckie she is; company +she is, too, to me mornin's, with her 'Quack, Quack,' under the +winder." + +So the old woman prattled on, giving Robinette all the history of her +life, with its tiny joys and many struggles, till it seemed to the +listener that she had always known Mrs. Prettyman, the plum tree, and +her duck--known them and loved them, all three. + + + + +VI + +MARK LAVENDAR + + +Hundreds of years ago the street of Stoke Revel village, if street it +could be called, and the tower of the ancient church, must have looked +very much the same as now. + +On such a day, when the oak woods were budding, and the English birds +singing, and the spring sun was hot in a clear sky, a knight riding +down the steep lane would have taken the same turn to the left on his +way to the Manor. Were he a young man, he would probably have reined +up his horse for a moment, and looked, as Mark Lavendar did now, at +the blithe landscape before him. Only then the accessories would have +been so different: the great horse, somewhat tired by long hours of +riding, the armour that glinted in the sun, the casque pushed up to +let the fresh air play upon the rider's face; such a figure must have +often stood just at that turn where the lane wound up the little hill. +The landscape was the same, and young men in all ages are very much +the same, so--although this one had merely arrived by train, and +walked from the nearest station--Mark Lavendar stopped and leaned over +the low wall when he came to the turn of the road, and looked down at +the river. + +He boasted no war horse nor armour; none of the trappings of the older +world added to his distinction, and yet he was a very pleasing figure +of a man. + +The gaunt brown face was quite hard and solemn in expression; ugly, +but not commonplace, for as a friend once said of him, "His eyes seem +to belong to another person." It was not this, but only that the eyes, +blue as Saint Veronica's flower, showed suddenly a different aspect of +the man, an unexpected tenderness that flatly contradicted the hard +features of his face. He looked very nice when he laughed too, so +that most people when they had found out the trick, tried to make him +laugh as often as possible. + +"What a day! Heavens! what a lovely day," he said to himself as he +leaned on the low wall. "I want to be courting Amaryllis somewhere in +these woods, and instead I've got to go and talk business with that +old woman;" and he looked ruefully towards the Manor House; for this +was not his first visit by any means, and he knew only too well the +hours of boredom that awaited him. Mrs. de Tracy, strange to say, had +a soft side towards this young man, the son of her family solicitor. +Mark was invariably sent down by his father when there was any +business to be transacted at Stoke Revel. The older man was fond of a +good dinner, and hated circumlocution about affairs, and it was only +when a death in the family, or some other crucial event, made his +presence absolutely necessary that he came down himself. Mark was +sacrificed instead, and many a wearisome hour had he spent in that +house. However on this occasion he had been glad enough to get out of +London for a while; the country was divine, and even the de Tracy +business did not occupy the whole day. There would be hours on the +river; afternoons spent riding along those green lanes through which +he had just passed, where the banks were starred with little vivid +flowers. Mark had an almost childish delight in such beauty. He had +loitered on the way along, flung himself down on a bank for a few +minutes, and burying his face amongst the flowers, listened with a +smile upon his mouth to the birds that chirruped in the branches of +the oak above him. + +Now he leaned on the low wall, and gazed at the shining reaches of the +river. "What a day!" he said to himself again. "What a divine +afternoon"; then he added quite simply, "I wish I were in love; +everyone under eighty ought to be, on such a day!" + +Even at the age of thirty most men of any personal attractions have +some romantic memories. Lavendar had his share, but somehow that +morning he was disconcertingly candid to himself. It may have been the +sudden change from London air and London noise; something in the clear +transparency of the April day, in the flute-like melody of the birds' +song, in the dream-like beauty of the scene before him, that made all +the moth and rust that had consumed the remembrances of the past more +apparent. There was little of the treasure of heaven there,--it had +mostly been nonsense or vanity or worse. He wanted, oh, how he wanted, +to be able just for once to surrender himself to what was absolutely +ideal; to have a memory when he was an old man, of something that had +no fault in it. + +"No, I've never been really in love," he said to himself, "I may as +well confess it; and I daresay I never shall be, but marry on an +impulse like most men, make the best of it afterwards, and have a +sort of middle-class happiness in the end of the day." + +"One, Two, Three," said the church clock from the ancient tower, +booming out the note, and Lavendar started, and rubbed his hands +across his dazzled eyes. "Luncheon is a late meal in that awful house, +if I remember," he said, "but it must be over by this time. I really +must go in. Let me collect my thoughts; the business is 'just things +in general,' but especially the sale of some cottage or other and the +land it stands on. Yes, yes, I remember; the papers are all right. Now +for the old ladies." + +He made his entrance into the Manor drawing room a few minutes later +with a charming smile. + +Mrs. de Tracy actually walked a few steps to meet him, with a greeting +less frigid than usual. + +"I'm glad to see you, Mark," said she. "Bates said you preferred to +walk from the station." + +Mark turned his kind eyes on Miss Smeardon, and held her knuckly hand +in his own almost tenderly. It was a very bad habit, which had led to +some mischief in the past, that when he was sorry for a thing he +wanted to be very kind to it; and this made him unusually pleasing, +and dangerous! + +"Business first and pleasure afterwards; excellent maxim!" he said to +himself half an hour later, as he removed the dust of travel from his +person, preparatory to an interview with Mrs. de Tracy. "Now for it!" + +He liked the drawing room at Stoke Revel and always wished it had +other occupants when he entered it. This afternoon it seemed +particularly agreeable, the open windows letting in the slanting +sunshine and a strong scent of jonquils and sweet briar. + +"Well, Mrs. de Tracy," said Mark, "I am my father's spokesman, you +know, and we have serious business to discuss. But tell me first, +how's my young friend Carnaby?" + +"Thank you; my grandson has a severe attack of quinsy," replied Mrs. +de Tracy. "He is to have sick-leave whenever the Endymion returns to +Portsmouth." + +"Oh! Carnaby will make short work of an attack of quinsy," said +Lavendar, genially. + +"It would please me better," retorted Mrs. de Tracy severely, "if my +grandson showed signs of mental improvement as well as bodily health. +His letters are ill-spelled, ill-written, and ill-expressed. They are +the letters of a school-boy." + +"He is not much more than a school-boy, is he?" suggested Mark, "only +fifteen! The mental improvement will come; too soon, for my taste. I +like Carnaby as he is!" + +The young man had seated himself beside his hostess in an attitude of +perfect ease. Though bored by his present environment, he was entirely +at home in it. Just because he greatly dared towards her and was never +afraid, Mrs. de Tracy liked him. With the mere flicker of an eyelid, +she dismissed the attendant Smeardon. + +"There has been an offer for the land at Wittisham," Lavendar said, +when they were alone. + +Mrs. de Tracy winced. "That is no matter of congratulation with me," +she said bleakly. + +"But it is with us, for it is a most excellent one!" returned the +young man hardily. "The firm has had the responsibility of advising +the sale, which we consider absolutely unavoidable in the present +financial condition of Stoke Revel. We have advertised for a year, and +advertisement is costly. Now comes an offer of a somewhat peculiar +kind, but sound enough." Lavendar here produced a bundle of documents +tied with the traditional red tape. "An artist," he continued, +"Waller, R. A.--you know the name?" + +"I do not," interpolated Mrs. de Tracy grimly. + +"Nevertheless, a well known painter," persisted Mark, "and one, as it +happens, of the orchard scenery of this part of England. He has known +Wittisham for a long time, and only last year he made a success with +the painting of a plum tree which grows in front of one of the +cottages. It was sold for a large sum, and, as a matter of sentiment, +I suppose, Waller wishes to buy the cottage and make it into a summer +retreat or studio for himself." + +"He cannot buy it," said Mrs. de Tracy with the snort of a war horse. + +"He cannot buy it apart from the land," insinuated Mark, "but he is +flush of cash and ready to buy the land too--very nearly as much as we +want to sell, and the bargain merely waits your consent. The sum that +has been agreed upon is of the kind that a man in the height of his +triumph offers for a fancy article. No such sum will ever be offered +for land at Wittisham again; old orchard land, falling into desuetude +as it is and covered with condemned cottages." + +Mrs. de Tracy was sternly silent, and Mark awaited her next words with +some curiosity. He felt like a torturer drawing the tooth of a Jew in +the good old days. This sale of land was a bitter pill to the widow, +as it well might be, for it was the beginning of the end, as the de +Tracy solicitors could have told you. There had been de Tracys of +Stoke Revel since Queen Elizabeth's time, but there would not be de +Tracys of Stoke Revel much longer,--unless young Carnaby married an +heiress when he came of age--and that no de Tracy had ever done. + +"The land across the river," Mrs. de Tracy said at last, "was the +first land the de Tracys held, but much of it went at the Restoration. +Well, let this go too!" she added harshly. + +Mark blessed himself that indecision was no part of the lady's +character and sighed with relief. "My father would like to know," he +said, "what you propose to do with regard to the old woman who is the +present tenant of the cottage." + +"Elizabeth Prettyman is not a tenant," said Mrs. de Tracy coldly. +"She is practically a pensioner, since she lives rent-free." + +"True, I forgot," said Mark soothingly. "I beg your pardon." + +"Do not suppose that it is by my wish," continued Mrs. de Tracy +coldly. "I have never approved of supporting the peasantry in +idleness. This woman happened to be for some years nurse to Cynthia de +Tracy, my husband's younger sister, who deeply offended her family by +marrying an American named Bean. I see no claim in that to a pension +of any kind." + +"But your husband saw it, I imagine," interpolated Mark quietly, and +Mrs. de Tracy gave him a fierce look, which he met, however, without a +sign of flinching. + +"My husband had a mistaken idea that Prettyman was poor when she +became a widow," said Mrs. de Tracy. "On the contrary she had +relations quite well able to support her, I believe. I never cross the +river, in these days, and the matter has escaped my memory, so that +things have been left as they were." + +"No great loss," said Mark candidly, "since the cottage in its present +state is utterly unfit for any tenant. As to Prettyman, is it your +intention to give her notice to quit?" + +"Unquestionably, since the cottage is needed," answered Mrs. de Tracy. +"She has occupied it too long as it is." The speaker's lips closed +like a vice over the words. + +"God pity Elizabeth Prettyman!" ejaculated Lavendar to himself. "Might +is Right still, apparently, at Stoke Revel!" Aloud he merely said, "A +weak deference to public opinion was never a foible of yours, Mrs. de +Tracy; but I think I would advise you to consider some question of +compensation to Mrs. Prettyman for the loss of the cottage." + +"If you can show me that the woman has any legal claim upon the +estate, I will consider the question, but not otherwise," said Mrs. de +Tracy with such an air of finality that Lavendar was inclined to let +the matter drop for the moment. + +"The firm," he said, "will communicate your wishes to Mrs. Prettyman +by letter." + +"Prettyman cannot read," snapped Mrs. de Tracy. "She must be told, and +the sooner the better." + +"Well, Mrs. de Tracy," said the young man with a short laugh, +"provided it is not I who have to tell her, well and good. I warn you +the task would not be to my taste unless compensation were offered +her." + +Mrs. de Tracy's features hardened to a degree unusual even to her. + +"I am apparently less tender-hearted than you," she said sardonically. +"I shall, if I think fit, deal with Prettyman in person." The subject +was dropped, and Lavendar rose to leave the room, but Mrs. de Tracy +detained him. + +"The Admiral's niece, Mrs. David Loring, is my guest at present," she +said. "It happens that she has crossed the river to Wittisham and is +paying a visit to Prettyman. I should be obliged, Mark, if you would +row across and fetch her back, as by some misunderstanding, my servant +has not waited for her. You are an oarsman, I know." + +The young man consented with alacrity. "I shall kill two birds with +one stone," he said cheerfully, "I shall visit the famous plum tree +cottage and see Mrs. Prettyman for myself; and I shall have the +privilege of executing your commission as Mrs. Loring's escort. It +sounds a very agreeable one!" + +"You have no time to lose," said Mrs. de Tracy with a glance at the +clock. + + + + +VII + +A CROSS-EXAMINATION + + +Lavendar escaped from the house, where, even in the smoke-room, it +seemed unregenerate to light a cigar, and took the path to the shore. + +"I wonder if one woman staying in a house full of men would find life +as depressing as I do cooped up here under precisely opposite +circumstances," he thought, as he made his way through the little +churchyard. "It cannot be the atmosphere of femininity that bores me, +however, for Mrs. de Tracy has a strongly masculine flavour and Miss +Smeardon is as nearly neuter as a person can be." + +He took a couple of oars from the boat-house as he passed, and going +to the little landing stage untied the boat and started for the +farther shore. + +It was good to feel the water parting under his vigorous strokes and +delightful to exert his strength after the hours of stifled irritation +at the Manor. It was a bright, calm close of day, when in the rarefied +evening air each sound began to acquire the sharpness that marks the +hour. He could hear the rush of the waters behind the boat and the +voices of the fishers farther up the stream. As he drew up to the bank +and took in his oars the stillness was so great that you could have +heard a pin fall, when suddenly from a tree above him a bird broke +into one little finished song and then was still, as if it had uttered +all it wished to say. + +"What a heavenly evening!" thought Lavendar, "and what a lovely spot! +That must be the cottage just above me. Mrs. de Tracy said I should +know it by the plum tree. Ah, there it is!" Tying up the boat he +sprang up the steps and walked along the flagged path. The plum tree +these last few days had begun to look its fairest. The blossoms did +not yet conceal the leaves, but it was a very bower of beauty already. +There was a little table spread for tea under its branches, and an old +woman like thousands of old women in thousands of cottages all over +England, was sitting behind it, precisely as if she had been a +coloured illustration in a summer number of an English weekly. She was +on the typical bench in the typical attitude, but instead of the +typical old man in a clean smock frock who should have occupied the +end of the bench, there sat beside her a distinctly lovely young +woman. What struck Lavendar was the wealth of colour she brought into +the picture: goldy brown hair, brown tweed dress, with a cape of blue +cloth slipping off her shoulders, and a brown toque with a pert +upstanding quill that seemed to express spirit and pluck, and a merry +heart. His quick glance took in the little hands that held the +withered old ones. Both heads were bowed and in the brown tweed lap +was a child's shoe,--a wee, worn, fat shoe. Beside it lay an absurd +bit of crumpled, tear-soaked embroidery that had been intended to do +duty as a handkerchief but had evidently proved quite unseaworthy. + +Waddling about on the flags close to the little table was a large fat +duck wearing a look of inexpressible greed. "_Quack, quack, quack_!" +it said, waddling off angrily as Lavendar approached. + +At the sound of the duck's raucous voice both the women looked up. + +"Is this Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, ma'am?" Lavendar asked with his +charming smile. + +"Yes, sir, 't is indeed, and who may you be, if I may be so bold as to +ask?" + +"I'm Mr. Lavendar, Mrs. de Tracy's lawyer, Mrs. Prettyman. I'm come to +do some business at Stoke Revel," he added, for the old face had +clouded over, and Mrs. Prettyman's whole expression changed to one of +timid mistrust. "I really was sent by Mrs. de Tracy," he went on, +turning to Robinette, "to take you home; Mrs. Loring, isn't it?" + +"Yes, I am Mrs. Loring," she said, frankly holding out her hand to +him. "I knew you were expected at Stoke Revel, but I sent the footman +back myself. He spoils the scenery and the river altogether." + +"I've got a boat down there; Mrs. de Tracy doesn't quite like your +taking the ferry; may I have the honour of rowing you across? My +orders were to bring you back as soon as possible." + +"I'm blest if I hurry," was his unspoken comment as Robinette gaily +agreed, and, having bidden good-bye to the old woman, with a quick +caress that astonished him a good deal, she laid down the little shoe +gently upon the bench, and turned to accompany him to the boat. + +The river was like a looking-glass; the air like balm. "We'll +take some time getting across, against the tide," said Lavendar +reflectively, as he resolved that the little voyage should be +prolonged to its fullest possible extent. He was not going into +the Manor a moment earlier than he could help, when this charming +person was sitting opposite to him. So this was Mrs. Loring! How +different from the stout middle-aged lady whom Mrs. de Tracy's +words had conjured up when he set out to find her! + +"Old Mrs. Prettyman was my mother's nurse," Robinette remarked as +Lavendar dipped his oars gently into the stream and began to row. "I +went to see her feeling quite grown up, and she seemed to consider me +still a child; I was feeling about four years old at the moment when +you appeared and woke me to the real world again." + +She had dried her eyes now and had pulled her hat down so as to shade +her face, but Lavendar could see the traces of her weeping, and the +dear little ineffectual rag of a handkerchief was still in one hand. + +"What on earth was she crying about?" he thought, as with lowered eyes +he rowed very slowly across, only just keeping the boat's head +against the current, and glancing now and then at the young woman. + +Was it possible that this lovely person was going to be his +fellow-guest in that dull house? "My word! but she's pretty! and what +were the tears about ... and the little shoe? Did it belong to a child +of her own? Can she be a widow, I wonder," said Lavendar to himself. + +"I often think," he said suddenly, raising his head, "that when two +people meet for the first time as utter strangers to each other, they +should be encouraged, not forbidden, to ask plain questions. It may be +my legal training, but I'd like all conversation to begin in that way. +As a child I was constantly reproved for my curiosity, especially when +I once asked a touchy old gentleman, 'Which is your glass eye? The one +that moves, or the one that stands still?'" + +The tears had dried, the hat was pushed back again, the young woman's +face broke into an April smile that matched the day and the weather. + +"Oh, come, let us do it," she exclaimed. "I'd love to play it like a +new game: we know nothing at all about each other, any more than if we +had dropped from the moon into the boat together. Oh! do be quick! +We've so little time; the river is quite narrow; who's to open the +ball?" + +"I'll begin, by right of my profession; put the witness in the box, +please.--What is your name, madam?" + +"Robinette Loring," she said demurely, clasping her hands on her knee, +an almost childlike delight in the new game dimpling the corners of +her mouth from time to time. + +"What is your age, madam?" Lavendar hesitated just for a moment before +putting this question. + +"I refuse to answer; you must guess." + +"Contempt of Court--" + +"Well, go on; I'm twenty-two and six weeks." + +"Thank you, you are remarkably well preserved. I can hardly +believe--those six-weeks! What nationality?" + +"American, of course, or half and half; with an English mother and +American ideas." + +"Thank you. Where is your present place of residence?" + +"Stoke Revel Manor House." + +"What is the duration of the visit?" + +"Fixed at a month, but may be shortened at any time for bad +behaviour." + +"Your purpose in coming to Stoke Revel?" + +"A Sentimental Journey, in search of fond relations." + +"Have you found these relations?" + +"I've found them; but the fondness is still to seek." + +"Have you left your family in America?" + +"I have no one belonging to me in the world," she answered simply, and +her bright face clouded suddenly. + +There was a moment's rather embarrassed silence. "It's getting to be a +sad game"; she said. "It's my turn now. I'll be the cross-examiner, +but not having had your legal training, I'll tell you a few facts +about this witness to begin with. He's a lawyer; I know that already. +Your Christian name, sir?" + +"Mark." + +"Mark Lavendar. 'Mark the perfect man.' Where have I heard that; in +Pope or in the Bible? Thank you; very good; your age is between thirty +and thirty-five, with a strong probability that it is thirty-three. Am +I right?" + +"Approximately, madam." + +"You are unmarried, for married men don't play games like this; they +are too sedate." + +"You reassure me! Am I expected to acknowledge the truth of all your +observations?" + +"You have only to answer my questions, sir." + +"I am unmarried, madam." + +"Your nationality?" + +"English of course. You don't count a French grandmother, I suppose?" + +Robinette clapped her hands. "Of course I do; it accounts for this +game; it just makes all the difference.--Why have you come to Stoke +Revel; couldn't you help it?" + +A twinkle passed from the blue eyes to the brown ones. + +"I am here on business connected with the estate." + +"For how long?" + +"An hour ago I thought all might be completed in a few days, but these +affairs are sometimes unaccountably prolonged!" (Was there another +twinkle? Robinette could hardly say.) They were half-way across the +river now. She leaned over and looked at herself in the water for a +moment. + +Lavendar rested on his oars, and began to rub the palms of his hands, +smiling a little to himself as he bent his head. + +"Yours is an odd Christian name," he said. "I've never heard it +before." + +"Then you haven't visited your National Gallery faithfully enough," +said Mrs. Loring. "Robinetta is one of the Sir Joshua pictures there, +you know, and it was a great favourite of my mother's in her girlhood. +Indeed she saved up her pin-money for nearly two years that she might +have a good copy of it made to hang in her bedroom where she could +look at it night and morning." + +"Then you were named after the picture?" + +"I was named from the memory of it," said Robinette, trailing her hand +through the clear water. "Mother took nothing to America with her but +my father's love (there was so much of that, it made up for all she +left behind), so the picture was thousands of miles away when I was +born. Mother told me that when I was first put into her arms she +thought suddenly, as she saw my dark head, 'Here is my own Robinetta, +in place of the one I left behind,' and fell asleep straight away, +full of joy and content." + +"And they shortened the name to Robinette?" + +"I was christened properly enough," she answered. "It was the world +that clipped my name's little wings; the world refuses to take me +seriously; I can't think why, I'm sure; I never regarded _it_ as a +joke." + +"A joke," said Lavendar reflectively; "it's a sort of grim one at +times; and yet it's funny too," he said, suddenly raising his eyes. + +"Now that's the odd thing I was thinking as I looked at you just now," +Robinette said frankly. "You seem so deadly solemn until you look up +and laugh--and then you _do_ laugh, you know. That's the French +grandmother again! It was nice in her to marry your grandfather! It +helped a lot!" + +He laughed then certainly, and so did she, and then pointed out to him +that they were being slowly drifted out of their course, and that if +he meant to get across to the landing-stage he must row a little +harder. + +"I have met American women casually;" he said, bending to his oars, +"but I have never known one well." + +"It's rather too bad to disturb the tranquillity of your impressions," +returned Mrs. Loring composedly. + +Lavendar looked up with another twinkle. She seemed to provoke +twinkles; he did not realize he had so many in stock. + +"You mean American women are not painted in quite the right colours?" + +"I suppose black _is_ a colour?" + +"Oh! I see your point of view!" and Lavendar twinkled again. + +"I can tell you in five sentences exactly what you have heard about +us. Will you say whether I am right? If you refuse I'll put you in the +witness box and then you'll be forced to speak!" + +"Very well; proceed." + +"One: We are clever, good conversationalists, and as cold as +icicles." + +"Yes." + +"Two: We dress beautifully and use extravagant means to compass our +ends in this direction." + +"Yes." + +"Three: We keep our overworked husbands under strict discipline." + +"Yes! I say,--I don't like this game." + +"Neither do I, but it's very much played,--" + +"Four: We prefer hotels to home life and don't bring up our children +well." + +"Yes." + +"Five: We interfere with the proper game laws by bagging English +husbands instead of staying on our own preserves. That's about all, I +think. Were not those rumours tolerably familiar to you in the +ha'penny papers and their human counterparts?" + +Lavendar was so amused by this direct storming of his opinion that he +could hardly keep his laughter within bounds. "I've heard one other +criticism," he said, "that you were all pretty and all had small feet +and hands! I am now able to declare that to be a base calumny and to +hope that all the others will prove just as false!" Then Robinette +laughed too; eyes, lips, cheeks! When Lavendar looked at her he wished +that his father would keep him at Stoke Revel for a month. + +The sun was going down now, and the rising tide came swelling up from +the sea, lifting itself and silently swelling the volume of the river, +in a way that had something awful about it. The whole current of the +great stream was against it, but behind was the force of the sea and +so it filled and filled with hardly a ripple, as the heart is filled +with a new desire. Up from the mouth of the river came a faint breeze +bringing the taste of the ocean into the deeply wooded creeks. It had +freshened into a little wind, as they drew up at the boat-house, that +flapped Robinette's blue cape about her, and dyed the colour in her +cheeks to a livelier tint. As they walked up the narrow pathway to the +house a deep silence fell between them that neither attempted to +break. + +At the top of the hill, she paused to take breath, and look across the +river. It was half dark already there, on the other side in the deep +shadow of the hill; and a lamp in the window of the cottage shone like +a star beside the faintly green shape of the budding plum tree. + +As Robinette entered the door of the Manor House she took out her +little gold-meshed purse and handed Mark Lavendar a penny. + +"It's none too much," she said, meeting his astonished gaze with a +smile. "I should have had to pay it on the public ferry, and you were +ever so much nicer than the footman!" + +Lavendar put the penny in his waistcoat pocket and has never spent it +to this day. It is impossible to explain these things; one can only +state them as facts. Another fact, too, that he suddenly remembered, +when he went to his room, was, that the moment her personality touched +his he was filled with curiosity about her. He had met hundreds of +women and enjoyed their conversation, but seldom longed to know on the +instant everything that had previously happened to them. + + + + +VIII + +SUNDAY AT STOKE REVEL + + +On Sundays, the Stoke Revel household was expected to appear at church +in full strength, visitors included. + +"We meet in the hall punctually at a quarter to eleven," it was Miss +Smeardon's duty to announce to strangers. "Mrs. de Tracy always +prefers that the Stoke Revel guests should walk down together, as it +sets a good example to the villagers." + +"What Nelson said about going to church with Lady Hamilton!" Lavendar +had once commented, irrepressibly, but the allusion, rather +fortunately, was lost upon Miss Smeardon. Mark began to picture the +familiar Sunday scene to himself; Miss Smeardon in the hall at a +quarter to eleven punctually, marshalling the church-goers; and Mrs. +Loring,--she would be late of course, and come fluttering downstairs +in some bewitching combination of flowery hat and floating scarf that +no one had ever seen before. What a lover's opportunity in this +lateness, thought the young man to himself; but one could enjoy a walk +to church in charming company, though something less than a lover. + +It was Mrs. de Tracy's custom, on Sunday mornings, to precede her +household by half an hour in going to the sanctuary. No infirmities of +old age had invaded her iron constitution, and it was nothing to her +to walk alone to the church of Stoke Revel, steep though the hill was +which led down through the ancient village to the yet more ancient +edifice at its foot. During this solitary interval, Mrs. de Tracy +visited her husband's tomb, and no one knew, or dared, or cared to +enquire, what motive encouraged this pious action in a character so +devoid of tenderness and sentiment. Was it affection, was it duty, was +it a mere form, a tribute to the greatness of an owner of Stoke +Revel, such as a nation pays to a dead king? Who could tell? + +The graveyard of Stoke Revel owned a yew tree, so very, very old that +the count of its years was lost and had become a fable or a fairy +tale. It was twisted, gnarled, and low; and its long branches, which +would have reached the ground, were upheld, like the arms of some +dying patriarch, by supports, themselves old and moss-grown. Under the +spreading of this ancient tree were graves, and from the carved, +age-eaten porch of the church, a path led among them, under the green +tunnel, out into the sunny space beyond it. The Admiral lay in a vault +of which the door was at the side of the church, for no de Tracy, of +course, could occupy a mere grave, like one of the common herd; and +here walked the funereal figure of Mrs. de Tracy, fair weather or +foul, nearly every Sunday in the year. + +In justice to Mrs. de Tracy, it must be made plain that with all her +faults, small spite was not a part of her character. Yet to-day, her +anger had been stirred by an incident so small that its very +triviality annoyed her pride. It was Mark Lavendar's custom, when his +visits to Stoke Revel included a Sunday, cheerfully to evade +church-going. His Sundays in the country were few, he said, and he +preferred to enjoy them in the temple of nature, generally taking a +long walk before lunch. But to-day he had announced his intention of +coming to service, and well Mrs. de Tracy, versed in men and in human +nature, knew why. Robinette would be there, and Lavendar followed, as +the bee follows a basket of flowers on a summer day. As Mrs. de Tracy, +like the Stoic that she was, accepted all the inevitable facts of +life,--birth, death, love, hate (she had known them all in her day), +she accepted this one also. But in that atrophy of every feeling +except bitterness, that atrophy which is perhaps the only real +solitude, the only real old age, her animosity was stirred. It was as +though a dead branch upon some living tree was angry with the spring +for breathing on it. As she returned, herself unseen in the shadow of +the yew tree, she saw Lavendar and Robinette enter together under the +lych-gate, the figure of the young woman touched with sunlight and +colour, her lips moving, and Lavendar smiling in answer. In the +clashing of the bells--bells which shook the air, the earth, the +ancient stones, the very nests upon the trees--their voices were +inaudible, but in their faces was a young happiness and hope to which +the solitary woman could not blind herself. + +Presently in the lukewarm air within, Robinette was finding the +church's immemorial smell of prayer-books, hassocks, decaying wood, +damp stones, matting, school-children, and altar flowers, a harmonious +and suggestive one if not pleasant. What an ancient air it was, she +thought; breathed and re-breathed by slow generations of Stoke +Revellers during their sleepy devotions! The very light that entered +through the dim stained glass seemed old and dusty, it had seen so +much during so many hundred years, seen so much, and found out so many +secrets! Soon the clashing of the bells ceased and upon the still +reverberating silence there broke the small, snoring noises of a +rather ineffectual organ, while the amiable curate, Rev. Tobias Finch, +made his appearance, and the service began. + +Mrs. de Tracy had entered the pew first, naturally; Miss Smeardon sat +next, then Robinetta. Lavendar occupied the pew in front, alone, and +through her half-closed eyelids Robinetta could see the line of his +lean cheek and bony temple. He had not wished to sit there at all and +he was so unresigned as to be badly in need of the soothing influences +of Morning Prayer. Robinetta was beginning to wonder dreamily what +manner of man this really was, behind his plain face and non-committal +manner, when the muffled slam of a door behind, startled her, followed +as it was by a quick step upon the matted aisle. Then without further +warning, a big, broad-shouldered boy, in the uniform of a British +midshipman, thrust himself into the pew beside her, hot and breathless +after running hard. Mrs. Loring guessed at once that this must be +Carnaby de Tracy, the young hopeful and heir of Stoke Revel of whom +Mr. Lavendar had so often spoken, but the startling and unconventional +nature of his appearance was not at all what one expected in a member +of his family. Robinette stole more than one look at him as the +offertory went round; a robust boy with a square chin, a fair face +burnt red by the sun, a rollicking eye and an impudent nose; not +handsome certainly, indeed quite plain, but he looked honest and +strong and clean, and Robinette's frolicsome youth was drawn to his, +all ready for fun. Carnaby hitched about a good deal, dropped his +hymn-book, moved the hassock, took out his handkerchief, and on +discovering a huge hole, turned crimson. + +Service over, the congregation shuffled out into the sunshine, and +Mrs. de Tracy, after a characteristically cool and disapproving +recognition of her grandson, became occupied with villagers. +Lavendar made known young Carnaby to Mrs. David Loring, but the +midshipman's light grey eyes had discovered the pretty face without +any assistance. + +"This lady is your American cousin, Carnaby," said Mark. "Did you know +you had one?" + +"I don't think I did," answered the boy, "but it's never too late to +mend!" He attempted a bow of finished grown-upness, failed somewhat, +and melted at once into an engaging boyishness, under which his +frank admiration of his new-found relative was not to be hidden. "I +say, are you stopping at Stoke Revel?" he asked, as though the news +were too good to be true. "Jolly! Hullo--" he broke off with +animation as the cassocked figure of the Rev. Tobias Finch fluttered +out from the porch--"here's old Toby! Watch Miss Smeardon now! She +expects to catch him, you know, but he says he's going to be a +celly--celly-what-d'you-call-'em?" + +"Celibate?" suggested Lavendar, with laughing eyes. + +"The very word, thank you!" said Carnaby. "Yes: a celibate. Not so +easily nicked, good old Toby--you bet!" + +"Do the clergymen over here always dress like that?" inquired +Robinetta, trying to suppress a tendency to laugh at his slang. + +"Cassock?" said Carnaby. "Toby wouldn't be seen without it. High, you +know! Bicycles in it. Fact! Goes to bed in it, I believe." + +"Carnaby, Carnaby! Come away!" said Lavendar. "Restrain these flights +of imagination! Don't you see how they shock Mrs. Loring?" + +Before the Manor was reached, Robinetta and Carnaby had sworn eternal +friendship deeper than any cousinship, they both declared. They met +upon a sort of platform of Stoke Revel, predestined to sympathy upon +all its salient characteristics; two naughty children on a holiday. + +"Do you get enough to eat here?" asked Carnaby in a hollow whisper, in +the drawing-room before lunch. + +"Of course I have enough, Middy," answered Robinetta with unconscious +reservation. She had rejected "Carnaby" at once as a name quite +impossible: he was "Middy" to her almost from the first moment of +their acquaintance. + +"Enough?" he ejaculated, "_I_ don't! I'd never be fed if it weren't +for old Bates and Mrs. Smith and Cooky." Bates was the butler, Mrs. +Smith the housekeeper, and Cooky her satellite. "Nobody gets enough to +eat in this house!" added Carnaby darkly, "except the dog." + +At the lunch-table, the antagonism natural between a hot-blooded +impetuous boy and a grandmother such as Mrs. de Tracy became rather +painfully apparent. He had already been hauled over the coals for his +arrival on Sunday and his indecorous appearance in church after +service had begun. + +"It does not appear to me that you are at all in need of sick-leave," +said Mrs. de Tracy suspiciously. + +Carnaby, sensitive for all his robustness, flushed hotly, and then +became impertinent. "My pulse is twenty beats too quick still, after +quinsy. If you don't believe the doctor, ma'am, it's not my fault." + +"Carnaby has committed indiscretions in the way of growing since I +last saw him," Lavendar broke in hastily. "At sixteen one may easily +outgrow one's strength!" + +"Indeed!" said Mrs. de Tracy, frigidly. The situation was saved by the +behaviour of the lap-dog, which suddenly burst into a passion of +barking and convulsive struggling in Miss Smeardon's arms. His enemy +had come, and Carnaby had fifty ways of exasperating his grandmother's +favourite, secrets between him and the bewildered dog. Rupert was a +Prince Charles of pedigree as unquestioned as his mistress's and an +appearance dating back to Vandyke, but Carnaby always addressed him as +"Lord Roberts," for reasons of his own. It annoyed his grandmother and +it infuriated the dog, who took it for a deadly insult. + +"Lord Roberts! Bobs, old man, hi! hi!" Carnaby had but to say the +words to make the little dog convulsive. He said them now, and the +results seemed likely to be fatal to a dropsical animal so soon after +a full meal. + +"You'll kill him!" whispered Robinette as they left the dining room. + +"I mean to!" was the calm reply. "I'd like to wring old Smeardon's +neck too!" but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling +eyes, belied these truculent words. In spite of infinite powers of +mischief, there was not an ounce of vindictiveness in Carnaby de +Tracy, though there might be other qualities difficult to deal with. + +"There's a man to be made there--or to be marred!" said Robinette to +herself. + + + + +IX + +POINTS OF VIEW + + +Evenings at Stoke Revel were of a dullness all too deep to be sounded +and too closely hedged in by tradition and observance to be evaded or +shortened by the boldest visitor. Lavendar and the boy would have +prolonged their respite in the smoking room had they dared, but in +these later days Lavendar found he wished to be below on guard. The +thought of Robinette alone between the two women downstairs made him +uneasy. It was as though some bird of bright plumage had strayed into +a barnyard to be pecked at by hens. Not but what he realised that this +particular bird had a spirit of her own, and plenty of courage, but no +man with even a prospective interest in a pretty woman, likes to think +of the object of his admiration as thoroughly well able to look after +herself. She must needs have a protector, and the heaven-sent one is +himself. + +He had to take up arms in her defense on this, the first night of his +arrival. Mrs. Loring had gone up to her room for some photographs of +her house in America, and as she flitted through the door her scarf +caught on the knob, and he had been obliged to extricate it. He had +known her exactly four hours, and although he was unconscious of it, +his heart was being pulled along the passage and up the stairway at +the tail-end of that wisp of chiffon, while he listened to her +retreating footsteps. Closing the door he came back to Mrs. de Tracy's +side. + +"Her dress is indecorous for a widow," said that lady severely. + +"Oh, I don't see that," replied Lavendar. "She is in reality only a +girl, and her widowhood has already lasted two years, you say." + +"Once a widow always a widow," returned Mrs. de Tracy sententiously, +with a self-respecting glance at her own cap and the half-dozen dull +jet ornaments she affected. Lavendar laughed outright, but she rather +liked his laughter: it made her think herself witty. Once he had told +her she was "delicious," and she had never forgotten it. + +"That's going pretty far, my dear lady," he replied. "Not all women +are so faithful to a memory as you. I understand Americans don't wear +weeds, and to me her blue cape is a delightful note in the landscape. +Her dresses are conventional and proper, and I fancy she cannot +express herself without a bit of colour." + +"The object of clothing, Mark, is to cover and to protect yourself, +not to express yourself," said Mrs. de Tracy bitingly. + +"The thought of wearing anything bright always makes me shrink," +remarked Miss Smeardon, who had never apparently observed the tip of +her own nose, "but some persons are less sensitive on these points +than others." + +Mrs. de Tracy bowed an approving assent to this. "A widow's only +concern should be to refrain from attracting notice," she said, as +though quoting from a private book of proverbial philosophy soon to be +published. + +"Then Mrs. Loring might as well have burned herself on her husband's +funeral pyre, Hindoo fashion!" argued Lavendar. "A woman's life hasn't +ended at two and twenty. It's hardly begun, and I fear the lady in +question will arouse attention whatever she wears." + +"Would she be called attractive?" asked Mrs. de Tracy with surprise. + +"Oh, yes, without a doubt!" + +"In gentlemen's eyes, I suppose you mean?" said Miss Smeardon. + +"Yes, in gentlemen's eyes," answered Lavendar, firmly. "Those of women +are apparently furnished with different lenses. But here comes the +fair object of our discussion, so we must decide it later on." + +The question of ancestors, a favourite one at Stoke Revel, came up in +the course of the next evening's conversation, and Lavendar found +Robinette a trifle flushed but smiling under a double fire of +questions from Mrs. de Tracy and her companion. Mrs. de Tracy was in +her usual chair, knitting; Miss Smeardon sat by the table with a piece +of fancy-work; Robinette had pulled a foot-stool to the hearthrug and +sat as near the flames as she conveniently could. She shielded her +face with the last copy of _Punch_, and let her shoulders bask in the +warmth of the fire, which made flickering shadows on her creamy neck. +Her white skirts swept softly round her feet, and her favourite +turquoise scarf made a note of colour in her lap. She was one of those +women who, without positive beauty, always make pictures of +themselves. + +Lavendar analyzed her looks as he joined the circle, pretending to +read. "She isn't posing," he thought, "but she ought to be painted. +She ought always to be painted, each time one sees her, for +everything about her suggests a portrait. That blue ribbon in her hair +is fairly distracting! What the dickens is the reason one wants to +look at her all the time! I've seen far handsomer women!" + +"Do you use Burke and Debrett in your country, Mrs. Loring?" Miss +Smeardon was enquiring politely, as she laid down one red volume after +the other, having ascertained the complete family tree of a lady who +had called that afternoon. + +Robinette smiled. "I'm afraid we've nothing but telephone or business +directories, social registers, and 'Who's Who,' in America," she +said. + +"You are not interested in questions of genealogy, I suppose?" asked +Mrs. de Tracy pityingly. + +"I can hardly say that. But I think perhaps that we are more occupied +with the future than with the past." + +"That is natural," assented the lady of the Manor, "since you have so +much more of it, haven't you? But the mixture of races in your +country," she continued condescendingly, "must have made you +indifferent to purity of strain." + +"I hope we are not wholly indifferent," said Robinette, as though she +were stopping to consider. "I think every serious-minded person must +be proud to inherit fine qualities and to pass them on. Surely it +isn't enough to give _old_ blood to the next generation--it must be +_good_ blood. Yes! the right stock certainly means something to an +American." + +"But if you've nothing that answers to Burke and Debrett, I don't see +how you can find out anybody's pedigree," objected Miss Smeardon. Then +with an air of innocent curiosity and a glance supposed to be arch, +"Are the Red Indians, the Negroes, and the Chinese in your so-called +directories?" + +"As many of them as are in business, or have won their way to any +position among men no doubt are there, I suppose," answered Robinette +straightforwardly. "I think we just guess at people's ancestry by the +way they look, act, and speak," she continued musingly. "You can +'guess' quite well if you are clever at it. No Indians or Chinese ever +dine with me, Miss Smeardon, though I'd rather like a peaceful Indian +at dinner for a change; but I expect he'd find me very dull and +uneventful!" + +"Dull!--that's a word I very often hear on American lips," broke in +Lavendar as he looked over the top of Henry Newbolt's poems. "I +believe being dull is thought a criminal offence in your country. Now, +isn't there some danger involved in this fear of dullness?" + +"I shouldn't wonder," Robinette answered thoughtfully, looking into +the fire. "Yes; I dare say there is, but I'm afraid there are social +and mental dangers involved in _not_ being afraid of it, too!" Her +mischievous eyes swept the room, with Mrs. de Tracy's solemn figure +and Miss Smeardon's for its bright ornaments. "The moment a person or +a nation allows itself to be too dull, it ceases to be quite alive, +doesn't it? But as to us Americans, Mr. Lavendar, bear with us for a +few years, we are so ridiculously young! It is our growing time, and +what you want in a young plant is growth, isn't it?" + +"Y-yes," Lavendar replied: then with a twinkle in his blue eyes he +added: "Only somehow we don't like to hear a plant grow! It should +manage to perform the operation quite silently, showing not processes +but results. That's a counsel of perfection, perhaps, but don't slay +me for plain-speaking, Mrs. Loring!" + +Robinette laughed. "I'll never slay you for saying anything so wise +and true as that!" she said, and Lavendar, flushing under her praise, +was charmed with her good humour. + +"America's a very large country, is it not?" enquired Miss Smeardon +with her usual brilliancy. "What is its area?" + +"Bigger than England, but not as big as the British Empire!" suggested +Carnaby, feeling the conversation was drifting into his ken. + +"It's just the size of the moon, I've heard!" said Robinette +teasingly. "Does that throw any light on the question?" + +"Moonlight!" laughed Carnaby, much pleased with his own wit. "Ha! ha! +That's the first joke I've made this holidays. _Moonlight!_ Jolly +good!" + +"If you'd take a joke a little more in your stride, my son," said +Lavendar, "we should be more impressed by your mental sparkles." + +"Straighten the sofa-cushions, Carnaby," said his grandmother, "and +don't lounge. I missed the point of your so-called joke entirely. As +to the size of a country or anything else, I have never understood +that it affected its quality. In fruit or vegetables, for instance, it +generally means coarseness and indifferent flavour." Miss Smeardon +beamed at this palpable hit, but Mrs. Loring deprived the situation of +its point by backing up Mrs. de Tracy heartily. She had no opinion of +mere size, either, she declared. + +"You don't stand up for your country half enough," objected Carnaby to +his cousin. ("Why don't you give the old cat beans?" was his +supplement, _sotto voce_.) + +"Just attack some of my pet theories and convictions, Middy dear, if +you wish to see me in a rage," said Robinette lightly, "but my motto +will never be 'My country right or wrong.'" + +"Nor mine," agreed Lavendar. "I'm heartily with you there." + +"It's a great venture we're trying in America. I wish every one would +try to look at it in that light," said Robinette with a slight flush +of earnestness. + +"What do you mean by a venture?" asked Mrs. de Tracy. + +"The experiment we're making in democracy," answered Robinette. "It's +fallen to us to try it, for of course it simply had to be tried. It +is thrillingly interesting, whatever it may turn out, and I wish I +might live to see the end of it. We are creating a race, Aunt de +Tracy; think of that!" + +"It's as difficult for nations as for individuals to hit the happy +medium," said Lavendar, stirring the fire. "Enterprise carried too far +becomes vulgar hustling, while stability and conservatism often pass +the coveted point of repose and degenerate into torpor." + +"This part of England seems to me singularly free from faults," +interposed Mrs. de Tracy in didactic tones. "We have a wonderful +climate; more sunshine than in any part of the island, I believe. Our +local society is singularly free from scandal. The clergy, if not +quite as eloquent or profound as in London (and in my opinion it is +the better for being neither) is strictly conscientious. We have no +burglars or locusts or gnats or even midges, as I'm told they +unfortunately have in Scotland, and our dinner-parties, though quiet +and dignified, are never dull.... What is the matter, Robinetta?" + +"A sudden catch in my throat," said Robinette, struggling with some +sort of vocal difficulty and avoiding Lavendar's eye. "Thank you," as +he offered her a glass of water from the punctual and strictly +temperate evening tray. "Don't look at me," she added under her +voice. + +"Not for a million of money!" he whispered. Then he said aloud: "If I +ever stand for Parliament, Mrs. Loring, I should like you to help me +with my constituency!" + +The unruffled temper and sweet reasonableness of Robinette's answers +to questions by no means always devoid of malice, had struck the young +man very much, as he listened. + +"She is good!" he thought to himself. "Good and sweet and generous. +Her loveliness is not only in her face; it is in her heart." And some +favorite lines began to run in his head that night, with new +conviction:-- + + He that loves a rosy cheek, + Or a coral lip admires, + Or from star-like eyes doth seek + Fuel to maintain his fires,-- + As old Time makes these decay, + So his flames will waste away. + + But a smooth and steadfast mind, + Gentle thoughts and calm desires, + Hearts with equal love combined-- + +but here Lavendar broke off with a laugh. + +"It's not come to that yet!" he thought. "I wonder if it ever will?" + + + + +X + +A NEW KINSMAN + + +Young Mrs. Loring was making her way slowly at Stoke Revel Manor, and +Mrs. de Tracy, though never affectionate, treated her with a little +less indifference as the days went on. "The Admiral's niece is a +lady," she admitted to herself privately; "not perhaps the highest +type of English lady; that, considering her mixed ancestry and +American education, would be too much to expect; but in the broad, +general meaning of the word, unmistakably a lady!" + +Mrs. Benson, though not melting outwardly as yet, held more lenient +views still with regard to the American guest. Bates, the butler, was +elderly, and severely Church of England; his knowledge of widows was +confined to the type ably represented by his mistress and he regarded +young Mrs. Loring as inclined to be "flighty." The footman, who was +entirely under the butler's thumb in mundane matters, had fallen into +the habit of sharing his opinions, and while agreeing in the general +feeling of flightiness, declared boldly that the lady in question gave +a certain "style" to the dinner-table that it had lacked before her +advent. + +For a helpless victim, however, a slave bound in fetters of steel, one +would have to know Cummins, the under housemaid, who lighted Mrs. +Loring's fire night and morning. She was young, shy, country bred, and +new to service. When Mrs. Benson sent her to the guest's room at eight +o'clock on the morning after her arrival she stopped outside the door +in a panic of fear. + +"Come in!" called a cheerful voice. "Come in!" + +Cummins entered, bearing her box with brush and cloth and kindlings. +To her further embarrassment Mrs. Loring was sitting up in bed with an +ermine coat on, over which her bright hair fell in picturesque +disorder. She had brought the coat for theatre and opera, but as these +attractions were lacking at Stoke Revel and as life there was, to her, +one prolonged Polar expedition, with dashes farthest north morning and +evening, she had diverted it to practical uses. + +"Make me a quick fire please, a big fire, a hot fire," she begged, "or +I shall be late for breakfast; I never can step into that tin tub till +the ice is melted." + +"There's no ice in it, ma'am," expostulated Cummins gently, with the +voice of a wood dove. + +"You can't see it because you're English," said the strange lady, "but +I can see it and feel it. Oh, you make _such_ a good fire! What is +your name, please?" + +"Cummins, ma'am." + +"There's another Cummins downstairs, but she is tall and large. You +shall be 'Little Cummins.'" + +Now every morning the shy maid palpitated outside the bedroom door, +having given her modest knock; palpitated for fear it should be all a +dream. But no, it was not! there would be a clear-voiced "Come in!" +and then, as she entered; "Good morning, Little Cummins. I've been +longing for you since daybreak!" A trifle later on it was, "Good +Little Cummins bearing coals of comfort! Kind Little Cummins," and +other strange and wonderful terms of praise, until Little Cummins felt +herself consumed by a passion to which Mrs. de Tracy's coals became as +less than naught unless they could be heaped on the altar of the +beloved. + +So life went on at Stoke Revel, outwardly even and often dull, while +in reality many subtle changes were taking place below the surface; +changes slight in themselves but not without meaning. + +Robinette ran up to her room directly after breakfast one morning and +pinned on her hat as she came downstairs. Mark Lavendar had gone to +London for a few days, but even the dullness of breakfast-table +conversation had not robbed her of her joy in the early sunshine, made +more cheery by the prospect of a walk with Carnaby, with whom she was +now fast friends. + +Carnaby looked at her beamingly as they stood together on the steps. +"You're the best turned-out woman of my acquaintance," he said +approvingly, with a laughable struggle for the tone of a middle-aged +man of the world. + +"How many ladies of fashion do you know, my child?" enquired +Robinetta, pulling on her gloves. + +"I see a lot of 'em off and on," Carnaby answered somewhat huffily, +"and they don't call me a child either!" + +"Don't they? Then that's because they're timid and don't dare address +a future Admiral as Infant-in-Arms! Come on, Middy dear, let's walk." + +Robinette wore a white serge dress and jacket, and her hat was a rough +straw turned up saucily in two places with black owls' heads. Mrs. +Benson and Little Cummins had looked at it curiously while Robinette +was at breakfast. + +"'Tis black underneath and white on top, Mrs. Benson. 'Ow can that be? +It looks as if one 'at 'ad been clapped on another!" + +"That's what it is, Cummins. It's a double hat; but they'll do +anything in America. It's a double hat with two black owls' heads, and +I'll wager they charged double price for it!" + +"She's a lovely beauty in anythink and everythink she wears," said +Little Cummins loyally. + +"May I call you 'Cousin Robin'?" Carnaby asked as they walked along. +"Robinette is such a long name." + +"Cousin Robin is very nice, I think," she answered. "As a matter +of fact I ought to be your Aunt Robin; it would be much more +appropriate." + +"Aunt be blowed!" ejaculated Carnaby. + +"You're very fond of making yourself out old, but it's no go! When I +first heard you were a widow I thought you would be grandmother's +age,--I say--do you think you will marry another time, Cousin Robin?" + +"That's a very leading question for a gentleman to put to a lady! Were +you intending to ask me to wait for you, Middy dear?" asked Robinette, +putting her arm in the boy's laughingly, quite unconscious of his +mood. + +"I'd wait quick enough if you'd let me! I'd wait a lifetime! There +never was anybody like you in the world!" + +The words were said half under the boy's breath and the emotion in his +tone was a complete and disagreeable surprise. Here was something that +must be nipped in the bud, instantly and courageously. Robinette +dropped Carnaby's arm and said: "We'll talk that over at once, Middy +dear, but first you shall race me to the top of the twisting path, +down past the tulip beds, to the seat under the big ash tree.--Come +on!" + +The two reached the tree in a moment, Carnaby sufficiently in advance +to preserve his self-respect and with a colour heightened by something +other than the exercise of running. + +"Sit down, first cousin once removed!" said Robinette. "Do you know +the story of Sydney Smith, who wrote apologizing to somebody for not +being able to come to dinner? 'The house is full of cousins,' he said; +'would they were "once removed"!'" + +"It's no good telling me literary anecdotes!--You're not treating me +fairly," said Carnaby sulkily. + +"I'm treating you exactly as you should be treated, Infant-in-Arms," +Robinette answered firmly. "Give me your two paws, and look me +straight in the eye." + +Carnaby was no coward. His steel-grey eyes blazed as he met his +cousin's look. "Carnaby dear, do you know what you are to me? You are +my kinsman; my only male relation. I'm so fond of you already, don't +spoil it! Think what you can be to me if you will. I am all alone in +the world and when you grow a little older how I should like to depend +upon you! I need affection; so do you, dear boy; can't I see how you +are just starving for it? There is no reason in the world why we +shouldn't be fond of each other! Oh! how grateful I should be to think +of a strong young middy growing up to advise me and take me about! It +was that kind of care and thought of me that was in your mind just +now!" + +"You'll be marrying somebody one of these days," blurted Carnaby, +wholly moved, but only half convinced. "Then you'll forget all about +your 'kinsman.'" + +"I have no intention in that direction," said Robinette, "but if I +change my mind I'll consult you first; how will that do?" + +"It wouldn't do any good," sighed the boy, "so I'd rather you +wouldn't! You'd have your own way spite of everything a fellow could +say against it!" + +There was a moment of embarrassment; then the silence was promptly +broken by Robinette. + +"Well, Middy dear, are we the best of friends?" she asked, rising from +the bench and putting out her hand. + +The lad took it and said all in a glow of chivalry, "You're the +dearest, the best, and the prettiest cousin in the world! You don't +mind my thinking you're the prettiest?" + +"Mind it? I delight in it! I shall come to your ship and pour out tea +for you in my most fetching frock. Your friends will say: 'Who is that +particularly agreeable lady, Carnaby?' And you, with swelling chest, +will respond, 'That's my American cousin, Mrs. Loring. She's a nice +creature; I'm glad you like her!'" + +Robinette's imitation of Carnaby's possible pomposity was so amusing +and so clever that it drew a laugh from the boy in spite of himself. + +"Just let anyone try to call you a 'creature'!" he exclaimed. "He'd +have me to reckon with! Oh! I am so tired of being a boy! The inside +of me is all grown up and everybody keeps on looking at the outside +and thinking I'm just the same as I always was!" + +"Dear old Middy, you're quite old enough to be my protector and that +is what you shall be! Now shall we go in? I want you to stand near by +while I ask your grandmother a favor." + +"She won't do it if she can help it," was Carnaby's succinct reply. + +"Oh, I am not sure! Where shall we find her,--in the library?" + +"Yes; come along! Get up your circulation; you'll need it!" + +"Aunt de Tracy, there is something at Stoke Revel I am very anxious to +have if you will give it to me," said Robinette, as she came into the +library a few minutes later. + +Mrs. de Tracy looked up from her knitting solemnly. "If it belongs to +me, I shall no doubt be willing, as I know you would not ask for +anything out of the common; but I own little here; nearly all is +Carnaby's." + +"This was my mother's," said Robinette. "It is a picture hanging in +the smoking room; one that was a great favorite of hers, called +'Robinetta.' Her drawing-master found an Italian artist in London who +went to the National Gallery and made a copy of the Sir Joshua +picture, and I was named after it." + +"I wish your mother could have been a little less romantic," sighed +Mrs. de Tracy. "There were such fine old family names she might have +used: Marcia and Elspeth, and Rosamond and Winifred!" + +"I am sorry, Aunt de Tracy. If I had been consulted I believe I should +have agreed with you. Perhaps when my mother was in America the family +ties were not drawn as tightly as in the former years?" + +"If it was so, it was only natural," said the old lady. "However, if +you ask Carnaby, and if the picture has no great value, I am sure he +will wish you to have it, especially if you know it to have been your +mother's property." Here Carnaby sauntered into the room. "That's all +right, grandmother," he said, "I heard what you were saying; only I +wish it was a real Sir Joshua we were giving Cousin Robin instead of a +copy!" + +"Thank you, Carnaby dear, and thank you, too, Aunt de Tracy. You can't +think how much it is to me to have this; it is a precious link between +mother's girlhood, and mother, and me." So saying, she dropped a timid +kiss upon Mrs. de Tracy's iron-grey hair, and left the room. + +"If she could live in England long enough to get over that excessive +freedom of manner, your cousin would be quite a pleasing person, but I +am afraid it goes too deep to be cured," Mrs. de Tracy remarked as she +smoothed the hairs that might have been ruffled by Robinette's kiss. + +Carnaby made no reply. He was looking out into the garden and feeling +half a boy, half a man, but wholly, though not very contentedly, a +kinsman. + + + + +XI + +THE SANDS AT WESTON + + +"Thursday morning? Is it possible that this is Thursday morning? And I +must run up to London on Saturday," said Lavendar to himself as he +finished dressing by the open window. He looked up the day of the week +in his calendar first, in order to make quite sure of the fact. Yes, +there was no doubt at all that it was Thursday. His sense of time must +have suffered some strange confusion; in one way it seemed only an +hour ago that he had arrived from the clangour and darkness of London +to the silence of the country, the cuckoos calling across the river +between the wooded hills, and the April sunshine on the orchard trees; +in another, years might have passed since the moment when he first saw +Robinette Loring sitting under Mrs. Prettyman's plum tree. + +"Eight days have we spent together in this house, and yet since that +time when we first crossed in the boat, I've never been more than half +an hour alone with her," he thought. "There are only three other +people in the house after all, but they seem to have the power of +multiplying themselves like the loaves and fishes (only when they're +not wanted) so that we're eternally in a crowd. That boy particularly! +I like Carnaby, if he could get it into his thick head that his +presence isn't always necessary; it must bother Mrs. Loring too; he's +quite off his head about her if she only knew it. However, it's my +last day very likely, and if I have to outwit Machiavelli I'll manage +it somehow! Surely one lame old woman, and a torpid machine for +knitting and writing notes like Miss Smeardon, can't want to be out of +doors all day. Hang that boy, though! He'll come anywhere." Here he +stopped and sat down suddenly at the dressing-table, covering his face +with his hands in comic despair. "Mrs. Loring can't like it! She must +be doing it on purpose, avoiding being alone with me because she sees +I admire her," he sighed. "After all why should I ever suppose that I +interest her as much as she does me?" + +No one could have told from Lavendar's face, when he appeared fresh +and smiling at the breakfast table half an hour later, that he was +hatching any deep-laid schemes. + +Robinette entered the dining room five minutes late, as usual, pretty +as a pink, breathless with hurrying. She wore a white dress again, +with one rose stuck at her waistband, "A little tribute from the +gardener," she said, as she noticed Lavendar glance at it. She went +rapidly around the table shaking hands, and gave Carnaby's red cheeks +a pinch in passing that made Lavendar long to tweak the boy's ear. + +"Good morning, all!" she said cheerily, "and how is my first cousin +once removed? Is he going to Weston with me this morning to buy +hairpins?" + +"He is!" Carnaby answered joyfully, between mouthfuls of bacon and +eggs. "He has been out of hairpins for a week." + +"Does he need tapes and buttons also?" asked Robinette, taking the +piece of muffin from his hand and buttering it for herself; an act +highly disapproved of by Mrs. de Tracy, who hurriedly requested Bates +to pass the bread. + +"He needs everything you need," Carnaby said with heightened colour. + +"My hair is giving me a good deal of trouble, lately," remarked +Lavendar, passing his hand over a thickly thatched head. + +"I have an excellent American tonic that I will give you after +breakfast," said Robinette roguishly. "You need to apply it with a +brush at ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock, sitting in the sun +continuously between those hours so that the scalp may be well +invigorated. Carnaby, will you buy me butter scotch and lemonade and +oranges in Weston?" + +"I will, if Grandmother'll increase my allowance," said Carnaby +malevolently, "for I need every penny I've got in hand for the +hairpins." + +"I hope you are not hungry, Robinetta," said Mrs. de Tracy, "that you +have to buy food in Weston." + +"No, indeed," said Robinette, "I was only longing to test Carnaby's +generosity and educate him in buying trifles for pretty ladies." + +"He can probably be relied on to educate himself in that line when the +time comes," Mrs. de Tracy remarked; "and now if you have all finished +talking about hair, I will take up my breakfast again." + +"Oh, Aunt de Tracy, I am so sorry if it wasn't a nice subject, but I +never thought. Anyway I only talked about hairpins; it was Mr. +Lavendar who introduced hair into the conversation; wasn't it, Middy +dear?" + +Lavendar thought he could have annihilated them both for their open +comradeship, their obvious delight in each other's society. Was he to +be put on the shelf like a dry old bachelor? Not he! He would +circumvent them in some way or another, although the rôle of +gooseberry was new to him. + +The two young people set off in high spirits, and Mrs. de Tracy and +Miss Smeardon watched them as they walked down the avenue on their way +to the station, their clasped hands swinging in a merry rhythm as they +hummed a bit of the last popular song. + +"I hope Robinetta will not Americanize Carnaby," said Mrs. de Tracy. +"He seems so foolishly elated, so feverishly gay all at once. Her +manner is too informal; Carnaby requires constant repression." + +"Perhaps his temperature has not returned to normal since his attack +of quinsy," Miss Smeardon observed, reassuringly. + +Meanwhile Lavendar sat in Admiral de Tracy's old smoking room for half +an hour writing letters. Every time that he glanced up from his work, +and he did so pretty often, his eyes fell on a picture that hung upon +the opposite wall. It was the copy of Sir Joshua's "Robinetta" made +long ago and just presented to its namesake. + +In the portrait the girl's hair was a still brighter gold; yet +certainly there was a likeness somewhere about it, he thought; partly +in the expression, partly in the broad low forehead, and the eyes that +looked as if they were seeing fairies. + +Of course to his mind Mrs. Loring was a hundred times more lovely than +Sir Joshua's famous girl with a robin. He felt very ill-used because +Robinette and Carnaby had deliberately gone for an excursion without +him and had left him toiling over business papers when they had gone +off to enjoy themselves. + +How bright it was out there in the sunshine, to be sure! And why +should it be Carnaby, not he, who was by this time walking along the +sea front of Weston, and watching the breeze flutter Robinette's scarf +and bring a brighter colour to her lips? + +There! the last words were written, and taking up his bunch of +letters, watch in hand, he sought Mrs. de Tracy, and explained that he +would bicycle to Weston and catch the London post himself. + +"I'll send William"--she began; but Lavendar hastily assured her that +he should enjoy the ride, and hurried off in triumph. Miss Smeardon +smiled an acid smile as she watched him go. "He has forgotten all +about poor Miss Meredith, I suppose," she murmured. "Yet it was not so +long ago that they were supposed to be all in all to each other!" + +"It was a foolish engagement, Miss Smeardon," said Mrs. de Tracy in a +cold voice. "I never thought the girl was suited to Mark, and I +understand that old Mr. Lavendar was relieved when the whole thing +came to an end." + +"Quite so; certainly; no doubt Miss Meredith would never have made him +happy," said Miss Smeardon at once, "though it is always more +agreeable when the lady discovers the fact first. In this case she +confessed openly that Mr. Lavendar broke her heart with his +indifference." + +"She was an ill-bred young woman," said Mrs. de Tracy, as if the +subject were now closed. "However, I hope that the son of my family +solicitor would think it only proper to pay a certain amount of +attention to the Admiral's niece, were she ever so obnoxious to him." + +Miss Smeardon made no audible reply, but her thoughts were to the +effect that never was an obnoxious duty performed by any man with a +better grace. + +The sea front at Weston was the most prosaic scene in the world, a +long esplanade with an asphalt path running its full length, and ugly +jerrybuilt houses glaring out upon it, a gimcrack pier with a +gingerbread sort of band-stand and glass house at the end;--all that +could have been done to ruin nature had been determinedly done there. +But you cannot ruin a spring day, nor youth, nor the colour of the +sea. Along the level shore, the placid waves swept and broke, and then +gathered up their white skirts, and retreated to return with the same +musical laugh. Children and dogs played about on the wet sands. The +wind blew freshly and the sea stretched all one pure blue, till it met +on the horizon with the bluer skies. + +Weston seemed to Lavendar a very fresh and delightful spot at +that moment, although had he been in a different mood its sordidness +only would have struck him. Yes, there they were in the distance; +he knew Robinette's white dress and the figure of the boy beside +her. Hang that boy! Were they really going to buy hairpins? If +so, then a hair-dresser's he must find. Lavendar turned up the +little street that led from the sea-front, scanning all the +signs--Boots--Dairies--Vegetable shops--Heavens! were there +nothing but vegetable and boot shops in Weston? Boots again. At last +a Hairdresser; Lavendar stood in the doorway until he made sure +that Robinette and the middy had turned in that direction, and +then he boldly entered the shop. + +To his horror he found himself confronted by a smiling young woman, +whose own very marvellous erection of hair made him think she must be +used as an advertisement for the goods she supplied. + +In another moment Robinette and the boy would be upon him, and he must +be found deep in fictitious business. He cast one agonized glance at +the mysteries of the toilet that surrounded him on every side, then +clearing his throat, he said modestly but firmly, that he wanted to +buy a pair of curling tongs for a lady. + +"These are the thing if you wish a Marcel wave," was the reply, "but +just for an ordinary crimp we sell a good many of the plain ones." + +"Yes, thank you. They will do; the lady--my sister, also wished--" + +"A little 'addition,' was it, sir?" she moved smilingly to a drawer. +"A few pin curls are very easily adjusted, or would our guinea +switch--" + +At this moment the boy and Robinette entered the shop. Lavendar was +paying for the curling tongs, and not a muscle of his face relaxed. +"Oh, here you are. I have just finished my business," he said, turning +round, "I thought we might encounter one another somewhere!" + +Robinette and Carnaby exchanged knowing glances of which Lavendar was +perfectly conscious, but he stood by while Mrs. Loring bought her +hairpins, and Carnaby endeavoured to persuade her to invest in a few +"pin curls." "Not an hour before it is absolutely necessary, Middy +dear," she said; "then I shall bear it as bravely as I can. Come now, +carry the hairpins for me, and let me take Mr. Lavendar out of this +shop, or he will be tempted to buy more than he needs." + +"Oh, no!" Lavendar remarked pointedly. "I have what I came for!" + +"Don't forget your parcel," Carnaby exclaimed, darting after Lavendar +as they went into the street. "You've left it on the counter." + +"How careless!" said Mark. "It was for my sister." + +"You never told me you had a sister," said Robinette, as they walked +together, Lavendar wheeling his bicycle and Carnaby sulking behind +them. + +"I am blessed with two; one married now; the other, my sister Amy, +lives at home." + +"Well, you see, in spite of all our questions the first time we met, +we really know very little about each other," she went on lightly. "It +takes such a long time to get thoroughly acquainted in this country. +Do they ever count you a friend if you do not know all their aunts and +second cousins?" + +Lavendar laughed. "Willingly would I introduce you to my aunts and my +uttermost cousins, and lay the map of my life before you, uneventful +as it has been, if that would further our acquaintance." + +Even as he spoke a hateful memory darted into his thoughts, and he +reddened to his temples, until Mrs. Loring wondered if she had said +anything to annoy him. + +Some fortunate accident at this point ordered that Carnaby should +meet a friend, another middy about his own age, and they set off +together in quest of a third boy who was supposed to be in the near +neighbourhood. + +As soon as the lads were out of sight Lavendar found the jests they +had been bandying together die on his lips. "I'm going down deeper; I +shall be out of my depth very soon," he thought to himself, as he +walked in silence by Robinette's side. + +"Let us come down to the beach again; we can't go to the station for +half an hour yet," she said. "I like to look out to sea, and realize +that if I sailed long enough I could step off that pier, and arrive in +America." + +They stood by the sea-wall together with the fresh wind playing on +their faces. "Isn't it curious," said Robinette, "how instinctively +one always turns to look at the sea; inland may be ever so lovely, but +if the sea is there we generally look in that direction." + +"Because it is unbounded, like the future," said Lavendar. He was +looking as he spoke at some children playing on the sands just +beside them. There was a gallant little boy among them with a bare +curly head, who refused help from older sisters and was toiling away +at his sand castle, his whole soul in his work; throwing up +spadefuls--tremendous ones for four years old--upon its ramparts, +as if certain they could resist the advancing tide. + +"What a noble little fellow!" exclaimed Robinette, catching the +direction of Lavendar's glance. "Isn't he splendid? toiling like that; +stumping about on those fat brown legs!" + +"How beautiful to have a child like that, of one's own!" thought +Lavendar as he looked. On the sands around them, there were numbers of +such children playing there in the sun. It seemed a happy world to him +at the moment. + +Suddenly he saw his companion turn quickly aside; a nurse in uniform +came towards them pushing, not a happy crooning baby this time, but a +little emaciated wisp of a child lying back wearily in a wheel chair. +Something in Robinette's face, or perhaps the bit of fluttering lace +she wore upon her white dress, had attracted its notice, and it +stretched out two tiny skeleton hands towards her as it passed. With a +quick gesture, brushing tears away that in a moment had rushed to her +eyes, young Mrs. Loring stepped forward, and put her fingers into the +wasted hands that were held out to her. She hung above the child for a +moment, a radiant figure, her face shining with sympathy and a sort of +heavenly kindness; her eyes the sweeter for their tears. + +"What is it, darling?" she asked. "Oh, it's the bright rose!" Then she +hurriedly unfastened the flower from her waist-belt and turned to +Lavendar. "Will you please take your penknife and scrape away all the +little thorns," she asked. + +"The rose looked very charming where it was," he remarked, half +regretfully, as he did what she commanded. + +"It will look better still, presently," she answered. + +The child's hands were outstretched longingly to grasp the flower, its +eyes, unnaturally deep and wise with pain, were fixed upon Robinette's +face. She bent over the chair, and her voice was like a dove's voice, +Lavendar thought, as she spoke. Then the little melancholy carriage +was wheeled away. Motherhood always seemed the most sacred, the +supreme experience to Robinette; a thing high and beautiful like the +topmost blooms of Nurse Prettyman's plum tree. "If one had to choose +between that sturdy boy and this wistful wraith, it would be hard," +she thought. "All my pride would run out to the boy, but I could die +for love and pity if this suffering baby were mine!" + +Lavendar had turned, and leaned on the wall with averted face. "Sweet +woman!" he was saying to himself. "It is more than a merry heart that +is able to give such sympathy; it's a sad old world after all where +such things can be; but a woman like that can bring good out of +evil." + +Robinette had seated herself on a low wall beside him. Her little +embroidered futility of a handkerchief was in her hand once more. "A +rose and a smile! that's all we could give it," she said; "and we +would either of us share some of that burden if we only could." She +watched the merry, healthy children playing beside them, and added, +"After all let us comfort ourselves that brown cheeks and fat legs are +in the majority. Rightness somehow or other must be at the root of +things, or we shouldn't be a living world at all." + +"Amen," said Lavendar, "but the sight of suffering innocents like +that, sometimes makes me wish I were dead." + +"Dead!" she echoed. "Why, it makes me wish for a hundred lives, a +hundred hearts and hands to feel with and help with." + +"Ah, some women are made that way. My stepmother, the only mother I've +known, was like that," Lavendar went on, dropping suddenly again into +personal talk, as they had done before. He and she, it seemed, could +not keep barriers between them very long; every hour they spent +together brought them more strangely into knowledge of each other's +past. + +"She was a fine woman," he went on, "with a certain comfortable +breadth about her, of mind and body; and those large, warm, capable +hands that seem so fitted to lift burdens." + +Lavendar was in an absent-minded mood, and never much given to noting +details at any time. He bent over on the low wall in retrospective +silence, looking at the blue sea before them. + +Robinette, who was perched beside him, spread her two small hands on +her white serge knees and regarded them fixedly for a moment. + +"I wonder if it's a matter of size," she said after a moment. "I +wonder! Let's be confidential. When I was a little girl we were not at +all well-to-do, and my hands were very busy. My father's success came +to him only two or three years before his death, when his reputation +began to grow and his plans for great public buildings began to be +accepted, so I was my mother's helper. We had but one servant, and I +learned to make beds, to dust, to wipe dishes, to make tea and coffee, +and to cook simple dishes. If Admiral de Tracy's sister had to work, +Admiral de Tracy's niece was certainly going to help! Later on came my +father's illness and death. We had plenty of servants then, but my +hands had learned to be busy. I gave him his medicines, I changed his +pillows, I opened his letters and answered such of them as were within +my powers, I fanned him, I stroked his aching head. The end came, and +mother and I had hardly begun to take hold of life again when her +health failed. I wasn't enough for her; she needed father and her face +was bent towards him. My hands were busy again for months, and they +held my mother's when she died. Time went on. Then I began again to +make a home out of a house; to use my strength and time as a good wife +should, for the comfort of her husband; but oh! so faultily, for I was +all too young and inexperienced. It was only for a few months, then +death came into my life for the third time, and I was less than +twenty. For the first time since I can remember, my hands are idle, +but it will not be for long. I want them to be busy always. I want +them to be full! I want them to be tired! I want them ready to do the +tasks my head and heart suggest." + +Lavendar had a strong desire to take those same hands in his and kiss +them, but instead he rose and spread out his own long brown fingers on +the edge of the wall, a man's hands, fine and supple, but meant to +work. + +"I seem to have done nothing," he exclaimed. "You look so young, so +irresponsible, so like a bird on a bough, that I cannot associate dull +care with you, yet you have lived more deeply than I. Life seems to +have touched me on the shoulder and passed me by; these hands of mine +have never done a real day's work, Mrs. Loring, for they've been the +servants of an unwilling brain. I hated my own work as a younger man, +and, though I hope I did not shirk it, I certainly did nothing that I +could avoid." He paused, and went on slowly, "I've thought sometimes, +of late I mean, that if life is to be worth much, if it is to be real +life, and not mere existence, one must put one's whole heart into it, +and that two people--" He stopped; he was silent with embarrassment, +conscious of having said too much. + +"Can help each other. Indeed they can," Mrs. Loring went on serenely, +"if they have the same ideals. Hardly anyone, fortunately, is so alone +as I, and so I have to help myself! Your sisters, now; don't they +help?" + +"Not a great deal," Lavendar confessed. "One would, but she's married +and in India, worse luck! The other is--well, she's a candid sister." +He laughed, and looked up. "If my best friend could hear my sister +Amy's view of me, just have a little sketch of me by Amy without fear +or favour, he, or she, would never have a very high opinion of me +again, and I am not sure but that I should agree with her." + +"Nonsense! my dear friend," exclaimed Robinette in a maternal tone she +sometimes affected,--a tone fairly agonizing to Mark Lavendar; "we +should never belittle the stuff that's been put into us! My equipment +isn't particularly large, but I am going to squeeze every ounce of +power from it before I die." + +"Life is extraordinarily interesting to you, isn't it?" + +"Interesting? It is thrilling! So will it be to you when you make up +your mind to squeeze it," said Robinette, jumping off the wall. "There +is Carnaby signalling; it is time we went to the station." + +"Life would thrill me considerably more if Carnaby were not eternally +in evidence," said Lavendar, but Robinette pretended not to hear. + + + + +XII + +LOVE IN THE MUD + + +The next day Robinette was once more sitting in the boat opposite to +Lavendar as he rowed. They were going down the river this time, not +across it. Somehow they had managed that afternoon to get out by +themselves, which sounds very simple, but is a wonderfully difficult +thing to accomplish when there is no special reason for it, and when +there are several other people in the house. + +Fortunately Mrs. de Tracy did not like to be alone, so that wherever +she went Miss Smeardon had to go too, and there happened to be a sale +of work at a neighbouring vicarage that afternoon where she considered +her presence a necessity. Robinette had vanished soon after luncheon +and the middy had been dull, so after loitering around for a while, he +too had disappeared upon some errand of his own. Lavendar walked very +slowly toward the avenue gateway, then he turned and came back. He +could scarcely believe his good fortune when he saw Mrs. Loring come +out of the house, and pause at the door as if uncertain of her next +movements. She looked uncommonly lovely in a white frock with touches +of blue, while the ribbon in her hair brought out all its gold. She +wore a flowery garden hat, and a pair of dainty most un-English shoes +peeped from beneath her short skirt. + +"Are you going out, or can I take you on the river?" Lavendar asked, +trying without much success to conceal the eagerness that showed in +his voice and eyes. + +Robinette stood for a moment looking at him (it seemed as if she read +him like a book) and then she said frankly, "Why yes, there is nothing +I should like so much, but where is Carnaby?" + +"Hang Carnaby! I mean I don't know, or care. I've had too much of his +society to-day to be pining for it now." + +"Well, he does chatter like a magpie, but I feel he must have such a +dull time here with no one anywhere near his own age. Elderly as I am, +I seem a bit nearer than Aunt de Tracy or Miss Smeardon. Aunt de +Tracy, all the same, will never understand my relations with that boy, +or with anyone else for that matter. I did try so hard," she went on, +"when I first arrived, just to strike the right note with her, and +I've missed it all the time, by that very fact, no doubt. I'm so +unused to trying--at home." + +"You mean in America?" + +"Yes, of course; I don't try there at all, and yet my friends seem to +understand me." + +"Does it seem to you that you could ever call England 'home'?" + +"I could not have believed that England would so sink into my heart," +she said, sitting down in the doorway and arranging the flowers on her +hat. "During those first dull wet days when I was still a stranger, +and when I looked out all the time at the dripping cedars, and felt +whenever I opened my lips that I said the wrong thing, it seemed to me +I should never be gay for an hour in this country; but the last +enchanting sunny days have changed all that. I remember it's my +mother's country, and if only I could have found a little affection +waiting for me, all would have been perfect." + +"You may find it yet." Lavendar could not for the life of him help +saying the words, but there was nothing in the tone in which he said +them to make Robinette conscious of his meaning. + +"I'm afraid not," she sighed, thinking of Mrs. de Tracy's indifference. +"I'm much more American than English, much more my father's daughter +than the Admiral's niece; perhaps my aunt feels that instinctively. Now +I must slip upstairs and change if we are going boating." + +"Never!" cried Lavendar. "If I don't snatch you this moment from the +devouring crowd I shall lose you! I will keep you safe and dry, never +fear, and we shall be back well before dark." + +They went down the river after leaving the little pier, passing the +orchards heaped on the hillsides above Wittisham, and Lavendar wanted +to row out to sea, but Robinette preferred the river; so he rowed +nearer to the shore, where the current was less swift, and the boat +rocked and drifted with scarcely a touch of the oars. They had talked +for some time, and then a silence had fallen, which Robinette broke by +saying, "I half wish you'd forsake the law and follow lines of lesser +resistance, Mr. Lavendar. Do you know, you seem to me to be drifting, +not rowing! I've been thinking ever since of what you said to me on +the sands at Weston." + +"Ungrateful woman!" he exclaimed, trying to evade the subject, "when +these two faithful arms have been at your service every day since we +first met! Think of the pennies you would have taken from that tiny +gold purse of yours for the public ferry! However, I know what you +mean; I never met anyone so plain-spoken as you, Mrs. Robin; I haven't +forgotten, I assure you!" + +"How about the candid sister? Isn't she plain-spoken?" + +"Oh, she attacks the outside of the cup and platter; you question +motive power and ideals. Well, I confess I have less of the former +than I ought, and more of the latter than I've ever used." Lavendar +had rested on his oars now and was looking down, so that the twinkle +of his eyes was lost. "I suppose I shall go on as I have done +hitherto, doing my work in a sort of a way, and getting a certain +amount of pleasure out of things,--unless--" + +"Oh, but that's not living!" she exclaimed; "that's only existing. +Don't you remember:-- + + It is not growing like a tree + In bulk doth make man better be. + +It's really _living_ I mean, forgetting the things that are behind, +and going on and on to something ahead, whatever one's aim may be." + +"What are you going to do with yourself, if I may ask?" said Lavendar. +"Don't be too philanthropic, will you? You're so delightfully +symmetrical now!" + +"I shall have plenty to do," cried Robinette ardently. "I've told you +before, I have so much motive power that I don't know how to use it." + +"How about sharing a little of it with a friend!" + +Lavendar's voice was full of meaning, but Robinette refused to hear +it. She had succumbed as quickly to his charm as he to hers, but while +she still had command over her heart she did not intend parting with +it unless she could give it wholly. She knew enough of her own nature +to recognize that she longed for a rowing, not a drifting mate, and +that nothing else would content her; but her instinct urged that +Lavendar's indecisions and his uncertainties of aim were accidents +rather than temperamental weaknesses. She suspected that his +introspective moods and his occasional lack of spirits had a definite +cause unknown to her. + +"I haven't a large income," she said, after a moment's silence, +changing the subject arbitrarily, and thereby reducing her companion +to a temporary state of silent rage. + +"Yet no one would expect a woman like this to fall like a ripe plum +into a man's mouth," he thought presently; "she will drop only when +she has quite made up her mind, and the bough will need a good deal of +shaking!" + +"I haven't a large income," repeated Robinette, while Lavendar was +silent, "only five thousand dollars a year, which is of course +microscopic from the American standpoint and cost of living; so I +can't build free libraries and swimming baths and playgrounds, or do +any big splendid things; but I can do dear little nice ones, left +undone by city governments and by the millionaires. I can sing, and +read, and study; I can travel; and there are always people needing +something wherever you are, if you have eyes to see them; one needn't +live a useless life even if one hasn't any responsibilities. But"--she +paused--"I've been talking all this time about my own plans and +ambitions, and I began by asking yours! Isn't it strange that the +moment one feels conscious of friendship, one begins to want to know +things?" + +"My sister Amy would tell you I had no ambitions, except to buy as +many books as I wish, and not to have to work too hard," said Mark +smiling, "but I think that would not be quite true. I have some, of a +dull inferior kind, not beautiful ones like yours." + +"Do tell me what they are." + +He shook his head. "I couldn't; they're not for show; shabby things +like unsuccessful poor relations, who would rather not have too much +notice taken of them. In a few weeks I am going to drag them out of +their retreat, brighten them up, inject some poetry into their veins, +and then display them to your critical judgment." + +They were almost at a standstill now and neither of them was noticing +it at all. As Mrs. Loring moved her seat the boat lurched somewhat to +one side. Mark, to steady her, placed his hand over hers as it rested +on the rail, and she did not withdraw it. Then he found the other hand +that lay upon her knee, and took it in his own, scarcely knowing what +he did. He looked into her face and found no anger there. "I wish to +tell you more about myself," he stammered, "something not altogether +creditable to me; but perhaps you will understand. Perhaps even if you +don't understand you will forgive." + +She drew her hands gently away from his grasp. "I shall try to +understand, you may rely on that!" she said. + +"I'm not going to trouble you with any very dreadful confessions," he +said, "only it's better to hear things directly from the people +concerned, and you are sure to hear a wrong version sooner or +later."--Then stopping suddenly he exclaimed, "Hullo! we're stuck, I +declare! look at that!" + +Robinette turned and saw that their boat was now scarcely surrounded +with water at all. On every side, as if the flanks of some great whale +were upheaving from below, there appeared stretches of glistening mud. +Just in front of them, where there still was a channel of water, was +an upstanding rock. "Shall we row quickly there?" she cried. "Then +perhaps we can get out and pull the boat to the other side, where +there is more water. What has happened?" + +"Oh, something not unusual," said Lavendar grimly, "that I'm a fool, +and the sea-tide has ebbed, as tides have been known to do before. I'm +afraid a man doesn't watch tides when he has a companion like you! Now +we're left high, but not at all dry, as you see, till the tide +turns." + +By a swift stroke or two he managed to propel their craft as far as +the rock. They scrambled up on it, and then he tried to haul the boat +around the miniature islet; but the more he hauled, the quicker the +water seemed to run away, and the deeper the wretched thing stuck in +the mud. He jumped in again, and made an effort to push her off with +an oar; meanwhile Robinette nearly fell off the rock in her efforts to +get the head of the boat around towards the current again, and making +a frantic plunge into the ooze, sank above her ankles in an instant. +Lavendar caught hold of her and helped her to scramble back into the +boat. "It's all right; only my skirt wet, and one shoe gone!" she +panted. "Now, what are we to do?" She spread out her hands in dismay, +and looked down at her draggled mud-stained skirt, her little feet, +one shoeless and both covered with mud and slime. "What an object I +shall be to meet Aunt de Tracy's eye, when, if ever, it does light on +me again! Meanwhile it seems as if we might be here for some hours. +The boat is just settling herself into the mud bank, like a rather +tired fat old woman into an armchair, and pray, Mr. Lavendar, what do +you propose to do? as Talleyrand said to the lady who told him she +couldn't bear it." + +Lavendar looked about them; the main bed of the river was fifty yards +away; between it and them was now only an expanse of mud. + +"It's perfectly hopeless," he said, "the best thing we can do is to +beget some philosophy." + +"Which at any moment we would exchange for a foot of water," she +interpolated. + +"We must just sit here and wait for the tide. Shall it be in the boat +or on the rock?" + +"I don't see much difference, do you? Except that the passing boats, +if there are any, might think it was a matter of choice to sit on a +damp rock for two hours, but no one could think we wanted to sit in a +boat in the mud." + +They landed on the rock for the second time. "For my part it's no +great punishment," said Lavendar, when they settled themselves, "since +the place is big enough for two and you're one of them!" + +"Wouldn't this be as good a stool of repentance from which to confess +your faults as any?" asked Robinette, as she tucked her shoeless foot +beneath her mud-stained skirt and made herself as comfortable as +possible. "I'll even offer a return of confidence upon my own +weaknesses, if I can find them, but at present only miles of virtue +stretch behind me. Ugh! How the mud smells; quite penitential! Now:-- + + "What have you sought you should have shunned, + And into what new follies run?" + +"Oh, what a bad rhyme!" said Lavendar. + +"It's Pythagoras, any way," she explained. + +Then suddenly changing his tone, Lavendar went on. "This is not merely +a jest, Mrs. Loring. Before you admit me really amongst the number of +your friends I should like you to know that--to put it plainly--my +own little world would tell you at the moment that I am a heartless +jilt." + +"That is a very ugly expression, Mr. Lavendar, and I shall choose not +to believe it, until you give me your own version of the story." + +"In one way I can give you no other; except that I was just fool +enough to drift into an engagement with a woman whom I did not really +love, and just not enough of a fool to make both of us miserable for +life when I, all too late, found out my mistake." + +There passed before him at that moment other foolish blithe little +loves, like faded flowers with the sweetness gone out of them. They +had been so innocent, so fragile, so free from blame; all but the +last; and this last it was that threatened to rise like a shadow +perhaps, and defeat his winning the only woman he could ever love. + +Robinette stared at the stretches of ooze, and then stole a look at +Mark Lavendar. "The idea of calling that man a jilt," she thought. +"Look at his eyes; look at his mouth; listen to his voice; there is +truth in them all. Oh for a sight of the girl he jilted! How much it +would explain! No, not altogether, because the careless making of his +engagement would have to be accounted for, as well as the breaking of +it. Unless he did it merely to oblige her--and men are such idiots +sometimes,--then he must have fancied he was in love with her. Perhaps +he is continually troubled with those fancies. Nonsense! you believe +in him, and you know you do." Then aloud she said, sympathetically, +"I'm afraid we are apt to make these little experimental journeys in +youth, when the heart is full of _wanderlust_. We start out on them so +lightly, then they lead nowhere, and the walking back alone is +wearisome and depressing." + +"My return journey was depressing enough at first," said Lavendar, +"because the particular She was unkinder to me than I deserved even; +but better counsels have prevailed and I shall soon be able to meet +the reproachful gaze of stout matrons and sour spinsters more easily +than I have for a year past; you see the two families were friends and +each family had a large and interested connection!" + +"If the opinion of a comparative stranger is of any use to you," said +Robinette, standing on the rock and scraping her stockinged foot free +of mud, "_I_ believe in you, personally! You don't seem a bit 'jilty' +to me! I'd let you marry my sister to-morrow and no questions asked!" + +"I didn't know you had a sister," cried Lavendar. + +"I haven't; that's only a figure of speech; just a phrase to show my +confidence." + +"And isn't it ungrateful to be obliged to say I can't marry your +sister, after you have given me permission to ask her!" + +"Not only ungrateful but unreasonable," said Robinette saucily, +turning her head to look up the river and discovering from her point +of vantage a moving object around the curve that led her to make +hazardous remarks, knowing rescue was not far away. "What have you +against my sister, pray?" + +"Very little!" he said daringly, knowing well that she held him in her +hand, and could make him dumb or let him speak at any moment she +desired. "Almost nothing! only that _she_ is not offering me _her_ +sister as a balm to my woes." + +"She _has_ no sister; she is an only child!--There! there!" cried +Robinette, "the tide is coming up again, and the mud banks off in that +direction are all covered with water! I see somebody in a boat, rowing +towards us with superhuman energy. Oh! if I hadn't worn a white dress! +It will _not_ come smooth; and my lovely French hat is ruined by the +dampness! My one shoe shows how inappropriately I was shod, and +whoever is coming will say it is because I am an American. He will +never know you wouldn't let me go upstairs and dress properly." + +"It doesn't matter anyway," rejoined Mark, "because it is only Carnaby +coming. You might know he would find us even if we were at the bottom +of the river." + + + + +XIII + +CARNABY TO THE RESCUE + + +At Stoke Revel, in the meantime, the solemn rites of dinner had been +inaugurated as usual by the sounding of the gong at seven o'clock. +Mrs. de Tracy, Miss Smeardon, and Bates waited five minutes in silent +resignation, then Carnaby came down and was scolded for being late, +but there was no Robinette and no Lavendar. + +"Carnaby," said his grandmother, "do you know where Mark intended +going this afternoon?" + +"No, I don't," said Carnaby, sulkily. + +"Your cousin Robinetta,"--with meaning,--"perhaps you know her +whereabouts?" + +"Not I!" replied Carnaby with affected nonchalance. "I was ferreting +with Wilson." He had ferreted perhaps for fifteen minutes and then +spent the rest of the afternoon in solitary discontent, but he would +not have owned it for the world. + +"Call Bates," commanded Mrs. de Tracy. Bates entered. "Do you know if +Mr. Lavendar intended going any distance to-day? Did he leave any +message?" + +"Mr. Lavendar, ma'am," said Bates, "Mr. Lavendar and Mrs. Loring they +went out in the boat after tea. Mr. Lavendar asked William for the +key, and William he went down and got out the oars and rudder, +ma'am." + +"Does William know where they went?" asked Mrs. de Tracy in high +displeasure. "Was it to Wittisham?" + +"No, ma'am, William says they went down stream. He thinks perhaps they +were going to the Flag Rock, and he says the gentleman wouldn't have a +hard pull, as the tide was going out. But Mr. Lavendar knows the river +well, ma'am, as well as Mr. Carnaby here." + +"Then I conclude there is no immediate cause for anxiety," said Mrs. +de Tracy with satire. "You can serve dinner, Bates; there seems no +reason why we should fast as yet! However, Carnaby," she continued, +"as the men cannot be spared at this hour, you had better go at once +and see what has happened to our guests." + +"Right you are," cried Carnaby with the utmost alacrity. He was +hungry, but the prospect of escape was better than food. He rushed +away, and his boat was in mid-river before Mrs. de Tracy and Miss +Smeardon had finished their tepid soup. + +A very slim young moon was just rising above the woods, but her tender +light cast no shadows as yet, and there were no stars in the sky, for +it was daylight still. The evening air was very fresh and cool; there +was no wind, and the edges of the river were motionless and smooth, +although in mid-stream the now in-coming tide clucked and swirled as +it met the rush. Over at Wittisham one or two lights were beginning to +twinkle, and there came drifting across the water a smell of wood +smoke that suggested evening fires. Carnaby handled a boat well, for +he had been born a sailor, as it were, and his long, powerful strokes +took him along at a fine pace. But although he was going to look for +Robinette and Mark, he was rather angry with both of them, and in no +hurry. He rested on his oars indifferently and let the tide carry him +up as it liked, while, with infinite zest, he unearthed a cigarette +case from the recesses of his person, lit a cigarette, and smoked it +coolly. Under Carnaby's apparent boyishness, there was a certain +somewhat dangerous quality of precocity, which was stimulated rather +than checked by his grandmother's repressive system. His smoking now +was less the monkey-trick of a boy, than an act of slightly cynical +defiance. He was no novice in the art, and smoked slowly and daintily, +throwing back his head and blowing the smoke sometimes through his +lips and sometimes through his nose. He looked for the moment older +than his years, and a difficult young customer at that. His present +sulky expression disappeared, however, under the influence of tobacco +and adventure. + +"Where the dickens are they?" he began to wonder, pulling harder. + +A bend in the river presently solved the mystery. On a wide stretch of +mud-bank, which the tide had left bare in going out, but was now +beginning to cover again, a solitary boat was stranded. + +With this clue to guide him, Carnaby's bright eyes soon discovered the +two dim forms in the distance. + +"Ahoy!" he shouted, and received a joyous answer. Robinette and Mark +were the two derelicts, and their rescuer skimmed towards them with +all his strength. + +He could get only within a few yards of the rock to which their boat +was tied, and from that distance he surveyed them, expecting to find a +dismal, ship-wrecked pair, very much ashamed of themselves and +getting quite weary of each other. On the contrary the faces he could +just distinguish in the uncertain light, were radiant, and Robinette's +voice was as gay as ever he had heard it. He leaned upon his oars and +looked at them with wonder. + +"Angel cousin!" cried Robinette. "Have you a little roast mutton about +you somewhere, we are so hungry!" + +"You _are_ a pretty pair!" he remarked. "What have you been and +done?" + +"We just went for a row after tea, Middy dear," said Robinette, "and +look at the result." + +"You're not rowing now," observed Carnaby pointedly. + +"No," said Mark, "we gave up rowing when the water left us, Carnaby. +Conversation is more interesting in the mud." + +"But how did you get here? I thought you were going to the Flag Rock?" +demanded Carnaby. + +"Is there a Flag Rock, Middy dear? I didn't know," said Robinette +innocently. "It shows we shouldn't go anywhere without our first +cousin once removed. We just began to talk, here in the boat, and the +water went away and left us." Then she laughed, and Mark laughed too, +and Carnaby's look of unutterable scorn seemed to have no effect upon +them. They might almost have been laughing at him, their mirth was so +senseless, viewed in any other light. + +"It's nearly eight o'clock," he said solemnly. "Perhaps you can form +some idea as to what grandmother's saying, and Bates." + +"Well, you're going to be our rescuer, Middy darling, so it doesn't +matter," said Robinette. "Look! the water's coming up." + +But Carnaby seemed in no mood for waiting. He had taken off his boots, +and rolled up his trousers above his knees. + +"I'd let Lavendar wade ashore the best way he could!" he said, "but I +s'pose I've got to save you or there'd be a howl." + +"No one would howl any louder than you, dear, and you know it. Don't +step in!" shrieked Robinette, "I've confided a shoe already to the +river-mud! I just put my foot in a bit, to test it, and down the poor +foot went and came up without its shoe. Oh, Middy dear, if your young +life--" + +"Blow my young life!" retorted Carnaby. He was performing gymnastics +on the edge of his boat, letting himself down and heaving himself up, +by the strength of his arms. His legs were covered with mud. + +"No go!" he said. "It's as deep as the pit here; sometimes you can +find a rock or a hard bit. We must just wait." + +They had not long to wait after all, for presently a rush of the tide +sent the water swirling round the stranded boat, and carried Carnaby's +craft to it. + +"Now it'll be all right," said he. "You push with the boat-hook, Mark, +and I'll pull"; but it took a quarter of an hour's pushing and pulling +to get the boat free of the mud. + +Except for the moon it would have been quite dark when the party +reached the pier. They mounted the hill in some silence. It was +difficult for Robinette to get along with her shoeless foot; Lavendar +wanted to help her, but she demanded Carnaby's arm. He was sulking +still. There was something he felt, but could not understand, in the +subtle atmosphere of happiness by which the truant couple seemed to be +surrounded; a something through which he could not reach; that seemed +to put Robinette at a distance from him, although her shoulder touched +his and her hand was on his arm. Growing pangs of his manhood assailed +him, the male's jealousy of the other male. For the moment he hated +Mark; Mark talking joyous nonsense in a way rather unlike himself, as +if the night air had gone to his head. + +"I am glad you had the ferrets to amuse you this afternoon," said +Robinette, in a propitiatory tone. "Ferrets are such darlings, aren't +they, with their pink eyes?" + +"O! _darlings_," assented Carnaby derisively. "One of the darlings +bit my finger to the bone, not that that's anything to you." + +"Oh! Middy dear, I am sorry!" cried Robinette. "I'd kiss the place to +make it well, if we weren't in such a hurry!" + +Carnaby began to find that a dignified reserve of manner was very +difficult to keep up. His grandmother could manage it, he reflected, +but he would need some practice. When they came to a place where there +were sharp stones strewn on the road, he became a mere boy again quite +suddenly, and proposed a "queen's chair" for Robinette. And so he and +Lavendar crossed hands, and one arm of Robinette encircled the boy's +head, while the other just touched Lavendar's neck enough to be +steadied by it. Their laughter frightened the sleepy birds that night. +The demoralized remnant of a Bank Holiday party would have been, +Lavendar observed, respectability itself in comparison with them; and +certainly no such group had ever approached Stoke Revel before. They +were to enter by a back door, and Carnaby was to introduce them to +the housekeeper's room, where he undertook that Bates would feed them. +Lavendar alone was to be ambassador to the drawing room. + +"The only one of us with a boot on each foot, of course we appoint him +by a unanimous vote," said Robinette. + +But the chief thing that Carnaby remembered, after all, of that +evening's adventure, was Robinette's sudden impulsive kiss as she bade +him good-night, Lavendar standing by. She had never kissed him before, +for all her cousinliness, but she just brushed his cool, round cheek +to-night as if with a swan's-down puff. + +"That's a shabby thing to call a kiss!" said the embarrassed but +exhilarated youth. + +"Stop growling, you young cub, and be grateful; half a loaf is better +than no bread," was Lavendar's comment as he watched the draggled and +muddy but still charming Robinette up the stairway. + + + + +XIV + +THE EMPTY SHRINE + + +Lavendar had discovered, much to his dismay, that he must return to +London upon important business; it was even a matter of uncertainty +whether his father could spare him again or would consent to his +returning to Stoke Revel to conclude Mrs. de Tracy's arrangements +about the sale of the land. + +Affairs of the heart are like thunderstorms; the atmosphere may +sometimes seem charged with electricity, and yet circumstances, like a +sudden wind that sweeps the clouds away before they break, may cause +the lovers to drift apart. Or all in a moment may come thunder, +lightning, and rain from a clear sky, and there is nothing that is apt +to precipitate matters like an unexpected parting. + +When Lavendar announced that he had to leave Stoke Revel, two pairs +of eyes, Miss Smeardon's and Carnaby's, instantly looked at Robinette +to see how she received the news, but she only smiled at the moment. +She was just beginning her breakfast, and like the famous Charlotte, +"went on cutting bread and butter," without any sign of emotion. + +"Hurrah!" thought the boy. "Now we can have some fun, and I'll perhaps +make her see that old Lavendar isn't the only companion in the +world." + +"She minds," thought Miss Smeardon, "for she buttered that piece of +bread on the one side a minute ago, and now she's just done it on the +other--and eaten it too." + +"She doesn't care a bit," thought Lavendar. "She's not even changed +colour; my going or staying is nothing to her; I needn't come back." + +He had made up his mind to return just the same, if it were at all +possible, and he told Mrs. de Tracy so. She remarked graciously that +he was a welcome guest at any time, and Carnaby, hearing this, +pinched Lord Roberts till he howled like a fiend, and fled for comfort +to his mistress's lap. + +"You little coward," said Carnaby, "you should be ashamed to bear the +name of a hero." + +"I've mentioned to you before, Carnaby, I think, that I dislike that +jest," said his grandmother, and Carnaby advancing to the injured +beast said, "Yes, ma'am, and so does Bobs, doesn't he, Bobs?" reducing +the lap-dog to paroxysms of fury. "Would it be any better if I called +him _Kitchener_?" hissing the word into the animal's face. "Jealous, +Bobs? Eh? _Kitchener_." This last word had a rasping sound that +irritated the little creature more than ever; his teeth jibbered with +anger, and Miss Smeardon had to offer him a saucer of cream before he +could be calmed down enough for the rest of the party to hear +themselves speak. + +"Had you nice letters this morning? Mine were very uninteresting," +Robinette remarked to Lavendar as they stood together at the doorway +in the sunshine, while Carnaby chased the lap-dog round and round the +lawn. + +"I had only two letters; one was from my sister Amy, the candid one! +her letters are not generally exhilarating." + +"Oh, I know, home letters are usually enough to send one straight to +bed with a headache! They never sound a note of hope from first to +last; although if you had no home, but only a house, like me, with no +one but a caretaker in it, you'd be very thankful to get them, doleful +or not." + +"I doubt it," Mark answered, for Amy's letter seemed to be burning a +hole in his pocket at that moment. He had skimmed it hurriedly +through, but parts of it were already only too plain. + +When the others had gone into the house, he went off by himself, and +jumping the low fence that divided the lawn from the fields beyond, he +flung himself down under a tree to read it over again. Carnaby, +spying him there, came rushing from the house, and was soon pouring +out a tale of something that had happened somewhere, and throwing +stones as he talked, at the birds circling about the ivied tower of +the little church. + +The field was full of buttercups up to the very churchyard walls. "I +must get away by myself for a bit," Lavendar thought. "That boy's +chatter will drive me mad." At this point Carnaby's volatile attention +was diverted by the sight of a gardener mounting a ladder to clear the +sparrows' nests from the water chutes, and he jumped up in a twinkling +to take his part in this new joy. Lavendar rose, and strolled off with +his hands in his pockets and his bare head bent. The grass he walked +in was a very Field of the Cloth of Gold. His shoes were gilded by the +pollen from the buttercups, his eyes dazzled by their colour; it was a +relief to pass through the stone archway that led into the little +churchyard. To his spirit at that moment the chill was refreshing. He +loitered about for a few minutes, and then seeing that the door was +open, he entered the church, closing the door gently behind him. + +It was very quiet in there and even the chirping of the sparrows was +softened into a faint twitter. Here at last was a place set apart, a +moment of stillness when he might think things out by himself. + +He took out Amy's letter, smoothing it flat on the prayer books before +him, and forced himself to read it through. The early paragraphs dealt +with some small item of family news which in his present state of mind +mattered to Lavendar no more than the distant chirruping of the birds, +out there in the sunshine. "You seem determined to stay for some time +at Stoke Revel," his sister wrote. "No doubt the pretty American is +the attraction. She sounds charming from your description, but my dear +man, that's all froth! How many times have I heard this sort of thing +from you before! Remember I know everything about your former loves." + +"You _don't_, then," said Lavendar to himself. Down, down, down at the +bottom of the well of the heart where truth lies, there is always some +remembrance, generally a very little one, that can never be told to +any confidant. + +"You will find out faults in Mrs. Loring presently, just like the rest +of them," continued the pitiless writer. (Amy's handwriting was +painfully distinct.) "I must tell you that at the Cowleys' the other +day, I suddenly came face to face with Gertrude Meredith _and Dolly_! +Dolly looks a good deal older already and fatter, I thought. I fear +she is losing her looks, for her colour has become fixed, and she +_will_ wear no collars still, although on a rather thick neck, it's +not at all becoming. I spoke to her for about three minutes, as it was +less awkward, when we met suddenly face to face like that. She laughed +a good deal, and asked for you rather audaciously, I thought. They +live near Winchester now, and since the Colonel's death are pretty +badly off, Gertrude says. Dolly is going to Devonshire to stay with +the Cowleys; you may meet her there any day, remember. It does seem +incredible to me that a man of your discrimination could have been won +by the obvious devotion of a girl like Dolly; but having given your +word I almost think you would better have kept it, rather than suffer +all this criticism from a host of mutual friends." + +Lavendar groaned aloud. He had a good memory, and with all too great +distinctness did he now remember Dolly Meredith's laugh. How wretched +it had all been; not a word had ever passed between them that had any +value now. If he could have washed the thought of her forever from his +memory, how greatly he would have rejoiced at that moment. + +Well, it was over; written down against him, that he had been what the +world called a jilt and a fool; yes, certainly a fool, but not so +great a one as to follow his folly to its ultimate conclusion, and tie +himself for life to a woman he did not love. + +Lavendar was extraordinarily sensitive about the breaking of his +engagement; partly because Miss Meredith herself, in her first rage, +had avowed his responsibility for her blighted future, giving him no +chance for chivalrous behaviour; partly because in all his transient +love affairs he had easily tired of the women who inspired them. He +seemed thirsty for love, but weary of it almost as soon as the draught +reached his lips. + +And now had he a chance again?--or was it all to end in disappointment +once more, in that cold disappointment of the heart that has received +stones for bread? It was not entirely his own fault; he had expected +much from life, and hitherto had received very little. But Robinette! + +"Let me find all her faults now," he said to himself, "or evermore +keep silent; meantime I hope I am not concealing too many of my +own." + +He tried to force himself into criticism; to look at her as a cold +observer from the outside would have done; for that curious Border +country of Love which he had entered has not an equable climate at +all. It is fire and frost alternate; and criticism is either roused +almost to a morbid pitch, or else the faculty is drugged, and nothing, +not even the enumeration of a hundred foibles will awaken it for a +time. + +When the cold fit had been upon him the evening before, Lavendar had +said to himself that her manner was too free--that she had led him on +too quickly; no, that expression was dishonourable and unjust; he +repented it instantly; she had been too unself-conscious, too girlish, +too unthinking, in what she said and did. "But she's a widow after +all, though she's only two and twenty," he went on to himself. "Hang +it! I wish she were not! If her heart were in her husband's grave I +should be moaning at that; and because I see that it is not, I become +critical. There's nothing quite perfect in life!" + +He had begun by noticing some little defects in her personal +appearance, but he was long past that now; what did such trifles +matter, here or there? Then he remembered all that he had heard said +about American women. Did those pretty clothes of hers mean that she +would be extravagant and selfish to obtain them? Could a young man +with no great fortune offer her the luxury that was necessary to her? +and even so, what changes come with time! He had a full realization of +what the boredom of family life can be, when passion has grown stale. + +"At seventy, say, when I am palsied and she is old and fat, will +romance be alive then? Will such feeling leave anything real behind it +when it falls away, as the white blossoms on Mrs. Prettyman's plum +tree will shrink and fall a fortnight hence?" + +He looked about him. On the walls of the little church were tablets +with the de Tracy names; the names of her forefathers amongst them. +Under his feet were other flags with names upon them too; and out +there in the sunshine were the grave-stones of a hundred dead. How +many of them had been happy in their loves? + +Not so many, he thought, if all were told, and why should he hope to +be different? Yet surely this was a new feeling, a worthy one, at +last. It was not for her charming person that he loved her; not +because of her beauty and her gaiety only; but because he had seen in +her something that gave a promise of completion to his own nature, the +something that would satisfy not only his senses but his empty heart. + +He clenched his hands on the carved top of the old pew in front of +him, which was fashioned into a laughing gnome with the body of a +duck. "And if this should be all a dream," he asked himself again, "if +this should all be false too! Good Lord!" he cried half aloud, "I +want to be honest now! I want to find the truth. My whole life is on +the throw this time!" + +There was a moment's silence after he had uttered the words. He got up +and moved slowly down the aisle, opening the door, seeing again the +meadow of buttercups, yellow as gold, and listening again to the +sparrows chirruping in the sunshine outside. + +"I have been in that church a quarter of an hour," he said to himself, +"and in trying to dive to the depths of myself and find out whether I +was giving a woman all I had to give, I did not get time to consider +that woman's probable answer, should I place my uninteresting life and +liberty at her disposal." + + + + +XV + +"NOW LUBIN IS AWAY" + + +Lavendar made his adieux after luncheon and went off to London. +"Good-bye for the present, Mrs. de Tracy; I shall be back on Wednesday +probably, if I can arrange it," he said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Loring," and +here he altered the phrase to "Shall I come back on Wednesday?" for +his hostess had left the open door. + +There was no hesitation, but all too little sentiment, about +Robinette's reply. + +"Wednesday, at the latest, are my orders," she answered merrily, and +with the words ringing in his ears Lavendar took his departure. + +"Do you remember that this is the afternoon of the garden party at +Revelsmere?" Mrs. de Tracy enquired, coming into the drawing room a +few minutes later, where Mrs. Loring stood by the open window. She +had allowed herself just five minutes of depression, staring out at +the buttercup meadow. How black the rooks looked as they flew about it +and how dreary everything was, now that Lavendar had gone! She was +woman enough to be able to feel inwardly amused at her own absurdity, +when she recognized that the ensuing three days seemed to stretch out +into a limitless expanse of dullness. "The village seemed asleep or +dead now Lubin was away!" Still, after all, it was an occasion for +wearing a pretty frock, and she knew herself well enough to feel sure +that the sight of a few of her fellow-creatures even pretending to +enjoy themselves, would make her volatile spirits rise like the +mercury in a thermometer on a hot day. + +Miss Smeardon was to be her companion, as Mrs. de Tracy had a headache +that afternoon and was afraid of the heat, she said. "What heat?" +Robinette had asked innocently, for in spite of the brilliant sunlight +the wind blew from the east, keen as a knife. "I shall take a good +wrap in the carriage in spite of this tropical temperature," she +thought. Carnaby refused point blank to drive with them; he would +bicycle to the party or else not go at all, so it was alone with Miss +Smeardon that Robinette started in the heavy old landau behind the +palsied horse. + +Miss Smeardon gave one glance at Mrs. Loring's dress, and Robinette +gave one glance at Miss Smeardon's, each making her own comments. + +"That white cloth will go to the cleaner, I suppose, after one +wearing, and as for that thing on her head with lilac wistaria +drooping over the brim, it can't be meant as a covering, or a +protection, either from sun or wind; it's nothing but an ornament!" +Miss Smeardon commented; while to herself Robinette ejaculated,-- + +"A penwiper, an old, much-used penwiper, is all that Miss Smeardon +resembles in that black rag!" + +Carnaby, watching the start at the door, whistled in open admiration +as Robinette came down the steps. + +"Well, well! we are got up to kill this afternoon; pity old Mark has +just gone; but cheer up, Cousin Robin, there's always a curate on +hand!" + +For once Robinette's ready tongue played her false, and a sense of +loneliness overcame her at the sound of Lavendar's name. She gathered +up her long white skirts and got into the carriage with as much +dignity as she could muster, while Carnaby, his eyes twinkling with +mischief, stood ready to shut the door after Miss Smeardon. + +"Hope you'll enjoy your drive," he jeered. "You'll need to hold on +your hats. Bucephalus goes at such fiery speed that they'll be torn +off your heads unless you do." + +"Middy dear, you're not the least amusing," said Robinette quite +crossly, and with a lurch the carriage moved off. + +Miss Smeardon settled herself for conversation. "I'm afraid you will +find me but a dull companion, Mrs. Loring," she said, glancing +sideways at Robinette from under the brim of her mushroom hat. + +"Oh, you will be able to tell me who everyone is," said Robinette as +cheerfully as she could. + +"I am no gossip," Miss Smeardon protested. + +"It isn't necessary to gossip, is it?--but I've a wholesome interest +in my fellow creatures." + +"And it is well to know about people a little; when one comes among +strangers as you do, Mrs. Loring; one can't be too careful--an +American, particularly." + +Miss Smeardon's voice trailed off upon a note of insinuation; but +Robinette took no notice of the remark. She did not seem to have +anything to say, so Miss Smeardon took up another subject. + +"What a pity that Mr. Lavendar had to leave before this afternoon; he +would have been such an addition to our party!" + +"Yes, wouldn't he?" Robinette agreed, though she carefully kept out of +her voice the real passion of assent that was in her heart. + +"Mr. Lavendar is so agreeable, I always think," Miss Smeardon went on. +"Everyone likes him; he almost carries his pleasant ways too far. I +suppose that was how--" She paused, and added again, "Oh, but as I +said, I never talk scandal!" + +"Do you think it's possible to be too pleasant?" Robinette remarked, +stupidly enough, scarcely caring what she said. + +"Well, when it leads a poor girl to imagine that she is loved! I hear +that Dolly Meredith is just heart-broken. The engagement kept on for +quite a year, I believe, and then to break it off so heartlessly!--I +was reminded of it all by coming here. Miss Meredith is a cousin of +our hostess, and they met first at Revelsmere when they were quite +young." + +"There is always a certain amount of talk when an engagement has to +be broken off," said Robinette in a cold voice. + +"They seemed quite devoted at first," Miss Smeardon began; but +Robinette interrupted her. + +"The sooner such things are forgotten the better, I think," she said. +"No one, except the two people concerned, ever knows the real +truth.--Tell me, Miss Smeardon, whom we are likely to meet at +Revelsmere? Who is our hostess? What sort of parties does she give?" + +Being so firmly switched off from the affairs of Mr. Lavendar and Miss +Meredith, it was impossible for Miss Smeardon to talk about them any +more, and she had to turn to a less congenial theme. + +"We shall meet the neighbours," she told Robinette, "but I am afraid +they may not interest you very much. I understand that in America you +are accustomed to a great deal of the society of gentlemen. Here there +are so few, and all of them are married." + +"All?" laughed Robinette. + +"Well, there is Mr. Finch, the curate, but he is a celibate; and young +Mr. Tait of Strewe, but he is slightly paralysed." + +"Why, Carnaby must be quite an eligible bachelor in these parts," said +Robinette; but Miss Smeardon was so deadly literal that she accepted +the remark as a serious one. + +"Not quite yet; in a few years' time we shall need to be very careful, +there are so many girls here, but not all of them desirable, of +course." + +"There are? What a dull time they must have with the Married Men, the +Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby! I'm glad my girlhood wasn't +spent in Devonshire." + +Conversation ended here, for the carriage rumbled up the avenue, and +Robinette looked about her eagerly. Revelsmere was a nice old house, +surrounded by fine sloping lawns and a background of sombre +beechwoods. The lawns to-day were dotted with groups of people, mainly +women, and elderly at that. As Robinette and Miss Smeardon alighted +at the door an elderly hostess welcomed them, and an elderly host led +them across the lawn and straightly they fell into the clutches of +more and more elderlies. + +"It is fairly bewildering!" Robinette cried in her heart; then she saw +a bevy of girls approaching; such nice-looking girls, happy, well +dressed, but all unattended by their suitable complement of young +men. + +"For whom do they dress, here? They've a deal of self-respect, I +think, to go on getting themselves up so nicely for themselves and the +Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby," thought Robinette, as she +watched them. + +Presently another couple came across the lawn; the young woman was by +no means a girl, rather heavily built, with a high fixed colour. She +was attended by a man. "Not the Celibate certainly," thought Mrs. +Loring with a glance at his bullock-like figure, his thick neck, and +glossy black hair, "nor the Paralytic; and it's not Carnaby. It must +be a new arrival!" + +At that moment it began to rain, but nothing daunted, their hostess +approached her, and saying pleasantly that she wished to introduce her +to Miss Meredith, she left Robinette and the young woman standing +together under a spreading tree, and took the gentleman away with +her. + +The moment that she heard the name, Robinette realized who Miss +Meredith was. They seated themselves side by side on a garden bench, +and Miss Meredith remarked upon the heat, planting a rather fat hand +upon the arm of the garden seat, and surveying it complacently, +especially the very bright diamond ring upon the third finger. + +After a few preliminary remarks, she asked Mrs. Loring if she were +stopping in the neighbourhood. + +"Yes, I am staying at Stoke Revel for a short time," Robinette +replied; "Mrs. de Tracy is my aunt, or at least I am Admiral de +Tracy's niece." + +Her companion did not seem to take the least interest in this part of +the information, only when Stoke Revel was mentioned she looked around +suddenly as if surprised. + +They talked upon indifferent subjects, while Robinette, as she watched +Miss Meredith, was saying a good deal to herself, although she only +spoke aloud about the weather and the Devonshire scenery. + +"I will be just, if I can't be generous," she thought. "She has (or +she must once have had) a fine complexion. I dare say she is sincere +enough; she may be sensible; she might be good-humoured,--when +pleased." + +"There is going to be a shower," said Miss Meredith, "but I've nothing +on to spoil," she added, glancing at Robinette's hat. + +Sitting there on the bench, hearing the spitting rain upon the water +below them and watching the leaden mists that slowly gathered over the +landscape, Robinette fell upon a moment of soul sickness very unusual +to her. Miss Meredith too was silent, absorbed in her own thoughts. + +"If she had looked even a little different it would have been so much +easier to explain," thought Robinette. Then suddenly she glanced up. +She saw that her companion's face had softened, and changed. There was +a look,--Robinette caught it just for one moment,--such as a proud +angry child might have worn: sulky, hurt to the heart, but determined +not to cry. Instantly a chord was struck in Robinette's soul. "She has +suffered, anyway," she thought. "May I be forgiven for my harsh +judgment!" + +With a shiver she drew her wrap about her shoulders, and Miss Meredith +turned towards her. The expression Robinette had noticed passed from +the high-coloured face and left it as before, self-complacent and +slightly patronizing. "You seem to feel cold," she said. "I never do; +which is rather unfortunate, as I'm just going out to India!" + +"Indeed? How soon are you going?" + +"In about six weeks. I'm just going to be married, and we sail +directly afterwards," said Miss Meredith. "You saw Mr. Joyce, I think, +when we came up together a few minutes ago?" + +A weight as if of a ton of lead was lifted from Robinette's heart as +she spoke. She could scarcely refrain from jumping up to throw her +arms about Dolly Meredith's neck and kiss her. As it was, she bubbled +over with a kind of sympathetic interest that astonished the other +woman. It is only too easy to lead an approaching bride to talk about +her own affairs, for she can seldom take in the existence of even her +nearest and dearest at such a time, and in a few minutes the two young +women were deep in conversation. When a quarter of an hour later Miss +Smeardon appeared to tell Robinette that they must be going, she +looked up with a start at the sound of footsteps on the gravel path. +"Oh, you are here, Mrs. Loring; we couldn't think where you had +gone," said Miss Smeardon, acidly. + +"And here is Miss Meredith of all people!" she continued, "I thought +you were sure to be on the tennis court, Miss Meredith; Mr. Joyce is +playing now." + +"Oh, we have had such a delightful talk," said Dolly, so flushed with +pleasure that Miss Smeardon gazed at her in astonishment. + +"If only I knew her well enough to send her a munificent wedding +present! How I should love to do so; just to register my own joy," +said Robinette to herself. As it was she shook hands very warmly with +Miss Meredith before they parted, and when half way across the lawn, +looked back again, and waved her hand gaily. Miss Meredith was pacing +the grass, and treading heavily beside her, with a very gallant air, +was her bullock-like young man. + +"Mr. Joyce is quite wealthy," said Miss Smeardon. "I understand that +he is an only son too, and will some day inherit a fine property. +Miss Meredith is most fortunate, at her age and with her history." + +Robinette said nothing. She looked out at the glistening reaches of +the river, now shining through the silver mist; at the fields yellow +with buttercups, and the folds of the distant hills. As they drove up +the lane to the house, the birds, refreshed by the rain, were singing +like angels. In her heart too, something was singing as blithely as +any bird amongst them all. + +"Sometimes, sometimes our mistakes do not come home to roost!" she +thought, "but fly away and make nests elsewhere--rich nests in India +too!" + +"How did you enjoy the party, Cousin Robin?" said Carnaby, who +was waiting for them in the doorway. "I had a good tuck-in of +strawberries. The ladies were a little young for my taste; just +immature girls; no one under sixty, and rather frisky, don't you +think? By the way did you see Number One and her millionaire?" + +"I don't know what you mean by Number One," said Robinette, haughtily, +as she passed in at the door. + +"You will, when you're Number Two!" rejoined Carnaby, stooping to +pinch Lord Roberts' tail till the hero yelped aloud. + + + + +XVI + +TWO LETTERS + + +Lavendar tore up his fourth sheet of paper and began afresh. "Dear +Mrs. Loring." No, that would not do; he took another sheet, and began +again:-- + +"My dear Mrs. Loring,--Your commission for old Mrs. Prettyman has +taken some little time to execute, for I had to go to two or three +shops before finding a chair 'with green cushions, and a wide seat, so +comfortable that it would almost act as an anæsthetic if her +rheumatism happened to be bad, and yet quite suitable for a cottage +room.' These were my orders, I think, and like all your orders they +demand something better than the mere perfunctory observance. My own +proportions differing a good deal from those of the old lady, it is +still an open question whether what seemed comfortable to me will be +quite the same to her. I can but hope so, and the chair will be +dispatched at once. + +"London is noisy and dusty, and grimy and stuffy, and, to one man at +least, very, very dull. A boat on Greenshaw ferry seems the only spot +in the world where any gaiety is to be found. You can hear the cuckoos +calling across the river as you read this, no doubt, and Carnaby is +rendered happier than he deserves by being allowed to row you down to +tell Mrs. Prettyman about the chair. I feel as if, like the Japanese, +I could journey a hundred miles to worship that wonderful tree.--Don't +let the blossoms fall until I come! + +"There seems a good deal of business to be done. My father unfortunately +is no better, so he cannot come down to Stoke Revel, and I shall +probably return upon Wednesday morning. A poem of Browning's runs in my +head--something about three days--I can't quote exactly. + +"If my sister were writing this letter, she would say that I have been +very hard to please, and uninterested in everything since I came home. +Indeed it seems as if I were. London in this part of it, in hot +weather, makes a man weary for green woods, a sliding river, and a +Book of Verses underneath a Bough. Well, perhaps I shall have all of +them by Wednesday afternoon. You will think I can do nothing but +grumble. All the same, into what was the mere dull routine of +uncongenial work before, your influence has come with a current of new +energy; like the tide from the sea swelling up into the inland +river.--I'm at it again! Rivers on the brain evidently. + +"I hope meanwhile that Carnaby behaves himself, and is not too much of +a bore, and that England,--England in spring at least, is gaining a +corner in your heart? Your mother called it home, remember. Yes, do +try to remember that! + +"Did you go to the garden party? Did you walk? Did you drive? Did you +like it? Who was there? Were you dull?" + + * * * * * + +There was a postscript:-- + +"I have found the verse from Browning, 'So I shall see her in three +days.' + + "M. L." + + * * * * * + + "Tuesday, 19th. + +"Dear Mr. Lavendar: First, many thanks for Nurse's armchair, which +arrived in perfect order, and is a shining monument to your good +taste. She does nothing but look at it, shrouding it when she retires +to bed with an old table-cover, to protect it from the night air. + +"Whether she will ever make its acquaintance thoroughly enough to sit +in it I do not know, but it will give her an enormous amount of +pleasure. Perhaps her glow of pride in its possession does her as much +good as the comfort she might take in its use. + +"Her 'rheumatics' are very painful just now, and I have a good deal to +do with Duckie. You remember Duckie? I call her Mrs. Mackenzie, after +that lady in The Newcomes who talked the Colonel to death. Mrs. +Mackenzie is heavy, elderly, and strong-willed. I am acquainted with +every bone, tendon, and sinew in her body, having to lift her into a +coop behind the cottage where she will not wake Nurse at dawn with her +eternal quacking. She has heretofore slept under Nurse's bedroom +window and dislikes change of any kind. So lucky she has no offspring! +I tremble to think of what maternal example might do in such a +talkative family! + +"Stoke Revel is as it was and ever will be, world without end; only +Aunt de Tracy is crosser than when you are here and life is not as +gay, although Carnaby does his dear, cubbish best. If ever you +desire your mental jewels to shine at their brightest; if ever you +wish a tolerably good disposition to seem like that of an angel; if +ever, in a fit of vanity, you would like to appear as a blend of +Apollo, Lancelot, Demosthenes, Prince Charlie, Ajax, and Solomon, +just fly to Stoke Revel and become part of the household. Assume +nothing; simply appear, and the surroundings will do the rest; like +the penny-in-the-slot arrangements. Seen upon a background of Bates, +William, Benson, Big Cummins, the Curate, Miss Smeardon, and may I +dare to add, the lady of the Manor herself,--any living breathing +man takes on an Olympian majesty. I shouldn't miss you in Boston +nor in London; perhaps even in Weston I might find a wretched +substitute, but here you are priceless! + +"I have some news for you. On Saturday Miss Smeardon and I went to a +garden party. That was what it was called. The thermometer was only +slightly below zero when we started, and that luminary masquerading as +the sun was pretending to shine. Soon after we arrived at the festive +scene, there were gusts of wind and rain. I sought the shelter of a +spreading tree, the kitchen fire not being available, and I was joined +there by the hostess, who presented her niece, your Miss Meredith. + +"Dear Mr. Lavendar, this is a subject we cannot write about, you and +I. I am loyal to my sex, and what Miss Meredith said, and looked, and +did, are all as sacred to me as they ought to be. I only want to tell +you that she is happy; that she has this very week become engaged, and +is going to India with her husband in a month. Now that little +cankerworm, that has been gnawing at your roots of life for the last +year or two, has done its worst, and you are perfectly free to go and +make other mistakes. I only hope you'll get 'scot free' from those, +too, for I don't like to see nice men burn their fingers. We became +such good friends huddled up in that boat when we were stuck in the +mud--Ugh! I can smell it now!--that I am glad to be the first to send +you pleasant news. + + "Sincerely yours, + "ROBINETTA LORING." + + + + +XVII + +MRS. DE TRACY CROSSES THE FERRY + + +Lavendar's blunt refusal, except under certain conditions, to +announce to Mrs. Prettyman her coming ejection from the cottage at +Wittisham, was unprofessional enough, as he himself felt; but it +was final and categorical. Conveying as it did a sort of tacit +remonstrance, this refusal had an unfortunate effect, for it only +served to rouse Mrs. de Tracy's formidable obstinacy. She had +seized upon one point only in their numberless and wearisome +discussions of the matter: Mrs. Prettyman had no legal claim upon +Stoke Revel. To give her compensation for the plum tree would be to +allow that she had; to create a precedent highly dangerous under the +circumstances. How could one refuse to other old women or old men +leaving their cottages what one had weakly granted to her? The +demands would be unceasing, the trouble endless. So arguing, Mrs. de +Tracy soon brought herself to a state of determination bordering on a +sort of mania. She was old, and in exaggerated harshness her life was +retreating as it were into its last stronghold, at bay. + +As good as her word, for she had vowed she would warn Mrs. Prettyman +herself, and she was never one to procrastinate, the lady of the Manor +proceeded to plan her visit to Wittisham. She had not crossed the +river for years. Wittisham, one of the loveliest villages in England, +perhaps, though little known, was a thorn in her side, as it would +have been in that of any other landlord with empty pockets. + +What you could not deal with to your own advantage, it was better to +ignore, and on this autocratic principle, Mrs. de Tracy had left +Wittisham to itself. + +But now the boat carried her there, alone and fierce--_thrawn_, as +the Scotch say--bent upon a course of conduct that she knew would +hold her up to the hatred of every right-thinking person of her +acquaintance, and bitterly triumphant in the knowledge. The +meanness of her errand never struck her. On the contrary, she would +have argued it was one well worthy of her, a part of the scheme in +the consummation of which she had spent her married life and her whole +indomitable energy, losing actually her own identity in the process, +and becoming an inexorable machine. That scheme was the holding +together of Stoke Revel for the de Tracys, the maintenance of family +dignity and power, the pre-eminence of a race that had always ruled. +The river beneath her, carrying her to the fulfilment of her duty, +the noble river, widening to the sea, subject to its tides and made +turbulent by its storms, typified to Mrs. de Tracy only the +greatness of Stoke Revel. From its banks the de Tracys had sent out, +generation after generation, men who had commanded fleets, who +had upheld the national honour upon the farthest seas, very often at +the cost of life. There was no sacrifice of herself at which Mrs. +de Tracy would have hesitated in upholding this ideal, no sacrifice +of others, either. What was Lizzie Prettyman in comparison? A bag +of old bones, fit for nothing but the workhouse! + +"A little faster, William," said the widow, sitting upright in the +stern, and William the footman bent to his oars, the beads of +perspiration standing on his brow. When Mrs. de Tracy stepped out upon +the pier, she had to be reminded where the Prettyman cottage was. + +"You'll know it by the plum tree, ma'am," said William respectfully, +"everybody does." + +It was not far off on the river side. The tide had ebbed and left a +stretch of muddy foreshore in front of it, where the rotting poles for +hanging the fishing nets out to dry stood gauntly up. Mrs. de Tracy +approached the steps, which merged into the flagged path before the +door, and paused to survey the property she intended to part with. She +had no eye for the picturesque. A few white petals from the blossoming +plum tree, scattered by the breeze, fell upon her black bonnet and +shoulders. A faint scent of honey came from it and the hum of bees, +for the day was warm. The tumble-down condition of the cottage engaged +Mrs. de Tracy's attention. + +"And for this," she thought scornfully, "a man will give hundreds of +pounds! There's truth in the adage that a fool and his money are soon +parted!" + +She mounted the steps that led up to the patch of garden, her keen, +cold eyes everywhere at once. "A cat can't sneeze without she 'ears +'im!" her villagers at Stoke Revel were wont to say, disappearing into +their houses as rabbits into their burrows at sight of a terrier. + +Old Elizabeth Prettyman stood at her door, and it took some time to +make her realize who her august visitor was. She was getting blind; +she had never been a favourite with Mrs. de Tracy, nor had she entered +Stoke Revel Manor since her nursling disgraced it by marrying a Bean. +She curtseyed humbly to the great lady. + +"There now, ma'am," she said, "it's not often we have seen you across +the river. Will you please to come inside and sit down, ma'am? 'T is +very warm this afternoon, it is." She was a good deal fluttered in her +welcome, for there was that in Mrs. de Tracy's air that seemed to bode +misfortune. + +"I shall sit down for a few minutes, Elizabeth," was the reply, "while +I explain my visit to you." + +Mrs. Prettyman stood aside respectfully, and Mrs. de Tracy swept past +her into the cottage and seated herself there. It never occurred to +her to ask the old woman to sit down in her own house; she expected +her to stand throughout the interview. Without further preamble, +then, Mrs. de Tracy came to the point:-- + +"Elizabeth," she said, "I have come to tell you that I am going to +sell the land on which this cottage stands, and that you will have to +find some other home." + +The old woman did not understand for a minute. "You be going to sell +the land, ma'am?" she repeated stupidly. + +"Yes, I am. A gentleman from London wishes to buy it; you will need to +go." + +"A gentleman from London! Lor, ma'am, no gentleman from London +wouldn't live 'ere!" Elizabeth cried, perfectly dazed by the +statement. + +Mrs. de Tracy repeated: "It is not your business, Elizabeth, what he +intends to do with the place; all you have to do is to remove from the +house." + +The old woman sank down on the nearest chair and covered her face with +her hands. She was so old and so tired that she had no heart to face +life under new conditions, even should they be better than those she +left. A younger woman would have snapped her fingers in Mrs. de +Tracy's face, so to speak, and wished her joy of her old rattletrap of +a house, but Elizabeth Prettyman, after a lifetime of struggles, had +not vitality enough for such an action. She had never dreamed of +leaving the cottage, and where was she to go? Her furrowed face wore +an expression of absolute terror now when she looked up. + +"But where be I to live, ma'am?" she cried. + +"I do not know, Elizabeth; you must arrange that with your relations," +said Mrs. de Tracy. + +"I don't 'ave but only me niece--'er as married down Exeter way." + +"Well, you should write to her then." + +"She don't want to keep me, Nettie don't,--she's but a poor man's +wife, and five chillen she 'as; it's not like as if she were me +daughter, ma'am." + +"You have some small sum of money of your own every year, have you +not?" Mrs. de Tracy asked. + +"Ten pound a year, ma'am; the same that me 'usband left me; two +'undred pounds 'e 'ad saved and 't is in an annuity; that's all I +'ave--that and me plum tree." + +"The plum tree is not yours, either, Elizabeth; that belongs to the +land," said Mrs. de Tracy curtly. + +"'T was me 'usband planted it, ma'am, years ago. We watched 'en and +pruned 'en and tended 'en like a child we did--an' now to be told 'er +ain't mine!" + +"You're forgetting yourself, Elizabeth, I think," said Mrs. de Tracy. +It was simply impossible for her to see with the old woman's eyes; all +she remembered was the legal fact that any tree planted in Stoke Revel +ground belonged to the owner of the ground. + +"But ma'am, 't is a big part of me living is the plum tree; only +yesterday I says to the young lady--Miss Cynthia's young lady--I +says, 'Dear knows how 't would be with me without I had the plum +tree.'" + +"I cannot help that, Elizabeth: the plum tree is not yours, it belongs +to Stoke Revel." + +"Then ma'am, you'll be 'lowing me something for it surely?" + +"No," said Mrs. de Tracy obstinately, "you have no legal claim to +compensation, Elizabeth. I cannot undertake to allow you anything for +what is not yours. If I did it in your case you know quite well I +should have to do it in many others." + +There was a long and heavy silence. Elizabeth Prettyman was taking in +her sentence of banishment from her old home; Mrs. de Tracy was merely +wondering how long it would take her to walk down that nasty steep bit +of path to the ferry. At last the old woman looked up. + +"When must I be goin' then, ma'am?" she asked meekly. + +Mrs. de Tracy considered. "The transfer of land from one person to +another generally takes some time: you will have several weeks here +still; I shall send you notice later which day to quit." + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth simply, and added, "The plum tree +blossoms 'ul be over by that time." + +"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mrs. de Tracy, in +whose heart there was room for no sentiment. + +"'T would have been 'arder leavin' it in blossom time," the old woman +explained; but her hearer could not see the point. She rose slowly +from her chair and looked around the cottage. + +"I am glad to see that you keep your place clean and respectable, +Elizabeth," she said. "I wish you good afternoon." + +Elizabeth never rose from her chair to see her visitor to the door--(an +omission which Mrs. de Tracy was not likely to overlook)--she just sat +there gazing stupidly around the tiny kitchen and muttering a word or +two now and then. At last she got up and tottered to the garden. + +"I'll 'ave to leave it all--leave the old bench as me William did put +for me with his own 'ands, and leave Duckie, Duckie can't never go to +Exeter if I goes there,--and leave the plum tree." She limped across +the little bit of sunny turf, and stood under the white canopy of the +blossoming tree, leaning against its slender trunk. "Pity 't is we +ain't rooted in the ground same as the trees are," she mused. "Then no +one couldn't turn us out; only the Lord Almighty cut us down when our +time came; Lord knows I'm about ready for that now--grave-ripe as you +may say." She leaned her poor weary old head against the tree stem and +wept, ready, ah! how ready, at that moment, to lay down the burden of +her long and toilsome life. + +"Good afternoon, Nursie dear!" a clear voice called out in her ear, +and Elizabeth started to find that Robinette had tip-toed across the +grass and was standing close beside her. She lifted her tear-stained +face up to Robinette's as a child might have done. + +"I've to quit, Missie," she sobbed, "to leave me 'ome and Duckie and +the plum tree, an' I've no place to go to, and naught but my ten +pounds to live on--and 't won't keep me without I've the plum tree, +not when I've rent to pay from it; not if I don't eat nothing but tea +an' bread never again!" + +In a moment Robinette's arms were about her: her soft young cheeks +pressed against the withered old face. + +"What's this you're saying, Nurse?" she cried. "Leaving your cottage? +Who said so?" + +"It's true, dear, quite true; 'asn't the lady 'erself been here to +tell me so?" + +"Was that what Aunt de Tracy was here about? I met her on the road +five minutes ago; she said she had been here on business! But tell me, +Nurse, why does she want you to leave? Are you going to get a better +cottage? Does she think this one isn't healthy for you?" + +"No, no, dear, 't isn't that, she 've sold the cottage over me 'ead, +that's what 't is, or she's going to sell it, to a gentleman from +London--Lord knows what a gentleman from London wants wi' 'en--and +I've to quit." + +Robinette tried to be a peacemaker. + +"Then you'll get a much more comfortable house, that's quite certain. +You know, though this one is lovely on fine days like this, that the +thatch is all coming off, and I'm sure it's damp inside! Just wait a +bit, and see if you don't get some nice cosy little place, with a +sound roof and quite dry, that will cure this rheumatism of yours." + +But Mrs. Prettyman shook her head. + +"No, no, there won't be no cosy place given to me; I'm no more worth +than an old shoe now, Missie, and I'm to be turned out, the lady said +so 'erself; said as I must go to Exeter to live with me niece Nettie, +and 'er don't want us--Nettie don't--and whatever shall I do without I +'ave Duckie and the plum tree?" + +"Oh, but"--Robinette began, quite incredulously, and the old woman +took up her lament again. + +"And I asked the lady, wouldn't I 'ave something allowed me for the +plum tree--that 'ave about clothed me for years back? And 'No,' she +says, ''t ain't your plum tree, Elizabeth, 't is mine; I can't 'low +nothing on me own plum tree.'" + +Robinette still refused to believe the story. + +"Nurse, dear," she said, "you're a tiny bit deaf now, you know, and +perhaps you misunderstood about leaving. Suppose you keep your dear +old heart easy for to-night, and I'll come down bright and early +to-morrow and tell you what it really is! If you have to leave the +plum tree you'll get a fine price put on it that may last you for +years; it's such a splendid tree, anyone can see it's worth a good +deal." + +"That it be, Missie, the finest tree in Wittisham," the old woman +said, drying her eyes, a little comforted by the assurance in +Robinette's voice and manner. + +"There now, we won't have any more tears: I've brought a new canister +of tea I sent for to London. I'm just dying to taste if it's good; +we'll brew it together, Nursie; I shall carry out the little table +from the kitchen and we'll drink our tea under the plum tree," +Robinette cried. + +She was carrying a great parcel under her arm, and when Mrs. Prettyman +opened it, she could scarcely believe that this lovely red tin +canister, filled with pounds of fragrant tea, could really be hers! +The sight of such riches almost drove away her former fears. Robinette +whisked into the kitchen and came out carrying the little round table +which she set down under the white canopy of the plum tree. Then +together they brought out the rest of the tea things, and what a merry +meal they had! + +"It's just nonsense and a bit of deafness on your part, Nurse, so we +won't remember anything about leaving the house, we are only going to +think of enjoyment," Robinette announced. Then the old woman was +comforted, as old people are wont to be by the brave assurances of +those younger and stronger than themselves, forgot the spectre that +seemed to have risen suddenly across her path, and laughed and talked +as she sipped the fragrant London tea. + + + + +XVIII + +THE STOKE REVEL JEWELS + + +"Hullo! Cousin Robin, hurry up, you'll need all your time!" It was +Carnaby of course who saluted Robinette thus, as she came towards the +house on her return from Wittisham. + +"I'm not late, am I?" she said, consulting her watch. + +"I thought you'd be making a tremendous toilette; one of your killing +ones to-night," Carnaby said. "Do! I love to see you all dressed up +till old Smeardon's eyes look as if they would drop out when you come +into the room." + +"I'll wear my black dress, and her eyes may remain in her head," +Robinette laughed. + +"And what about Mark's eyes? Wouldn't you like them to drop out?" the +boy asked mischievously. "He's come back by the afternoon train while +you were away at Wittisham." + +"Oh, has he?" Robinette said, and Carnaby stared so hard at her, that +to her intense annoyance she blushed hotly. + +"Horrid lynx-eyed boy," she said to herself as she ran upstairs, "He's +growing up far too quickly. He needs to be snubbed." She dashed to the +wardrobe, pulled out the black garment, and gave it a vindictive shake. +"Old, dowdy, unbecoming, deaconess-district-visitor-bible-woman, +great-grand-auntly thing!" she cried. + +Then her eye lighted on a cherished lavender satin. She stood for a +moment deliberating, the black dress over her arm, her eyes fixed upon +the lavender one that hung in the wardrobe. + +"I don't care," she cried suddenly: "I'll wear the lavender, so here +goes! Men are all colour blind, so he'll merely notice that I look +nice. I must conceal from myself and everybody else how depressed I am +over the interview with Nurse, and how I dread discussing the cottage +with Aunt de Tracy. That must be done the first thing after dinner, or +I shall lose what little courage I have." + +Lavendar thought he had never seen her look so lovely as when he met +her in the drawing room a quarter of an hour later. There was nothing +extraordinary about the dress but its exquisite tint and the sheen of +the soft satin. The suggestion that lay in the colour was entirely +lost upon him, however: if asked to name it he would doubtless have +said "purplish." How he wished that he might have escorted her into +the dining room, but Mrs. de Tracy was his portion as usual, and +Robinette was waiting for Carnaby, who seemed unaccountably slow. + +"Your arm, Middy, when you are quite ready," she said to him at last. +Carnaby's extraordinary unreadiness seemed to arise from his trying to +smuggle some object up his sleeve. This proved, a few moments later, +to be a bundle of lavender sticks tied with violet ribbon that he had +discovered in his bureau drawer. He laid it by Robinette's plate with +a whispered "My compliments." + +"What does your cousin want that bunch of lavender for, at the table?" +Mrs. de Tracy enquired. + +"She likes lavender anywhere, ma'am," Carnaby said with a wink on the +side not visible by his grandmother. "It's a favourite of hers." + +Robinette could only be thankful that Lavendar was occupied in a +_sotto voce_ discussion of wine with Bates, and she was able to +conceal the bundle of herbs before his eyes met hers, for the fury she +felt against her precious young kinsman at that moment she could have +expressed only by blows. + +Dinner seemed interminably long. Robinette, for more reasons than one, +was preoccupied; Lavendar made few remarks, and Carnaby was possessed +by a spirit of perfectly fiendish mischief, saying and doing +everything that could most exasperate his grandmother, put her guests +to the blush, and shock Miss Smeardon. + +But at last Mrs. de Tracy rose from the table, and the ladies followed +her from the room, leaving Lavendar to cope alone with Carnaby. + +"My fair American cousin is more than usually lovely to-night, eh, Mr. +Lavendar?" the boy said, with his laughable assumption of a man of the +world. + +"There, my young friend; that will do! you're talking altogether too +much," said Lavendar, as he poured himself out a glass of wine and sat +down by the open window to drink it. Carnaby, perhaps not unreasonably +offended, lounged out of the room, and left the older man to his own +meditations. + +Robinette in the meantime went into the drawing room with her aunt, +and they sat down together in the dim light while Miss Smeardon went +upstairs to write a letter. + +"Aunt de Tracy," Robinette began, "I was calling on Mrs. Prettyman +just after you had been with her this afternoon, and do you know the +dear old soul had taken the strangest idea into her head! She says you +are going to ask her to leave the cottage." + +"The land on which her cottage stands is about to be sold," said Mrs. +de Tracy. "It is necessary that she should move." + +"Yes, she quite understood that; but she thinks she is not going to +get another house; that was what was distressing her, naturally. Of +course she hates to leave the old place, but I believe if she gets +another nicer cottage, that will quite console her," said Robinette +quickly. + +"I have no vacant cottage on the estate just now," said Mrs. de Tracy +quietly. + +"Then what is she to do? Isn't it impossible that she should move +until another place is made ready for her?" Robinette rose and stood +beside the table, leaning the tips of her fingers on it in an attitude +of intense earnestness. She was trying to conceal the anger and dismay +she felt at her aunt's reply. + +"Mrs. Prettyman has relatives at Exeter," said Mrs. de Tracy without +the quiver of an eyelid. + +"Yes; but they are poor. They aren't very near relations, and they +don't want her. O Aunt de Tracy, is it necessary to make her leave? +She depends upon the plum tree so! She makes twenty-five dollars a +year from the jam!" + +"Dollars have no significance for me," said Mrs. de Tracy with an icy +smile. + +"Well, pounds then: five pounds she makes. How is she ever going to +live without that, unless you give her the equivalent? It's half her +livelihood! I promised you would consider it? Was I wrong?" + +Old bitternesses rose in Mrs. de Tracy's heart, the prejudices and the +grudges of a lifetime. Everything connected with Robinette's mother +had been wrong in her eyes, and now everything connected with +Robinette was wrong too, and becoming more so with startling +rapidity. + +"You had no right whatsoever to make any promises on my behalf," she +now said harshly. "You have acted foolishly and officiously. This is +no business of yours." + +"I'll gladly make it my business if you'll let me, Aunt de Tracy!" +pleaded Robinette. "If you don't feel inclined to provide for Mrs. +Prettyman, mayn't I? She is my mother's old nurse and she shan't want +for anything as long as I have a penny to call my own!" Robinette's +eyes filled with tears, but Mrs. de Tracy was not a whit moved by this +show of emotion, which appeared to her unnecessary and theatrical. + +"You are forgetting yourself a good deal in your way of speaking to me +on this subject," she said coldly. "When I behaved unbecomingly in my +youth, my mother always recommended me to go upstairs, shut myself up +alone in my room, and collect my thoughts. The process had invariably +a calming effect. I advise you to try it." + +Robinette did not need to be proffered the hint twice. She rushed out +of the room like a whirlwind, not looking where she went. In the hall, +she came face to face with Lavendar, who had just left the dining +room. + +"Mr. Lavendar!" she cried. "Do go into the drawing room and speak to +my aunt. Preach to her! Argue with her! Convince her that she can't +and mustn't act in this way; can't go and turn Mrs. Prettyman out, and +rob her of the plum tree, and leave her with hardly a penny in the +world or a roof over her head!" + +"It's not a very pretty or a very pleasant business, Mrs. Loring, I +admit," said Lavendar quietly. + +"Is it English law?" cried Robinette with indignation. "If it is, I +call it mean and unjust!" + +"Sometimes the laws seem very hard," said Lavendar. "I'd like to +discuss this affair with you quietly another time." + +As he spoke, Carnaby appeared and wanted to be told what the matter +was, but Robinette discovered that it is not very easy to criticise a +grandmother to her youthful grandson, more especially when the lady in +question is your hostess. + +"Aunt de Tracy and I have had a little difference of opinion about +Mrs. Prettyman and her cottage, and the plum tree," she said to the +boy quietly, and Lavendar nodded approval. + +"Prettyman's got the sack, hasn't she?" Carnaby enquired with a boy's +carelessness. + +Robinette looked very grave. "My dear old nurse is to leave her +cottage," she said with a quiver in her voice. "She's to lose her plum +tree--" + +"But of course she'll get compensation," cried Carnaby. + +"No, Middy; she's to get no compensation," said Robinette in a low +voice. + +"Well, I call that jolly hard! It's a beastly shame," said Carnaby, +evidently pricking up his ears and with a sudden frown that changed +his face. "I say, Mark--" But Lavendar did not think the moment +suitable for a discussion of Mrs. Prettyman's wrongs. Besides, he did +not wish Robinette to be banished from the drawing room for a whole +interminable evening. He contrived to silence Carnaby for the time +being. + +"Let's bury the hatchet for a little while," he suggested. "Have you +forgotten, Mrs. Loring, that I made Mrs. de Tracy promise to show off +the Stoke Revel jewels for your benefit this very night?" + +"O! but now I'm in disgrace, she won't!" said Robinette. + +"Yes, she will!" said Carnaby. "Nothing puts the old lady in such a +heavenly temper as showing off the jewels. Don't you miss it, Cousin +Robin! It's like the Tower of London and Madam Tussaud's rolled into +one, this show, I can assure you. Come on! Come back into the drawing +room. Needn't be afraid when Mark's there!" + +Robinette found that a black look or two was all that she had to fear +from Mrs. de Tracy at present, and even these became less severe +under the alchemy of Lavendar's tact. A reminder that an exhibition of +the jewelry had been promised was graciously received. Bates and +Benson were summoned, and armed with innumerable keys, they descended +to subterranean regions where safes were unlocked and jewel-boxes +solemnly brought into the drawing room. Mrs. de Tracy wore an air +almost devotional, as she unlocked the final receptacles with keys +never allowed to leave her own hands. + +"If the proceedings had begun with prayer and ended with a hymn, it +wouldn't have surprised me in the least!" Robinette said to herself, +looking silently on. Her silence, luckily for her, was taken for the +speechlessness of awe, and did a good deal to make up, in the eyes of +her august relative, for her late indiscretions. As a matter of fact, +her irreverent thoughts were mostly to the effect that all but the +historical pieces of the Stoke Revel _corbeille_ would be the better +of re-setting by Tiffany or Cartier. + +Mrs. de Tracy opened an old shagreen case and the firelight flickered +on the diamonds of a small tiara. + +"This is a part of the famous Montmorency set," she announced proudly, +with the tone of a Keeper of Regalia. Then she took out a rope of +pearls ending in tassels. "These belonged to Marie Antoinette," she +said. + +An emerald set was next produced, and the emeralds, it was explained, +had once adorned a crown. Deep green they were, encrusted in their +diamond setting; costly, unique; but they left Robinette cold, though +like most American women, she loved precious stones as an adornment. +One of those emeralds, she was thinking, was worth fifty times more +than old Lizzie Prettyman's cottage: the sale of one of them would +have averted that other sale which was to cause so much distress to a +poor harmless old woman. + +"When do you wear your jewels, Aunt de Tracy?" she asked gravely. + +"I have not worn them since the Admiral's death," was the virtuous +reply, "and I have never called or considered them mine, Robinetta. +They are the de Tracy jewels. When Carnaby takes his place as the head +of the house, they will be his. He will see that his wife wears them +on the proper occasions." + +"Carnaby's wife!" thought Robinette. "Why! she mayn't be born! He may +never have a wife! And to think of all those precious stones hiding +their brightness in these boxes like prisoners in a dungeon for years +and years, only to be let out now and then by Bates and Benson, +jingling their keys like jailers! And this house is a prison too!" she +said to herself; "a prison for souls!" and the thought of its hoarded +wealth made her indignant; all this hidden treasure in a house where +there was never enough to eat, where guests shivered in fireless +bedrooms, where servants would not stay because they were starved! And +Carnaby, too, whose youth was being embittered by unnecessary +economies: Carnaby, who had so little pocket-money that he was a +laughing-stock among his fellows--it was for Carnaby these sacrifices +were being made! Strange traditions! Fetiches of family pride almost +as grotesque to her thinking as those of any savages under the sun. + +"My poor dear Middy!" she thought. "What chance has he, brought up in +an atmosphere like this?" But she happened to raise her eyes at the +moment, and to see the actual Carnaby of the moment, not the Carnaby +her gloomy imagination was evoking from the future with the "petty +hoard of maxims preaching down" his heart. He had contrived to get +hold of the Marie Antoinette pearls without his grandmother's +knowledge and to hang them around his neck; he had poised the +Montmorency tiara on his own sleek head; he had forced a heavy +bracelet by way of collar round Rupert's throat, and now with that +choking and goggling unfortunate held partner-wise in his arms, he was +waltzing on tiptoe about the farther drawing room behind the +unconscious backs of Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon. + +"He's only a careless boy," thought Robinette, "a happy-go-lucky, +devil-may-care, hare-brained youngster. They can't have poisoned his +nature yet, and I'm sure he has a good heart. If he were at the head +of affairs at Stoke Revel instead of his grandmother, I wonder what +would be done in the matter of my poor old nurse?" Robinette stood in +the doorway for a moment before going up to her room. Her whole +attitude spoke depression as Carnaby stole up behind her. + +"See here, Cousin Robin, I can't bear to have you go on like this. +Don't take Prettyman's trouble so to heart. We'll do something! I'll +do something myself! I have a happy thought." + + + + +XIX + +LAWYER AND CLIENT + + +Robinette had a bad night after the jewel exhibition, and a heavy head +and aching eyes prompted her to ask Little Cummins to bring her +breakfast to her bedroom. + +It was touching to see that small person hovering over Robinette: +stirring the fire, sweeping the hearth, looping back the curtains, +tucking the slippers out of sight, and moving about the room like a +mother ministering to an ailing child. Finally she staggered in with +the heavy breakfast tray that she had carried through long halls and +up the stairs, and put it on the table by the bed. + +"There's a new-laid egg, ma'am, that cook 'ad for the mistress, but I +thought you needed it more; an' I brewed the tea meself, to be sure," +she cooed; "an' I've spread the loaf same as you like, an' cut the +bread thin, an' 'ere's one o' the roses you allers wears to breakfast; +an' wouldn't your erming coat be a comfort, ma'am?" + +"Dear Little Cummins! How did you know I needed comfort? How did you +guess I was homesick?" + +Robinette leaned her head against the housemaid's rough hand, always +stained with black spots that would give way to no scrubbing. From +morning to night she was in the coal scuttle or the grate or the +saucer of black lead, for she did nothing but lay fires, light fires, +feed fires, and tidy up after fires, for eight or nine months of the +year. + +"You mustn't touch me, ma'am; I ain't fit; there's smut on me, an' +hashes, this time o' day," said Little Cummins. + +"I don't care. I like you better with ashes than lots of people +without. You mustn't stay in the coal scuttle all your life, Little +Cummins; you must be my chambermaid some of these days when we can get +a good substitute for Mrs. de Tracy. Would you like that, if the +mistress will let you go?" + +Little Cummins put her apron up to her eyes, and from its depths came +inarticulate bursts of gratitude and joy. Then peeping from it just +enough to see the way to the door, she ran out like a hare and +secluded herself in the empty linen-room until she was sufficiently +herself to join the other servants. + +Robinette finished her breakfast and dressed. She had lacked courage +to meet the family party, although she longed for a talk with Mark +Lavendar. It was entirely normal, feminine, and according to all law, +human and divine, but it appealed also to her sense of humour, that +she should feel that this new man-friend could straighten out all the +difficulties in the path. She waited patiently at her window until she +saw him walk around the corner of the house, under the cedars, and up +the twisting path, his head bent and bare, his hands in his pockets. +Then she flung her blue cape over her shoulders and followed him. + +"Mr. Lavendar," she called, as she caught up with his slow step, "you +said you would advise me a little. Let us sit on this bench a moment +and find out how we can untangle all the knots into which Aunt de +Tracy tied us yesterday. I am so afraid of her that I am sure I spoke +timidly and respectfully to her at first; but perhaps I showed more +feeling at the end than I should. I am willing to apologize to her for +any lack of courtesy, but I don't see how I can retract anything I +said." + +"It is hard for you," Lavendar replied, "because you have a natural +affection for your mother's old nurse; and Mrs. de Tracy, I begin to +believe, is more than indifferent to her. She has some active dislike, +perhaps, the source of which is unknown to us." + +"But she is so unjust!" cried Robinette. "I never heard of an Irish +landlord in a novel who would practice such a piece of eviction. If I +must stand by and see it done, then I shall assert my right to provide +for Nurse and move her into a new dwelling. After you left the drawing +room last night, I begged as tactfully as I could that Aunt de Tracy +would sell me some of the jewels, so that she need not part with the +land at Wittisham. She was very angry, and wouldn't hear of it. Then I +proposed buying the plum-tree cottage, that it might be kept in the +family, and she was furious at my audacity. Perhaps the Admiral's +niece is _not_ in the family." + +"She cannot endure anything like patronage, or even an assumption of +equality," said Lavendar. "You must be careful there." + +"Should I be likely to patronize?" asked Robinette reproachfully. + +"No; but your acquaintance with your aunt is a very brief one, and she +is an extraordinary character; hard to understand. You may easily +stumble on a prejudice of hers at every step." + +"I shouldn't like to understand her any better than I do now," and +Robinette pushed back her hair rebelliously. + +"Will you be my client for about five minutes?" asked Lavendar. + +"Yes, willingly enough, for I see nothing before me but to take Nurse +Prettyman and depart in the first steamer for America." + +Mrs. Loring looked as if she were quite capable of this rather radical +proceeding, and very much, too, as if any growing love for Lavendar +that she might have, would easily give way under this new pressure of +circumstances. + +"This is the situation in a nutshell," said Lavendar, filling his +pipe. "Mrs. de Tracy is entirely within her legal rights when she asks +Mrs. Prettyman to leave the cottage; legally right also when she +declines to give compensation for the plum tree that has been a source +of income; financially right moreover in selling cottage and land at a +fancy price to find money for needed improvements on the estate." + +"None of this can be denied, I allow." + +"All these legal rights could have been softened if Mrs. de Tracy had +been willing to soften them, but unfortunately she has been put on the +defensive. She did not like it when I opposed her in the first place. +She did not like it when my father advised her to make some small +settlement, as he did, several days ago. She resented Mrs. Prettyman's +assumption of owning the plum tree; she was outraged at your valiant +espousing of your nurse's cause." + +"I see; we have simply made her more determined in her injustice." + +"Now it is all very well for you to show your mettle," Lavendar went +on, "for you to endure your aunt's displeasure rather than give up a +cause you know to be just; but look where it lands us." + +Robinette raised her troubled eyes to Lavendar's, giving a sigh to +show she realized that her landing-place would be wherever the lawyer +fixed it, not where she wished it. + +"Go on," she sighed patiently. + +"Your legal adviser regards it as impossible that you should come over +from America and quarrel with your mother's family;--your only family, +in point of fact. If this affair is fought to a finish you will feel +like leaving your aunt's house." + +"I shouldn't have to wait for that feeling," said Robinette +irrepressibly. "Aunt de Tracy would have it first!" + +"In such an event I could and would stand by you, naturally." + +"_Would_ you?" cried Robinette glowing instantly like a jewel. + +Lavendar looked at her in amazement. "Pray what do you take me for? On +whose side could I, should I be, my dear--my dear Mrs. Loring? But to +keep to business. In the event stated above, neither my father nor I +could very well continue to have charge of the estate. That is a small +matter, but increases the difficulties, owing to a long friendship +dating back to the Admiral's time. Then we have Carnaby. Carnaby, my +dear Mrs. Loring, belongs to you. Do you want to give him up? He +adores you and you will have an unbounded influence on him, if you +choose to exercise it." + +"How can I influence Carnaby--in America?" + +This was a blow, but Lavendar made no sign. "You may not always be in +America," he said. "Now why not let Mrs. de Tracy sell the land and +cottage and plum tree in the ordinary course of things? Oh, how I wish +_I_ could buy the blessed thing!" he exclaimed, parenthetically. + +"Oh! how I wish _I_ could buy the plum tree, and keep it, always +blossoming, in my morning-room!" sighed Robinette. + +"But unfortunately, Waller R. A. will buy the plum tree, confound him! +Now, just after Mrs. de Tracy has definitely sold the premises and all +their appurtenances, suppose you, in your prettiest and most docile +way (docility not being your strong point!) ask your aunt if she has +any objection to your taking care of Mrs. Prettyman during the few +years remaining to her. Meantime keep her from irritating Mrs. de +Tracy, and make the poor old dear happy with plans for her future. If +you are short on docility you are long on making people happy!" + +"Never did I hear such an argument! It would make Macduff fall into +the arms of Macbeth; it would tranquillize the Kilkenny cats +themselves! I'll run in and apologize abjectly to my thrice guilty +aunt, then I'll reward myself by going over to Wittisham." + +"If you'll take the ferry over, I'd like to come and fetch you if I +may. That shall be my reward." + +"Reward for what?" + +"For giving you advice very much against my personal inclinations. +Courses of action founded entirely on policy do not appeal to me very +strongly." + + + + +XX + +THE NEW HOME + + +It was in rather a chastened spirit that Robinette set off to see Mrs. +Prettyman. "I've been foolish, I've been imprudent; oh! dear me! I've +still so much to learn!" she sighed to herself. "No good is ever done +by losing one's temper; it only puts everything wrong. I shall have to +try and take Mr. Lavendar's advice. I must be very prudent with Nurse +this morning--never show her that I think Aunt de Tracy is in the +wrong; just persuade her ever so gently to move to another home, and +arrange with her where it is to be." + +It is always difficult for an impetuous nature like Robinette's to +hold back about anything. She would have liked to run straight into +Mrs. Prettyman's room, and, flinging her arms round the old woman's +neck, cry out to her that everything was settled. And instead she +must come to the point gently, prudently, wisely, "like other people" +as she said to herself. + +The cottage seemed very still that afternoon, and Robinette knocked +twice before she heard the piping old voice cry out to her to come +in. + +"Why, Nurse dear, where are you? Were you asleep?" Robinette said as +she entered, for Mrs. Prettyman was not sitting in the fine new chair. +Then she found that the voice answered from the little bedroom off the +kitchen, and that the old woman was in bed. + +"I ain't ill, so to speak, dear, just weary in me bones," she +explained, as Robinette sat down beside her. "And Mrs. Darke, me +neighbour, she sez to me, 'You do take the day in bed, Mrs. Prettyman, +me dear, an' I'll do your bit of work for 'ee'--so 'ere I be, Missie, +right enough." + +"I'm afraid you were worried yesterday," said Robinette; "worried +about leaving the house." + +"I were, Missie, I were," she confessed. + +"That's why I came to-day; you must stop worrying, for I've settled +all about it. I spoke to my aunt last night, and it's true that you +have to leave this house; but now I've come to make arrangements with +you about a new one." + +The old woman covered her face with her hands and gave a little cry +that went straight to Robinette's heart. + +"Lor' now, Miss, 'ow am I ever to leave this place where I've been all +these years? I thought yesterday as you said 'twas a mistake I'd +made." + +"But alas, it wasn't altogether a mistake," Robinette had to confess +sadly, her eyes filling with tears as she realized how she had only +doubled her old friend's disappointment. Then she sat forward and took +Mrs. Prettyman's hand in hers. + +"Nursie dear," she said, "I don't want you to grieve about leaving +the old home, for it isn't an awfully good one; the new one is going +to be ever so much better!" + +"That's so, I'm sure, dearie, only 'tis _new_," faltered Mrs. +Prettyman. "If you're spared to my age, Missie, you'll find as new +things scare you." + +"Ah, but not a new house, Nursie! Wait till I describe it! Everything +strong and firm about it, not shaking in the storms as this one +does; nice bright windows to let in all the sunshine; so no more +'rheumatics' and no more tears of pain in your dear old eyes!" + +Robinette's voice failed suddenly, for it struck her all in a moment +that her glowing description of the new home seemed to have in it +something prophetic. That bent little figure beside her, these shaking +limbs and dim old eyes,--all this house of life, once so carefully +builded, was crumbling again into the dust, and its tenant indeed +wanted a new one, quite, quite different! A sob rose in Robinette's +throat, but she swallowed it down and went on gaily. + +"I've settled about another thing, too; you're to have another plum +tree, or life wouldn't be the same thing to you. And you know they can +transplant quite big trees now-a-days and make them grow wonderfully. +Some one was telling me all about how it is done only a few days ago. +They dig them up ever so carefully, and when they put them into the +new hole, every tiny root is spread out and laid in the right +direction in the ground, and patted and coaxed in, and made firm, and +they just catch hold on the soil in the twinkle of an eye. Isn't it +marvellous? Well, I'll have a fine new tree planted for you so +cleverly that perhaps by next year you'll be having a few plums, who +knows? And the next year more plums! And the next year, jam!" + +"'Twill be beautiful, sure enough," said the old woman, kindling at +last under the description of all these joys. "And do you think, +Missie, as the new cottage will really be curing of me rheumatics?" + +"Why yes, Nurse. Whoever heard of rheumatism in a dry new house?" + +"The house be new, but the rheumatics be old," said Mrs. Prettyman +sagely. + +"Well, we can't make _you_ entirely new, but we'll do our best. I'm +going to enquire about a nice cottage not very far from here; there's +plenty of time before this one is sold. It shall be dry and warm and +cosy, and you will feel another person in it altogether." + +"These new houses be terrible dear, bain't they?" the old woman said +anxiously. + +"Not a bit; besides that's another matter I want to settle with you, +Nursie. I'm going to pay the rent always, and you're going to have a +nice little girl to help you with the work, and there will be +something paid to you each month, so that you won't have any +anxiety." + +"Oh, Missie, Missie, whatever be you sayin'? _Me_ never to have no +anxiety again!" + +"You never shall, if I can help it; old people should never have +worries; that's what young people are here for, to look after them and +keep them happy." + +Mrs. Prettyman lay back on the pillow and gazed at Robinette +incredulously; it wasn't possible that such a solution had come to all +her troubles. For seventy odd years she had worked and struggled and +sometimes very nearly starved and here was some one assuring her that +these struggles were over forever, that she needn't work hard any +more, or ever worry again. Could it be true? And all to come from Miss +Cynthia's daughter! + +Robinette bent down and kissed the wrinkled old face softly. + +"Good-night, Nursie dear," she said. "I'm not going to stay any longer +with you to-day, because you're tired. Have a good sleep, and waken up +strong and bright." + +"Good-night, Missie, good-night, dear," the old woman said. Her face +had taken on an expression of such peacefulness as it had never worn +before. + +She turned over on her pillow and closed her eyes, scarcely waiting +for Robinette to leave the room. + +"I've been allowed to do that, anyway," Robinette said to herself, +standing in the doorway to look back at the quiet sleeper, and then +looking forward to a little boat nearing the shore. The cottage +sheltered almost the only object that connected her with her past; the +boat, she felt, held all her future. + + * * * * * + +The river, when Lavendar rowed himself across it, was very quiet. "The +swelling of Jordan," as Robinette called the rising tide, was over; +now the glassy water reflected every leaf and twig from the trees that +hung above its banks and dipped into it here and there. + +Mooring his boat at the landing, Mark sauntered up to Mrs. Prettyman's +cottage, and having tapped lightly at the door to let Mrs. Loring +know of his arrival, as they had agreed he should do, he went along +the flagged pathway into the garden, and sat down on the edge of the +low wall that divided it from the river. Just in front of him was the +little worn bench where he had first seen Robinette as she sat beside +her old nurse with the tiny shoe on her lap. It was scarcely a +fortnight ago; yet it seemed to him that he could hardly remember the +kind of man he had been that afternoon; a new self, full of a new +purpose, and at that moment of a new hope, had taken the place of the +objectless being he had been before. + +Everything was very still; there was scarcely a sound from the village +or from the shipping farther down the river. Lavendar fancied he heard +Robinette's clear voice within the cottage; then he started suddenly +and the blood rushed to his heart as he listened to her light steps +coming along the paved footpath. + +"Here you are!" she whispered. "Let us not speak too loud, for Nurse +was just dropping asleep when I left her. I've put a table-cover and +a blanket over 'Mrs. Mackenzie' to keep her from quacking. Mrs. +Prettyman has not been very well, poor dear, and is in bed. We've just +talked about the lovely new home she's going to have, and the +transplanted plum tree; small, but warranted to bear in a year or two +and give plums and jam like this one. I left her so happy!" + +She stopped and looked up. "Oh! can any new tree be as beautiful as +this one? Was ever anything in the world more exquisite? It has +just come to its hour of perfection, Mr. Lavendar; it couldn't +last,--anything so lovely in a passing world." + +She sat down on the low wall, and looked up at the tree. It stood and +shone there in its perfect hour. Another day, and the blossoms, too +fully blown, would begin to drift upon the ground with every little +shaking wind; now it was at its zenith, a miracle of such white beauty +that it caused the heart to stop and consider. Bees and butterflies +hummed and flew around it; it cast a delicate shadow on the grass, and +leaning across the wall it was imaged again in the river like a bride +in her looking-glass. + +Robinette sat gazing at the tree, and Lavendar sat gazing at her. At +that moment he "feared his fate too much" to break the silence by any +question that might shatter his hope, as the first breeze would break +the picture that had taken shape in the glassy water beneath them. + +"I feel in a better temper now," said Robinette. "Who could be angry, +and look at that beautiful thing? I've left dear old Nurse quite happy +again, and I haven't yet offended Aunt de Tracy irrevocably, and all +because you persuaded me not to be unreasonable. All the same I could +do it again in another minute if I let myself go. Doesn't injustice +ever make people angry in England?" + +Lavendar laughed. "It often makes me feel angry, but I've never found +that throwing the reins on the horses' necks when they wanted to +bolt, made one go along the right road any faster in the end." + +"I often think," said Robinette, "if we could see people really angry +and disagreeable before we--" She hesitated and added, "get to know +them well, we should be so much more careful." + +"Yes," said Mark, bending down his head and speaking very deliberately, +"that's why I wish you could have seen me in all my worst moments. +I'd stand the shame of it, if you could only know, but, alas, one +can't show off one's worst moments to order; they must be hit upon +unexpectedly." + +"I don't believe thirty years of life would teach one about some +people--they are so _crevicey_," said Robinette musingly. She had +risen and leaned against the plum tree for a moment, looking up +through the white branches. + +Lavendar rose and stood beside her. "Thirty years--I shall be getting +on to seventy in thirty years." + +A little gust of wind shook the tree; some petals came drifting down +upon them, like white moths, like flakes of summer snow, a warning +that the brief hour of perfection would soon be past ... and under it +human creatures were talking about thirty years! + + + + +XXI + +CARNABY CUTS THE KNOT + + +That afternoon, Carnaby was having what he called "an absolutely +mouldy time," and since his leave was running out and his remaining +afternoons were few, he considered himself an injured individual. +Robinette and Lavendar seemed for ever preoccupied either with each +other or with some subject of discussion, the ins and outs of which +they had not confided to him. + +"It's partly that blessed plum tree," he said to himself; "but of +course they're spooning too. Very likely they're engaged by this time. +Didn't I tell her she'd marry again? Well, if she must, it might as +well be old Lavendar as anyone else. He's a decent chap, or he was, +before he fell in love." + +Carnaby sighed. This effort of generosity towards his rival made him +feel peculiarly disconsolate. He had fished and rowed on the river all +the morning; he had ferreted; he had fed Rupert with a private +preparation of rabbits which infallibly made him sick, the desired +result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even +success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to +work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither +Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's +peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for himself how +the land lay. + +"Why is Waller R. A. so keen on the plum tree?" he had enquired. + +"He wants to make a quartette of studies," answered Lavendar. "The +Plum Tree in spring, summer, autumn, and winter." + +"What a rotten idea!" said Carnaby simply. + +"Far from rotten, my young friend, I can assure you!" Lavendar +returned. "It will furnish coloured illustrations for countless +summer numbers of the _Graphic_ and _The Lady's Pictorial_, and fill +Waller R. A.'s pockets with gold, some of which will shortly filter in +advance into the Stoke Revel banking account, we hope." + +"I'm not so sure about that!" said Carnaby; but he said it to himself, +while aloud he only asked with much apparent innocence, "Waller R. A. +wouldn't look at the cottage or the land without the plum tree, I +suppose?" + +"Certainly not," Lavendar had answered. "The plum tree is safeguarded +in the agreement as I'm sure no plum tree ever was before. Waller R. +A.'s no fool!" + +Digesting this information and much else that he had gleaned, Carnaby +now climbed to the top of a tree where he had a favourite perch, and +did some serious and simple thinking. + +"It's a beastly shame," he said to himself, "to turn that old woman +out of her cottage. Cousin Robin thinks it's a beastly shame, and +what's more, Mark does, and he's a man, and a lawyer into the +bargain." + +Carnaby thought remorsefully of a pot of jam which old Mrs. Prettyman +had given him once to take back to college. What good jam it had +been, and how large the pot! He had never given her anything--he had +never a penny to bless himself with; and now his grandmother was +taking away from the poor old creature all that she had. "It's +regular covetousness," he thought, "and that infernal plum tree's at +the bottom of it all. Naboth's vineyard is a joke in comparison, and +What's-his-name and the one ewe lamb simply aren't in it." He grew +hot with mortification. Then he reflected, "If the plum tree weren't +there, Waller R. A. wouldn't want the cottage, and old Mrs. Prettyman +could live in it till the end of the chapter." A slow grin dawned upon +his face, its most mischievous expression, the one which Rupert with +canine sagacity had learned to dread. He felt and pinched the +muscle of his arm fondly. (_Mussle_ he always spelled the word +himself, upon phonetic principles.) + +"I may be a fool and a minor" (generally spelt _miner_ by him), he +said, as he climbed down from his perch, "but at least I can cut down +a tree!" + +He became lost to view forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds +attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged, +furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search +for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant +cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour +with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. _Whirr_, +_whirr_, _whirr_, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly--"_this +is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that holds it_!" + +"You be goin' to do a bit of forestry on your own, Master Carnaby, +eh?" suggested the grinning owner of the grindstone. + +"I am; a very particular bit, Jones!" replied the young master, +lovingly feeling the edge of the tool, which was now nearly as fine as +that of a razor. + +"You be careful, sir, as you don't chop off one of your own toes with +that there axe," said the man. "It be full heavy for one o' your age. +But there! you zailor-men be that handy! 'Tis your trade, so to +speak!" + +"Quite right, Jones, it is!" replied Carnaby. "Good-afternoon and +thank you for the use of the grindstone." He was already planning +where he would hide the axe, for he had precise ideas about everything +and left nothing to chance. + +Carnaby went to bed that night at his usual hour. His profession had +already accustomed him to awaking at odd intervals, and he had more +than the ordinary boy's knowledge of moon and tide, night and dawn. +When he slipped out of bed after a few hours of sound sleep, he put on +a flannel shirt and trousers and a broad belt, and then, carrying his +boots in his hand, crept out of his room and through the sleeping +house. He would much rather have climbed out of the window, in a +manner more worthy of such an adventure, but his return in that +fashion might offer dangers in daylight. So he was content with an +unfrequented garden door which he could leave on the latch. + +The moon, which had been young when she lighted the lovers in the +mud-bank adventure, was now a more experienced orb and shed a useful +light. Carnaby intended to cross the river in a small tub which was +propelled by a single oar worked at the stern, the rower standing. +This craft was intended for pottering about the shore; to cross the +river in it was the dangerous feat of a skilled waterman, but Carnaby +had a knack of his own with every floating thing. As he balanced +himself in the rocking tub, bare-headed, bare-necked, bare-armed, +paddling with the grace and ease of strength and training, he looked +a man, but a man young with the youth of the gods. The moon shone in +his keen grey eyes and made them sparkle. A cold sea-wind blew up the +river, but he did not feel its chill, for blood hot with adventure +raced in his veins. + +Wittisham was in profound darkness when he landed, and the moon having +gone behind a bank of cloud, he had to grope his way to Mrs. +Prettyman's cottage, shouldering the axe. The isolated position of the +house alone made the adventure possible, he reflected; he could not +have cut down a tree in the hearing of neighbours, and as to old +Elizabeth herself, he hoped she was deaf. Most old women were, he +reflected, except unfortunately his grandmother! + +Soon he was entering the little garden and sniffing the scent of +blossom, which was very strong in the night air. He could see the dim +outline of the plum tree, and just as he wanted light, the moon came +out and shone upon its whiteness, giving a sort of spiritual beauty +to the flowering thing that was very exquisite. + +"What price, Waller R. A. now?" thought Carnaby impishly. "The plum +tree in moonlight! eh? Wouldn't he give his eyes to see it! But he +won't! Not if I know it!" The boy was as blind to the tree's beauty as +his grandmother had been, but he had scientific ideas how to cut it +down, for he had watched the felling of many a tree. + +First, standing on a lower branch, you lopped off all the side shoots +as high as you could reach. This made the trunk easy to deal with, and +its fall less heavy, and Carnaby set to work. + +"She goes through them all as slick as butter!" he said to himself in +high satisfaction. The axe had assumed a personality to him and was +"she," not "it." "She makes no more noise than a pair of scissors +cutting flowers; not half so much!" he said proudly. Branch after +branch fell down and lay about the tree like the discarded garments of +a bathing nymph. The petals fell upon Carnaby's face, upon his hair +and shoulders; he was a white figure as he toiled. Frightened birds +and bats flew about, but he did not notice them. His only care was the +cottage itself and its inmate. If _she_ should awake! But the little +habitation, shrouded in thatch and deep in shadow, was dark and silent +as the grave. + +"She must be sound asleep and deaf," thought the boy. "Yes, very +deaf." He paused. The first stage in his task was accomplished. +Shivering and naked, one absurd tuft of blossom and leaves at the +tip--the murdered tree now stood in the moonlight, imploring the _coup +de grâce_ which should end its shame. + +"Jolly well done," said the murderer complacently. He stretched his +arms, looked at the palms of his hands to see if they had blistered, +and addressed himself to the second part of his business. Thud! thud! +went the axe on the trunk of the tree, and the sweat broke out all +over Carnaby's skin, not with exertion but with nervous terror. + +"If that doesn't wake the dead!" he thought--but there was no awaking +in the cottage. Its tiny window blinked in the moonlight, and Carnaby +thought he heard the drowsy quack of a duck in an out-house. But the +danger passed. Thud! went the axe again. The slim severed shaft of the +tree was poised a moment, motionless, erect before it fell. Then it +subsided gently among its broken and trodden boughs, and Carnaby's +task was done. + + + + +XXII + +CONSEQUENCES + + +Early that morning before the sun had risen, when the light was still +grey in the coming dawn, Robinette was awakened by a bird that called +out from a tree close to her open window, every note like the striking +of a golden bell. She jumped up and looked out, but the little singer, +silenced, had flown away. Instead, she caught sight of a figure +stealing across the lawn towards the side door which opened from the +library. Even in the dim light she could distinguish that it was +Carnaby, Carnaby with something in his hand. What he carried she could +not quite make out, but the sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled +up above his elbows in a fatally business-like way, and he walked with +an air of stealth. + +"What mischief can that boy have been up to at this time of day?" +thought Robinette as she lay down again, but she was too sleepy to +wonder long. + +She forgot all about it until she saw Carnaby at the breakfast table +some hours later. Sometimes the gloom of that meal--never a favorite +or convivial one in the English household, and most certainly neither +at Stoke Revel--would be enlivened by some of the boy's pranks. He +would pass over to the sideboard, pepper-pot slyly in hand, and +Rupert, whose meal at this hour consisted of grape-nuts and cream, +would unaccountably sneeze and snuffle over his plate. + +"Bless it, Bobs!" his tormentor would exclaim tenderly. "Is it +catching cold? Poor old Kitchener! Hi! _Kitch!_ _Kitch!_" (like a +violent sneeze) and the outraged Rupert would forget grape-nuts and +pepper alike in a fit of impotent fury. But this morning the dog fed +in peace and Carnaby never glanced at him or his basin. Robinette, +looking at the boy and remembering where she had seen him last, +noticed that he was rather silent, that his cheeks were redder than +common, and that under his eyes were lines of fatigue not usually +there. + +"What were you doing on the lawn at four o'clock this morning?" she +began, but checked herself, suddenly thinking that if Carnaby had been +up to mischief she must not allude to it before his grandmother. + +No one had heard her. The meal dragged on. Robinette and Lavendar +talked little. Miss Smeardon was preoccupied with the sufferings and +the moods of Rupert. Mrs. de Tracy alone seemed in better spirits than +usual; she was talkative and even balmy. + +"The work at the spinney begins to-day," she observed complacently, +addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an +old copse and the planting of a new one--an improvement she had long +planned, though hitherto in vain. "The young trees have arrived." + +"But where is the money to come from?" enquired Carnaby suddenly, in +a sepulchral tone. (His voice was at the disagreeable breaking stage, +an agony and a shame to himself and always a surprise to others.) His +grandmother stared: the others, too, looked in astonishment at the +boy's red face. + +"I thought it had all been explained to you, Carnaby," said Mrs. de +Tracy, "but you take so little interest in the estate that I suppose +what you have been told went in at one ear and out at the other, as +usual! It is the sale of land at Wittisham which makes these +improvements possible, advantages drawn from a painful necessity," and +the iron woman almost sighed. + +"There won't be any sale of land at Wittisham,--at least, not of Mrs. +Prettyman's cottage," said Carnaby abruptly. + +"It is practically settled. The transfers only remain to be signed; +you know that, Carnaby," said Lavendar curtly. He did not wish the +vexed question to be raised again at a meal. + +"It _was_ practically settled--but it's all off now," said the boy, +looking hard at his grandmother. "Waller R. A. won't want the place +any more. The bloomin' plum tree's gone--cut down. The bargain's off, +and old Mrs. Prettyman can stay on in her cottage as long as she +likes!" + +There was a freezing silence, broken only by the stertorous breathing +of Rupert on Miss Smeardon's lap. + +"Repeat, please, what you have just said, Carnaby," said his +grandmother with dangerous calmness, "and speak distinctly." + +"I said that the cottage at Wittisham won't be sold because the plum +tree's gone," repeated Carnaby doggedly. "It's been cut down." + +"How do you know?" + +"I've seen it." Carnaby raised his eyes. "I cut it down myself," he +added, "this morning before daylight." + +"Who put such a thing into your head?" Mrs. de Tracy's words were ice: +her glance of suspicion at Robinette, like the cold thrust of steel. +"Who told you to cut the plum tree down?" + +"My conscience!" was Carnaby's unexpected reply. He was as red as +fire, but his glance did not falter. Mrs. de Tracy rose. Not a muscle +of her face had moved. + +"Whatever your action has been, Carnaby," she said with dignity--"whether +foolish and disgraceful, or criminal and dangerous, it cannot be +discussed here. You will follow me at once to the library, and +presently I may send for Mark. A lawyer's advice will probably be +necessary," she added grimly. + +Carnaby said not a word. He opened the door for his grandmother and +followed her out; but as he passed Robinette, he looked at her +earnestly, half expecting her applause; for one of the motives in his +boyish mind had certainly been to please her--to shine in her eyes as +the doer of bold deeds and to avenge her nurse's wrongs. And all that +he had managed was to make her cry! + +For Robinette had put her elbows on the table and had covered her eyes +with her hands. As he left the room, Carnaby could hear her +exclamation:-- + +"To cut down that tree! That beautiful, beautiful, fruitful thing! O! +how could anyone do it?" + +So this was justice; this was all he got for his pains! How +unaccountable women were! + +Lavendar awaited some time his summons to join Mrs. de Tracy and her +grandson in what seemed to him must be a portentous interview enough, +trying meanwhile somewhat unsuccessfully to console Mrs. Loring for +the destruction of the plum tree, and exchanging with her somewhat +awe-struck comments on the scene they had both just witnessed. No +summons came, however; but half an hour later, he came across Carnaby +alone, and an interview promptly ensued. He wanted to plumb the depth +of the boy-mind and to learn exactly what motives had prompted +Carnaby to this sudden and startling action in the matter of the plum +tree. + +"Had you a bad quarter of an hour with your grandmother?" was his +first question. Carnaby, he thought, looked subdued, and not much +wonder. + +The boy hesitated. + +"Not so bad as I expected," was his answer. "The old lady was +wonderfully decent, for her. She gave me a talking to, of course." + +"I should hope so!" interpolated Lavendar drily. + +"She jawed away about our poverty," continued Carnaby. "She's got +that on the brain, as you know. She said that this loss of the +money--Waller R. A.'s money, she means, of course--is an awful blow. +She _said_ it was, but it seemed to me--" Carnaby paused, looking +extremely puzzled. + +"It seemed to you--?" prompted Lavendar encouragingly. + +"That she wasn't so awfully cut up, after all," said Carnaby. "She +seemed putting it on, if you know what I mean." Lavendar pricked up +his ears. Mrs. de Tracy's intense reluctance to sell the land recurred +to him in a flash. To get her consent had been like drawing a tooth, +like taking her life-blood drop by drop. Could it be that she was not +very sorry after all that the scheme had fallen through, secretly +glad, indeed? It was conceivable that this was Mrs. de Tracy's view, +but her grandson's motive was still obscure. + +"Why did you do it, Carnaby?" Lavendar asked with kindness and gravity +both in his voice. "You have committed a very mischievous action, you +know, one that would have borne a harsher name had the transfers been +signed and had the plum tree changed hands." + +"But then I shouldn't have done it--you--you juggins, Mark!" cried the +boy. "I've no earthly grudge against Waller R. A. If he'd actually +bought the tree, it would have been too late, and his beastly +money--" + +"You need the money, you know," remarked Lavendar. "Remember that, my +young friend!" + +"It would have been dirty money!" said Carnaby, with a sudden +flash that lit up his rather heavy face with a new expression. +"You and Cousin Robin have been jolly polite when you thought I was +listening, but _I_ know what you really thought, and the kind of +things you were saying to one another about this business! You +thought it beastly mean to take the cottage away from old Lizzie +in the way it was being done, and sheer robbery to deprive her of +the plum tree without paying her for it. I quite agreed with you +there, and if I felt like that, do you think I could sit still and +let the money come in to Stoke Revel--money that had been got in +such a way? What do you take me for?" Lavendar was silent, looking +at the boy in surprise. "Oh," continued Carnaby, "how I wish I were +of age! Then I could show Cousin Robin, perhaps, what an English +landlord can be! I mean that he can be a friend to his tenants, and +kind and generous as well as just. As it is, Cousin Robin will go +back to America and tell her friends what selfish brutes we are +over here, and how jolly glad she was to get away!" + +"Mrs. Loring will carry no tales, I am sure," said Lavendar. "But tell +me, my dear fellow, did you imagine that Mrs. Prettyman would be a +gainer by your action?" + +"Well, why not?" answered the boy. "Didn't you tell me yourself that +Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage without the tree? What's to +prevent the old woman living on where she is? Do you think there'll be +a rush of new tenants for that precious old hovel? Go on! You know +better than that!" + +"But the tree, Carnaby, the plum tree!" cried Lavendar. "My young +Goth, hadn't you a moment's compunction? That beautiful, flowering +thing, as your cousin called it; could you destroy it without a +pang?" + +"The _tree_?" echoed Carnaby with unmeasured scorn. "What's a tree? +It's just a tree, isn't it?" + + "A primrose by a river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him, + And it was nothing more!" + +quoted Mark, despairingly. + +"Well; and what more did he expect of a primrose, whoever the Johnny +was?" asked the contemptuous Carnaby. + +"At any rate," commented Lavendar, "it isn't necessary to search as +far as Peter Bell for an analogy for your character, my young friend! +You are your grandmother's grandson after all!" + +"In some ways I suppose I can't help being," answered Carnaby soberly, +"but not in all," he added, and suddenly turning red he fumbled in his +pocket and produced a coin which he held out to Lavendar. "It's only +ten bob," he said apologetically, "and I wish it was a jolly sight +more! But please give it to old Mrs. Prettyman to make up a bit for +the loss of her plums. Daresay I'll manage some more by and by. +Anyway, I'll make it up to her when I come of age.--I'm nearly sixteen +already, you know. Be sure you tell her that!" + +But Lavendar refused to take the money. + +"Mrs. Prettyman is provided for, my boy," he said. "She has become +your cousin's especial care. You need have no fear about that. The +poor old woman is very happy and will have a cottage more suited for +her rheumatism and her general feebleness than the present one. But I +think your cousin will understand your motives and believe that you +meant well by old Lizzie in your little piece of midnight madness." + +"Though I was a bit rough on the plum tree!" said Carnaby, with a +broad smile. + +"You think it's a laughing matter?" Lavendar asked indignantly. "I +wish you had my father to deal with, and Waller R. A.! It's all very +well for you." + +But Carnaby only laughed. The blood was still hot in his veins, and +the joy of his night's adventure. Mark told him that he and Mrs. +Loring were crossing the river at once to see for themselves the +extent of his mischief and what effect it had had upon old Mrs. +Prettyman. Carnaby observed with diabolical meaning that as he had not +been invited to join the party, he would make himself scarce. +Gooseberries, he said, were very good fruit, but he wasn't fond of +them; so he lounged off with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly he +turned. "See here, old Mark! You'll speak a word for me with Cousin +Robin, won't you? It's hard on me to have her hate me when I was +trying to do my best to please her." + +"She won't hate you; she couldn't hate anybody," said Lavendar +absently, watching first the door and then the window. + +"You say that because you're in love with her! I've a couple of eyes +in my head, stupid as you all think me. You can deny it all you like, +but you won't convince me!" + +"I shan't deny it, Carnaby. I am so much in love with her at this +moment that the room is whirling round and round and I can see two of +you!" + +"Poor old Mark! Do you think she'll take you on?" + +"Can't say, Carnaby!" + +"You're a lucky beggar if she does; that's my opinion!" said the boy. + +"Put it as strong as you like, Carnaby," Lavendar answered. "You can't +exaggerate my feelings on that subject!" + +"If you hadn't fifteen years' start of me I'd give you a run for your +money!" exclaimed Carnaby with a daring look. + + + + +XXIII + +DEATH AND LIFE + + +While these incidents were taking place at the Manor House, village +life at Wittisham had been stirring for hours. Thin blue threads of +smoke were rising from the other cottages into the windless air: only +from Nurse Prettyman's there was none. Duckie in the out-house quacked +and gabbled as she had quacked and gabbled since the light began, yet +no one came to let her out and feed her. The halfpenny jug of milk had +been placed on the doorstep long ago, but Mrs. Prettyman had not yet +opened the door to take it in. + +Outside in the garden, where the plum tree stood yesterday, there was +now only a stump, hacked and denuded, and round about it a ruin of +broken branches, leaves, and scattered blossoms. Over the wreck the +bees were busy still, taking what they could of the honey that +remained; and in the air was the strong odour of juicy green wood and +torn bark. + +The children who brought the milk were the first to discover what had +happened, and very soon the news spread amongst the other cottagers. +Then came two neighbours to the scene, wondering and exclaiming. They +went to the door, but Mrs. Prettyman did not answer their knock or +their calling. Mrs. Darke looked in through the tiny window. + +"She be sleepin' that peaceful in 'er bed in there," she said, "it 'ud +be a shame to wake 'er. She's deaf now, and belike she never 'eard the +tree come down, 'ooever's done it. But I'll go and see after Duckie: +she's makin' noise enough to rouse 'er, anyway." + +Then Duckie was released and fed and departed to gabble her wrongs to +the other white ducks that were preening themselves amongst the deep +green grass of the adjacent orchard. + +"You can 'ear that bird a mile away--she's never done talking!" said +Mrs. Darke as the indignant gabble grew fainter in the distance. "But +'ere's my old man a-come to look at the plum tree. Wonder what he'll +say to it? This be a queer job, sure enough!" + +Old Darke, on two sticks, hobbled towards the scene of desolation with +grunts of mingled satisfaction and dismay. 'Twas a rare sensation, +though a pity, to be sure! + +Mrs. Darke stood by the well at the turn of the road, keeping a sharp +eye on the cottage while she gossiped with the neighbour who was +filling her pitcher. She did not want to miss the sight of Mrs. +Prettyman's face when she opened her door and found out what had +happened. + +"She be sleepin' too long; I'll go and waken her in a minute," said +Mrs. Darke. "'Tis but right she should be told what's come to 'er +tree, poor thing." + +Then a beggar woman selling bootlaces came along the shore of the +river; she mounted the cottage steps and the gossips watched her +trailing up the pathway in her loose old shoes, and knocking at the +door. She waited for a few minutes: there was no answer, so she turned +away resignedly and trailed off along the sun-lit lane, in-shore, +leaving the garden gate swinging to and fro. + +"There's summat the matter!" Mrs. Darke had just whispered with +evident enjoyment, when some one else was seen approaching the cottage +from the direction of the pier. It was the young lady from the Manor, +this time. She wore a white dress and a green scarf, and her face was +tinted with colour. She looked like a young blossoming tree herself, +all lacy white and pale green, a strange morning vision in a +work-a-day world! Robinette ran quickly up the pathway and knocked at +the door, but there was no answer to her knock. She called out in her +clear voice:-- + +"Good morning, Nurse! Good morning! Aren't you ready to let me in? +It's quite late!" But there was no answer to her call. She was just +trying to open the door, which seemed to be locked, when a gentleman +came up from the boat and followed her to the cottage. That, the women +who were watching her thought quite natural, for surely such a young +lady would be followed by a lover wherever she went! Indeed, Mrs. +Darke said so. + +"'Tis in that there kind," she observed philosophically, "like the +cuckoo and the bird that follows; never sees one wi'out the other!" + +"'Tis quite that way, Mrs. Darke," agreed the neighbour, approvingly. + +Robinette turned a white face to Lavendar as he approached. + +"Nurse won't answer, and I can't get in!" she cried. "Something must +have happened. I--I'm afraid to go in alone. The door is locked, +too." + +"It's not locked," said Lavendar, and exerting a little strength, he +pushed it open and gave a quick glance inside. "I'll go in first," he +said gently. "Wait here." + +He came again to the threshold in a few minutes, a peculiar expression +on his face which somehow seemed to tell Robinette what had happened. + +"Come in, Mrs. Robin," he said very gravely and gently. "You need not +be afraid." + +Robinette instinctively held out her hand to him and they entered the +little room together. + +She need not have feared for the old woman's distress over the ruined +plum tree, for nothing would ever grieve Nurse Prettyman again. Just +as she had lain down the night before, she lay upon her bed now, +having passed away in her sleep. "And they that encounter Death in +sleep," says the old writer, "go forth to meet him with desire." The +aged face was turned slightly upwards and wore a look of contentment +and repose that made life seem almost gaudy; a cheap thing to compare +with this attainment.... + +Robinette came out of the cottage a little later, leaving the +neighbours who had gathered in the room to their familiar and not +uncongenial duties. She went into the garden, where Mark Lavendar +awaited her. He longed to try to comfort her; indeed, his whole heart +ran out to her in a warmth and passion that astounded him; but her +pale face, stained with weeping, warned him to keep silence yet a +little while. + +"I just came for one branch of the blossom," Robinette said, "if it is +not all withered. Yes, this is quite fresh still." She took a little +spray he had found for her and stood holding it as she spoke. "Only +yesterday it was all so lovely! Oh! Mr. Lavendar, I needn't cry for my +old Nurse, I'm sure! How should I, after seeing her face? She had come +to the end of her long life, and she was very tired, and now all that +is forgotten, and she will never have a moment of vexation about her +tree. I don't know why I should cry for her; but oh, how could +Carnaby destroy that beautiful thing!" + +"It was a genuine though mistaken act of conscience! You must not be +too hard on Carnaby!" pleaded Lavendar. "He would not touch the money +that was to come from the sale of Mrs. Prettyman's cottage under the +circumstances, so it seemed best to him that the sale should not take +place, and he prevented it in the directest and simplest way that +occurred to him. It's like some of the things that men have done to +please God, Mrs. Robin," Mark added, smiling, "and thought they were +doing it, too! But Carnaby only wanted to please you!" + +"To _please_ me!" exclaimed Robinette, looking round her at the ruin +before them. "Oh dear!" she sighed, "how confusing the world is, at +times! I am just going to take this snowy branch and lay it on Nurse's +pillow. She so loved her tree! See; it's quite fresh and beautiful, +and the dew still upon it, just like tears!" + +"That seemed just right," said Robinette softly as she came out into +the sunshine again, a few minutes later. "I laid the blossoms in her +kind old tired hands, the hands that have known so much work and so +many pains. It is over, and after all, her new home is better than any +I could have found for her!" + +The two walked slowly down the little garden on their way to the gate. +As they passed, old Mr. Darke, who had hobbled around again to have +another look at the fallen tree, addressed Lavendar solemnly. + +"Best tree in Wittisham 'e was, sir," touching the ruin of the +branches as he spoke. "'Ooever could ha' thought o' sich a piece of +wickedness as to cut 'im down? Murder, I calls it! 'Tis well as Mrs. +Prettyman be gone to 'er rest wi'out knowledge of it; 'twould 'ave +broken her old 'eart, for certain sure!" + +"It nearly breaks mine to see it now, Mr. Darke!" said Robinette in a +trembling voice. But the old labourer bent down, moving his creaking +joints with difficulty and steadying himself upon his sticks till he +could touch the stump of the tree with his rough but skilful hands. He +pushed away the long grass that grew about the roots and looked up at +Robinette with a wise old smile. + +"'Tisn't dead and done for yet, Missy, never fear!" he said. "Give 'im +time; give 'im time! 'E's cut above the graft--see! 'E'll grow and +shoot and bear blossom and fruit same as ever 'e did, given time. See +to the fine stock of 'im; firm as a rock in the good ground! And the +roots, they be sound and fresh. 'E'll grow again, Missy; never you +cry!" + +Robinette looked so beautiful as she lifted her luminous eyes and +parted lips to old Darke, and then turned to him with a gesture of +hope and joy, that again Lavendar could hardly keep from avowing his +love; but the remembrance of the old nurse's still shape in the little +cottage hushed the words that trembled on his lips. + + + + +XXIV + +GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON + + +The disagreeable duty of announcing Mrs. Prettyman's death to the lady +of the Manor now lay before Lavendar and his companion, and the +thought of it weighed upon their spirits as they crossed the river. +Carnaby also must be told. How would he take it? Robinette, still +under the shock of the plum tree's undoing, expected perhaps some +further exhibition of youthful callousness, but Lavendar knew better. + +In their concern and sorrow, the young couple had forgotten all minor +matters such as meals, and luncheon had long been over when they +reached the house. They could see Mrs. de Tracy's figure in the +drawing room as they passed the windows, occupying exactly her usual +seat in her usual attitude. It was her hour for reading and +disapproving of the daily paper. + +Robinette and Lavendar entered quietly, but nothing in the gravity of +their faces struck Mrs. de Tracy as strange. + +"I have a disturbing piece of news to give you," Mark began, clearing +his throat. "Mrs. Prettyman died last night in her cottage at +Wittisham." + +The erect figure in the widow's weeds remained motionless. Perhaps the +old hand that lowered the newspaper trembled somewhat, so that its +diamonds quivered a little more than usual. + +"So Mrs. Prettyman is dead?" she said. Then, as the young people stood +looking at her with an air of some expectancy, she added with a sour +glance, "Do you expect me to be very much agitated by the news?" + +"The death was unexpected," began Lavendar lamely. + +"She was seventy-five; my age!" said Mrs. de Tracy with a wintry +smile. "Is death at seventy-five so unexpected an event?" + +Lavendar said nothing; he had nothing to say, and Robinette for +the same reason was silent. She was gazing at her aunt, almost +unconsciously, with a wondering look. "At any rate," continued Mrs. +de Tracy, addressing her niece, "your _protégée_ has been fortunate +in two ways, Robinette. She will neither be turned out of her +cottage nor see the destruction of her plum tree. By the way--" +with a perfectly natural change of tone, dismissing at once both +Mrs. Prettyman and Death--"the plum tree _is_ down, I suppose? You +saw it?" + +"Very much down!" answered Lavendar. "And certainly we saw it! Carnaby +does nothing by halves!" + +A slight change, a kind of shade of softening, passed over Mrs. de +Tracy's stern features, as the shadow of a summer cloud may pass over +a rocky hill. She turned suddenly to Robinette. "Can you tell me on +your word of honour that you had nothing to do with Carnaby's action; +that you did not put it into his head to cut the plum tree down!" + +"I?" exclaimed Robinette, scarlet with indignation. "_I?_ Why--do you +want to know what I think of the action? I think it was perfectly +brutal, and the boy who did it next door to a criminal! There!" + +Mrs. de Tracy seemed convinced by the energy of this disclaimer. "I +have always considered yours a very candid character," she observed +with condescension. "I believe you when you say that you did not +influence Carnaby in the matter, though I strongly suspected you +before." + +"Well, upon my word!" ejaculated Robinette when they had got out of +the room, too completely baffled to be more original. "What does she +mean? Has any one ever understood the workings of Aunt de Tracy's +mind?" + +"Don't come to me for any more explanations! I've done my best for my +client!" cried Lavendar. "I give up my brief! I always told you Mrs. +de Tracy's character was entirely singular." + +"Let us hope so!" commented Robinette with energy. "I should be sorry +for the world if it were plural!" + + * * * * * + +Carnaby was not in the house, and Lavendar proceeded to look for him +out of doors. He knew the boy was often to be found in a high part of +the grounds behind the garden, where he had some special resort of his +own, and he went there first. The afternoon had clouded over, and a +slight shower was falling, as Mark followed the wooded path leading up +hill. A rock-garden bordered it, where ferns and flowers were growing, +each one of which seemed to be contributing some special and delicate +fragrance to the damp, warm air. The beech trees here had low and +spreading branches which framed now and again exquisite glimpses of +the river far below and the wooded hills beyond it. + +Lavendar had not gone far when he found Carnaby, Carnaby intensely +perturbed, walking up and down by himself. + +"You don't need to tell me!" said the boy, with a quick and agitated +gesture of the hand. "Bates told me. Old Mrs. Prettyman's dead!" His +merry, square-set face was changed and looked actually haggard, and +his eyes searched Lavendar's with an expression oddly different from +their usual fearless and straightforward one. They seemed afraid. "Was +it my grandmother's--was it our fault?" he asked. "I, I feel like a +murderer. Upon my soul, I do!" + +"Don't encourage morbid ideas, my dear fellow!" said Lavendar in a +matter-of-fact tone. "There's trouble enough in the world without +foolish exaggeration. Mrs. Prettyman was 'grave-ripe,' as she often +said to your cousin; a very feeble old woman, whose time had come. The +doctor's certificate will tell you how rheumatism had affected her +heart, and the neighbours would very soon set your mind at rest by +describing the number of times poor old Lizzie had nearly died +before." + +"Think of it, though!" said Carnaby with wondering eyes. "Think of her +lying dead in the cottage while I hacked and hewed at the plum tree +just outside! By Jove! it makes a fellow feel queer!" He shuddered. +The picture he evoked was certainly a strange one enough: a strange +picture in the moonlight of a night in spring; the doomed beauty of +the blossoming tree, the blind, headstrong human energy working for +its destruction, and Death over all, stealthy and strong! + +"What an ass I was!" said Carnaby, summing up the situation in the +only language in which he could express himself. "Sweating and stewing +and hacking away--thinking myself so awfully clever! And all the time +things ... things were being arranged in quite a different manner!" + +"We are often made to feel our insignificance in ways like this," +said Lavendar. "We are very small atoms, Carnaby, in the path of the +great forces that sweep us on." + +"I should rather think so!" assented the wondering boy. "And yet, can +a fellow sit tight all the time and just wait till things happen?" + +"Ask me something else!" suggested Lavendar ironically. + +There was a short pause. "I'm awfully sorry old Mrs. Prettyman's +dead," Carnaby said in a very subdued tone. "I meant to do a lot for +her, to try and make up for my grandmother's being such a beast." He +stopped short, and to Lavendar's astonishment, his face worked, and +two tears squeezed themselves out of his eyes and rolled over his +round cheeks as they might have done over a baby's. "It's the j-jam I +was thinking of," he sniffed. "Once a pal of mine and I were playing +the fool in old Mrs. Prettyman's garden, pretending to steal the +plums, and giving her duck bits of bread steeped in beer to make it +s-squiffy (a duck can be just as drunk as a chap). She didn't mind a +bit. She was a regular old brick, and gave us a jolly good tea and a +pot of jam to take away.... And now she's dead and--and...." Carnaby's +feelings became too much for him again, and a handkerchief that had +seen better and much cleaner days came into play. Lavendar flung an +arm round the boy's shoulder. + +"This kind of regret comes to us all, Carnaby," he said. "I don't +suppose there's a man with a heart in his breast who hasn't sometime +had to say to himself, I might have done better: I might have been +kinder: it's too late now! But it's never too late!" added Lavendar +under his breath--"not where Love is!" + +The shower was over, and though the sun had not come out, a pleasant +light lay upon the river as the friends walked down; upon the river +beyond which old Lizzie Prettyman was sleeping so peacefully, the +sleep of kings and beggars, and just and unjust, and rich and poor +alike. Carnaby had dried his eyes but continued in a pensive mood. + +"Cousin Robin's still angry with me about the tree," he said, +uncertainly. + +"She won't be angry long!" Lavendar assured him. "You and your Cousin +Robin are going to be firm friends, friends for life." + +Carnaby seemed a good deal comforted. "Mind you don't tell her I +blubbered!" he said in sudden alarm. "Swear!" + +"She wouldn't think a bit the worse of you for that!" said Lavendar. + +"Swear, though!" repeated Carnaby in deadly earnest. + +And Lavendar swore, of course. + + * * * * * + +But an influence very unlike Lavendar's and a spirit very different +from Robinette's enfolded Carnaby de Tracy in his home and fought, as +it were, for his soul. That night, after the last lamp had been put +out by the careful Bates, and after Benson had bade a respectful +good-night to her mistress, a light still burned in Mrs. de Tracy's +room. Presently, carried in her hand, it flitted out along the silent +passages, past rows of doors which were closed upon empty rooms or +upon unconscious sleepers, till it came to Carnaby's door; to the +Boys' Room, as that far-away and most unluxurious apartment had always +been called. Mrs. de Tracy was making a pilgrimage to the shrine of +one of her gods. She opened the door, and closing it gently behind +her, she stood beside Carnaby's bed and looked at him, intently and +haggardly. + +Mrs. de Tracy's was a singular character, as Mark Lavendar had said. +The circumstances of her widowhood with its heavy responsibilities had +perhaps hardly been fair to her. There had been little room for the +kindlier and softer feelings, though it is to be feared that they +would not have found much congenial soil in her heart. The personal +selfishness in her had long been merged in the greater and harder +selfishness of caste; she had become a mere machine for the keeping up +of Stoke Revel. + +But to-night she was moved by the positively human sentiment which had +been stirred in her by Carnaby's startling act of cutting the plum +tree down. Ah! let fools believe if they could that she was angry with +the boy! She had never felt anger less or pride more. While others +talked and argued, shilly-shallied, made love, muddled and made +mistakes, her grandson, the man of the race that always ruled, had cut +the knot for himself, without hesitation and without compunction, +without consulting anyone or asking anyone's leave. That was the way +the de Tracys had always acted. And it seemed to Mrs. de Tracy a +crowning coincidence, a fitting kind of poetical justice, that +Carnaby's action should actually have prevented the sale of the land; +that dreaded, detestable sale of the first land that the de Tracys +had held upon the banks of the river. + +So, since Carnaby was to be a man of the right kind, his grandmother +had come to look at him, not in love, as other women come to such +bedsides, but in pride of heart. The boy, after his "white night" at +Wittisham and the varied emotions of the succeeding day, lay on his +side, in the deep, recuperative sleep of youth whence its energies are +drawn and in which its vigors are renewed. His round cheek indented +the pillow, his rumpled hair stirred in the breeze that blew in at the +window, his arm and his open hand, relaxed, lay along the sheet. +Another woman would have straightened the bed-clothes above him; +another might have touched his hair or hand; another kissed his cheek. +But not even because he was like her departed husband, like the man +who five and fifty years before had courted a certain cold and proud, +handsome and penniless Miss Augusta Gallup, would Mrs. de Tracy do +these things. She had had her sensation, such as it was, her secret +moment of emotion, and was satisfied. She left the room as she had +come, the candle casting exaggerated shadows of herself upon the walls +where Carnaby's bats and fishing rods and sporting prints hung. + +It is sad to be old as Mrs. de Tracy was old, but her age was of her +own making, a shrinkage of the heart, a drying up of the wells of +feeling that need not have been. + +"I should be better out of the way," her bitterness said within her, +and alas! it was true. Her great, gaunt room seemed very lonely, very +full of shadows when she returned to it. Rupert, who always slept at +her bedside, awaited her. Disturbed at this unwonted hour, he stirred +in his basket, wheezed and gurgled, turned round and round and could +not get comfortable, whined, and looked up in his mistress's face. She +stood watching him with a sort of grim pity, and, strangely enough, +bestowed upon him the caress she had not found for her grandson. + +"Poor Rupert! You are getting too old, like your mistress! Your +departure, like hers, will be a sorrow to no one!" Rupert seemed to +wheeze an asthmatical consent, and presently he snuggled down in his +basket and went to sleep. + + + + +XXV + +THE BELLS OF STOKE REVEL + + +On Sunday morning Robinette and Lavendar were both ready for church, +by some strange coincidence, half an hour too soon. He was standing at +the door as she came down into the hall. Mrs. de Tracy and Miss +Smeardon were nowhere to be seen; even Carnaby was invisible, but the +shrill, infuriated yelping of the Prince Charles from the drawing room +indicated his whereabouts only too plainly. + +"We're much too early," said Robinette, glancing at the clock. + +"Shall we walk through the buttercup meadow, then--you and I?" asked +Lavendar. His voice was low, and Robinette answered very softly. She +wore a white dress that morning without a touch of colour. + +"I couldn't wear black to-day for Nurse," she said, in answer to his +glance, "but I couldn't wear any colour, either." + +"You're as white as the plum tree was!" said Lavendar. "I remember +thinking that it looked like a bride." Robinette made no reply. He +ventured to look up at her as he spoke, and she was smiling although +her lip quivered and her eyes were full of tears. Lavendar's heart +beat uncomfortably fast as they walked through the meadow towards the +stile which led into the churchyard. + +"It's too soon to go in yet," he said. "The bells haven't begun." + +"Let's stop here. It's cool in the shadow," said Robinette. She leaned +on the wall and looked out at the shining reaches of the river. "The +swelling of Jordan is over now," she said with a little smile and a +sigh. "The tide has come up, and how quiet everything is!" + +The water mirrored the hills and the ships and the gracious sky above +them. There was scarcely a sound in the air. At the point where they +stood, the Manor House was hidden from view, and only the squat old +tower of the church was visible, and the yew tree rising above the +wall against the golden field. A bush of briar covered with white +roses hung above them, just behind Robinette, and Lavendar looking at +her in this English setting on an English Sunday morning, wondered to +himself, as he had so often done before, if she could ever make this +country her home. + +"Yet she has English blood as well as I," he thought. "Why, the very +name on the old bells of the church there, records the memory of an +ancestress of hers! We cannot be so far apart." Looking at her +standing there, he rehearsed to himself all that he meant to say, oh, +a great many things both true and eloquent, but at that moment every +word forsook him. Yet this was probably the best opportunity he would +have of telling her what was burning in his heart: telling her how she +had beguiled him at first by her quick understanding and her +frolicsome wit, because all that sort of thing was so new to him. She +had come like a mountain spring to a thirsty man. He had been groping +for inspiration and for help: now he seemed to find them all in her. +She was so much more than charming, though it was her charm that first +impressed him; so much more than pretty, though her face attracted him +at first; so much more than magnetic, though she drew him to her at +their first meeting with bonds as delicate as they were strong. These +were tangible, vital, legitimate qualities--but were they all? Could +lips part so, could eyes shine so, could voice tremble so, if there +were not something underneath; a good heart, fidelity, warmth of +nature? + +"For the first time," he thought, "I long to be worthy of a woman. But +I would not tell her how I love her at this moment, unless I felt I +need not be wholly unequal to her demands. I have never desired +anything strongly enough to struggle for it, up to now; but she has +set my springs in motion, and I can work for her until I die!" + +All this he thought, but never a word he said. Then the church clock +struck and the clashing bells began. They shook the air, the earth, +the ancient stones, the very nests upon the trees, and sent the rooks +flying black as ink against the yellow buttercups in the meadow. + +"We must go, in a few minutes," said Robinette. "Oh, will you pull me +some of those white roses up there?" + +Lavendar swung himself up and drawing down a bunch he pulled off two +white buds. + +"Will you take them?" he asked, holding them out to her. Then suddenly +he said, very low and very humbly, "Oh, take me too; take me, +Robinette, though no man was ever so unworthy!" + +Robinette laid the roses on the wall beside her. + +"For my part," she said, turning to Lavendar with a little laugh that +was half a sob; "for my part, I like giving better than taking!" She +put both her hands in his and looked into his face. "Here is my +life," she said simply. "I want to belong to you, to help you, to live +by your side." + +"I oughtn't to take you at your word," he said, his voice choked with +emotion. "You are far too good for me!" + +"Hush," Robinetta answered, putting a finger on his lip; "it isn't a +question of how great you are or how wonderful: it's a question of +what we can be to each other. I'd rather have you than the Duke of +Wellington or Marcus Aurelius, and I believe you wouldn't change me +for Helen of Troy!" + +"I have nothing to bring you, nothing," said Lavendar again, "nothing +but my love and my whole heart." + +"If all the kingdoms of the earth were offered to me instead, I would +still take you and what you give me," Robinette answered. + +Lavendar laid his cheek against her bright hair and sighed deeply. In +that sigh there passed away all former things, and behold, all things +became new. Two cuckoos answered each other from opposite banks of the +river and two hearts sang songs of joy that met and mingled and +floated upward. + +Again the bells broke out overhead, filling the air with music that +had rung from them ever since just such another morning hundreds of +years before, when they rang their first peal from the church tower, +bearing the legend newly cut upon them: "Pray for the Soul of Anne de +Tracy, 1538." And Anne de Tracy's memory was forgotten--so long +forgotten--except for the bells that carried her name! + +Yet in these same meadows that she must have known, spring was come +once more. The Devonshire plum trees had budded and blossomed and shed +their petals year after year, and year after year, since the bells +first swung in the air; and now Hope was born once again, and Youth, +and Love, which is immortal! + + + + +The Riverside Press + +CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + +U . S . A + + + + +REBECCA of SUNNYBROOK FARM + +By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + +"Of all the children of Mrs. Wiggin's brain, the most laughable and +the most lovable is Rebecca."--_Life, N. Y._ + +"Rebecca creeps right into one's affections and stays +there."--_Philadelphia Item._ + +"A character that is irresistible in her quaint, humorous +originality."--_Cleveland Leader._ + +"Rebecca is as refreshing as a draught of spring water."--_Los Angeles +Times._ + +"Rebecca has come to stay with one for all time, and delight one +perpetually, like Marjorie Fleming."--_Literary World, Boston._ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS + +By MEREDITH NICHOLSON + +"It is not often that one comes upon so clean a farce, so delightful, +good-humored satire."--_Chicago Evening Post._ + +"He has woven wit and humor and clever satire into this airy fantasy +of twentieth century life in a way that should add to his literary +fame."--_Indianapolis Star._ + +"For sheer cleverness of invention and sprightly wit this story has +had no peer in recent years."--_New York Press._ + +"Just the sort of book which will delight those seeking clean, +wholesome entertainment."--_Boston Globe._ + +"Meredith Nicholson's is a delightful book, witty, epigrammatic, +flavorsome ... recalls Frank Stockton's bewitching foolery and +perennial charm."--_Milwaukee Free Press._ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +A MAN'S MAN + +By IAN HAY + +"An admirable romance of adventure. It tells of the life of one Hughie +Marrable, who, from college days to the time when fate relented, had +no luck with women. The story is cleverly written and full of +sprightly axioms."--_Philadelphia Ledger._ + +"It is a very joyous book, and the writer's powers of characterization +are much out of the common."--_The Dial._ + +"A good, clean, straightforward bit of fiction, with likable people in +it, and enough action to keep up the suspense throughout."--_Minneapolis +Journal._ + +"The reader will search contemporary fiction far before he meets a novel +which will give him the same frank pleasure and amusement."--_London +Bookman._ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY + +By MARGARET MORSE + +"The story of a handsome, intelligent collie dog. It is entertainingly +and sympathetically told, and sure of the absorbed interest of every +young lover of animals."--_Chicago Daily News._ + +"Instantly deserves a place with Richard Harding Davis's 'Bar +Sinister,' Alfred Ollivant's 'Bob, Son of Battle,' and Jack London's +'Call of the Wild.'"--_Boston Transcript._ + +"A delightful love story is woven in with the joys and trials of +Scottie, who finds perfect satisfaction in the happy culmination of +the romance of his lady."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +JOHN WINTERBOURNE'S FAMILY + +By ALICE BROWN + +"A delightful and unusual story. The manner in which the hero's male +solitude is invaded and set right is amusing and eccentric enough to +have been devised by the late Frank Stockton. It is a story that is +well worth reading."--_New York Sun._ + +"Is to be counted among the best novels of this entertaining writer +... written with a skilful and delicate touch."--_Springfield +Republican._ + +"In its literary graces, in its portrayal of characters that are never +commonplace though genuinely human, and in its development of a singular +social situation, the book is one to give delight."--_Philadelphia +Press._ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +THE PROFESSIONAL AUNT + +By MARY C. E. WEMYSS + +"One of the most delightful stories that has ever crossed the +water."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._ + +"The legitimate successor of 'Helen's Babies.'"--_Clara Louise +Burnham._ + +"A classic in the literature of childhood."--_San Francisco +Chronicle._ + +"Mrs. Wemyss is a formidable rival to E. Nesbit, who hitherto has +stood practically alone as a charmingly humorous interpreter of child +life."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ + +"A charming, witty, tender book."--_Kate Douglas Wiggin._ + +"It is a sunny, warm-hearted humorous story, that leaves the reader +with a sense of time well spent in its perusal."--_Brooklyn Eagle._ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robinetta, by +Kate Douglas Wiggin and Mary Findlater and Jane Findlater and Allan McAulay + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30090 *** |