The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAdrienneThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: AdrienneAuthor: Amy Le FeuvreRelease date: February 20, 2025 [eBook #75428]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1928*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADRIENNE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: AdrienneAuthor: Amy Le FeuvreRelease date: February 20, 2025 [eBook #75428]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1928
Title: Adrienne
Author: Amy Le Feuvre
Author: Amy Le Feuvre
Release date: February 20, 2025 [eBook #75428]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1928
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADRIENNE ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
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He felt that he must make his presence known. (Chapter XV.)AdrienneFrontispiece
BY THE SAME AUTHOR——————————————————
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS"The vividly human and moving story of Rowena and her wonderful power of influence in the lives of others will do every one good to read. Charmingly told in Amy Le Feuvre's best manner."—Northants Evening Telegraph."A romance of a most pleasant and captivating character."—Ladies' Field.A GIRL AND HER WAYS"Miss Le Feuvre writes with much charm and insight of the escapades of a modern girl who is fortunately possessed of the right spirit that enables her to overcome her difficulties."—The Record."Likely to become a popular book."—Methodist Recorder.JOCK'S INHERITANCE"Miss Le Feuvre has never written anything more beautiful or more amusing. The tone is as usual, excellent, and the story cannot fail to interest one and all."—Church of England Newspaper.NOEL'S CHRISTMAS TREE"Miss Le Feuvre has a classic style, and seems to be able to pierce straight into the heart of human beings. It is a humane book, written by a brilliant novelist."—Cornish Echo.
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE1928
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. A LETTER
II. AN ACCIDENT
III. GODFREY SPEAKS
IV. THE COUNT'S ARRIVAL
V. AT THE CHÂTEAU
VI. HER AUNT'S CONFIDENCES
VII. THE LOSS OF AN HEIRLOOM
VIII. LITTLE AGATHA
IX. A CONTEST OF WILLS
X. A MORNING RIDE
XI. A SUMMONS
XII. AT HOME AGAIN
XIII. WHY THE COUNT WENT AWAY
XIV. THE NOTARY'S DEFEAT
XV. ILLNESS AT THE CHÂTEAU
XVI. LOVERS
XVII. WED
XVIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE
XIX. ALAIN'S TUTOR
XX. AGATHA'S WARNING
ADRIENNE
A LETTER
SHE stood at the dining-room window looking out upon a snowy world. The cypresses and firs at the end of the lawn were bowed down with their weight of purity. There was great light, great stillness in the atmosphere. And there was majestic grandeur in the groups of snow-laden trees, and in the white hills that held tiny villages in their folds.
The girl's eyes were dreamy, and a trifle wistful. Her dark curly hair was unfashionably twisted up into a thick knot at the back of her small, well-shaped head. She had straight determined features, and a slim dainty figure. Her dark wine-coloured jumper and skirt suited her.
As she stood there, one hand tightly clenched a letter; and no one who saw her still attitude could have imagined what a tumult was sweeping over her soul. Behind her was the breakfast table. The silver tea-kettle was boiling on its stand. A packet of letters lay on the corner of the table. There was a fragrant scent of bacon and kidneys from a chafing dish. A bright-eyed Cairn terrier stood near the blazing fire, occasionally giving quick glances at his mistress, but rejoicing too much in the warmth and comfort of his position to join her at the window.
And then the door suddenly burst open and in came a short square elderly man, with a slight grey moustache and a tanned weather-beaten face. He looked the essence of fussy energy, and of health.
He snapped his fingers at the terrier, and spoke to the girl:
"What ho, Adrienne! How's yourself? No hunting for me! If I weren't such a busy man, I should be hipped by such an outlook. Drake has been telling me the stable pipes have burst. I must go and have a look at them after breakfast. Now where on earth did I put that new-fangled stuff for mending pipes, and grates, and holes of every description? Didn't I give it to you to keep safely in your store cupboard?"
Adrienne slipped her letter in her pocket, and turned a smiling face towards her uncle, General Chesterton.
"Now, Uncle Tom, you know very well you did not. Your patent foods and plasters and patchers-up are always in the gun-room. Since I kept your sticking-plaster in my store-room, and you turned my whole cupboard topsy-turvy one day when I was out, I have refused to keep anything more. Come and have breakfast, and don't touch your fat packet of letters till we have had some food."
"Where's Derrick? What a little martinet you try to be! But that packet is mostly bills, I bet! Here's the lazybones! What do you think of our white world? I told you snow was in the air last night."
The new-comer had made his entry very quietly, and took his seat at the table without a word.
His appearance was hardly that of a naval man, though he was an Admiral with a good many medals. He was a tall, handsome man, with an intellectual brow, clean-shaven face and dreamy eyes like his niece's.
The brothers were devoted to each other and had lived together since their retirement, in their old home, a small manor-house in Devon. Adrienne had come to them three years ago, fresh from her boarding school at Folkestone.
She bullied them, she coaxed them, and she mothered them by turns. All three were on the happiest possible terms. General Chesterton's chief hobby was horses and hunting; but he was only able to afford to keep one hunter, and depended very often on mounts from his nearest neighbour, Sir Godfrey Sutherland.
Admiral Chesterton was a keen fisherman and a great reader. He was gentle, neat, and very particular about conventions and propriety. He had a small room of his own which he called his study, and when he was not reading or manufacturing flies, he was compiling the family pedigree. He was as tidy as the tidiest spinster, a marked contrast to his brother the General, who never put a thing in its place, and was perpetually mislaying and losing what he wanted, in a hurry.
The General was a great talker and very impulsive. If the Admiral was a gentle southerly breeze throughout the house, the General was a blustering noisy sou'wester. Nobody was in doubt as to whether he was in or out. He rarely sat down before dinnertime.
But in the evening the two brothers played chess together. Neither of them cared for cards, and if laughed at by their friends for such an old-fashioned taste, would reply:
"We have always played chess, and always will." And it was the only time that General Chesterton was comparatively quiet.
Adrienne sat behind her tea and coffee, and poured out for her uncles.
"I'm rather glad of a day indoors," observed the Admiral, as he stirred his coffee in a leisurely way; "our box from Mudie's arrived last night, did it not, Adrienne?"
"Yes. I hadn't time to open it. Drake will take it to your study. I will tell him. I'm not going to have a day in the house, oh dear no!"
"Where are you off to?" questioned the General. "If you go to the village, get me a pound of French nails, will you? That trellis kept me awake last night, tapping like a ghost against my window-ledge. There's always something annoying me at night. Two nights ago it was the donkey braying. And I can't do without my sleep. Extraordinary difficult thing to make yourself sleepy. I pounded my pillow, and turned it a dozen times, and then I rattled off all the limericks I could remember, and by that time I felt electricity all through me—my hair positively bristled. I struck a light and smoked two cigarettes, and I tried right side, left side and back in rotation one after each other. Still I couldn't droop an eyelid!"
"I should think not," said Adrienne, with a merry laugh; "don't you know that you shouldn't be strenuous in bed?"
"But was I? I was doing all in my power to put myself to sleep. Working at it till I got in a perfect fever of heat!"
The Admiral was looking through the letters, and sorting out his from amongst them.
"An invitation to dine at the Hall next Thursday."
"I'm bothered if I'll go," said the General hastily; "for I'm hunting that day, and won't turn out again at night—not if I know it!"
"But if this frost goes on, you won't be hunting," said Adrienne.
She quitted the room, leaving her uncles discussing the weather prospects, and made her way to the kitchen. Her housekeeping duties were not very heavy, for Mrs. Page, the old cook-housekeeper, had been nearly twenty years in the family; but Adrienne as a matter of form discussed the meals with her every day, and she took charge of the store-room, and supplied all necessary stores when needed.
Half an hour later she stood in the hall, clad in her long fur coat. A soft grey felt hat was crammed down on her curly head, and she had strong brogue shoes and cloth gaiters on her feet.
"Now I'm off," she sang out, as she passed the smoking-room door; "and I'm going through the village, so I'll get your nails, Uncle Tom."
The General came out, pipe in mouth, and accompanied her to the hall door; Bruce, the Cairn terrier, was at her heels.
"Ugh!" he shuddered as he looked out at the soft snow which the gardener was sweeping away from the drive as fast as he could. "My old bones don't like snow. We oughtn't to have it down here in the west."
"Oh, I love it!" cried Adrienne, starting out gaily with bright eyes and a flush on her cheeks.
But when she was out of sight of the house, she pulled a letter out of her pocket, and began to read it over for the second time.
The contents brought a grave look upon her face.
And then, with a little sigh, she folded it up, and put it back into her pocket.
The snow was crisp under her feet. As she walked along the road bordered with fir woods on either side, it was a fairy-like scene. From every branch the snow drooped in icicles which were sparkling in the sun. Along a snowy glade under the pines she saw a rabbit scuttling. Bruce scampered after it, and she had to wait till he rejoined her. Then, suddenly, round a corner appeared a young man, accompanied by a huge Alsatian wolf-hound.
"Hullo, Adrienne!"
"Hullo, Godfrey! You're the very person I want."
The young fellow looked pleased. "I'm on my way to Strake's Farm. But it will wait."
"Walk to the village with me. Have you company on Thursday?"
"Only the Rector and wife, besides Colonel and Mrs. Blake, who are staying with us. I hope you're coming. These small dinner parties are deadly, but you know my mother loves them."
"Oh, yes, we are coming; but if there's a thaw, don't expect Uncle Tom."
"He'll be hunting, I suppose."
They were walking on together, Bruce making overtures to the big dog, who viewed him indifferently. Young Sir Godfrey Sutherland, the Squire of Compton Down village, was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a frank smiling face and genial manners. He limped slightly as he walked, the effect of a wounded leg in the War. He and Adrienne had been good comrades and chums from the time when she first came to live with her uncles. As a schoolgirl and boy, they had spent their holidays together. Fishing, riding, and rabbiting in the woods; taking long walks with the dogs; but never unless they could help it, keeping indoors for long. Adrienne had no brothers or sisters, and had turned to Godfrey for advice, comfort, and sympathy whenever the occasion required it.
He did not hurry her now; he knew by her face that something was wrong.
And very soon she commenced:
"Godfrey, I've had a letter this morning from my aunt in France."
"I know. The Comtesse de Beaudessert, isn't she? She's not descending upon you again, is she?"
"Oh, no. I'll let you read her letter. She's in bad health, she says. I haven't said a word to the uncles. They get so fussed and worried at the very sound of her name. But it's the same old story: only much more difficult to combat now."
"She wants you to go to her?"
"Read what she says."
The letter was handed to him. It was as follows:
"MY DEAR ADRIENNE,—"I write to you distracted and désolée. As you know your Cousin Mathilde left me, and has gone over to America with her bridegroom. I have struggled on in weak health and shattered nerves. My doctor says it is imperative that I should have young cheerful society; somebody to take some of the burden of housekeeping off my frail shoulders. With my diminished income, I cannot keep the retainers who used to make life easy to me. It is one long battle with old Fanchette and Pierre. They are nearly past work, but very obstinate, and very inefficient. The under servants come and go, they will not conform to their rules. I am rapidly losing weight, and losing sleep."When last I was over, I told both Tom and Derrick that your father would wish you to spend as much time with me as with them. Your education is finished. It will improve you in every way to come to me. Your French accent is horrible. Your manners are blunt, not finished or refined. And I have my town flat in Orleans, and there is good society there. And finally you are my niece, and I need you. Your uncles have each other, and have not a Château to keep up minus retainers and means. It was a mistake your settling down with them. You ought as I have repeatedly told you, to have come straight to me when you left school. I was content to let them have you as long as you were a school girl. Their monotonous country life was good for a child. But an idle girl with nothing to occupy her hands or thoughts, needs a woman's guidance and supervision."My head is aching so much, I must lay down my pen. But now to be practical. A very great friend of mine, Madame de Nicholas, is leaving London on the fifteenth of this month. That will be three days after you receive this letter. Lose no time but wire at once to her at the Hotel Grosvenor, and tell her you will meet her at Victoria Station and travel here with her."And will you bring me from the Army and Navy Stores some of this printed note-paper and envelopes to match. I always get mine there."Tell your uncles it is imperative that I have a niece with me in my present delicate health. I cannot be left alone any longer."Your affectionate Aunt,"CECILY."
Godfrey read this letter through in silence, and gave a low whistle as he handed it back to her.
"Well," said Adrienne, looking at him with anxious eyes, "don't you think it is a shame of her to write to me like that?"
"I suppose you know her better than I do. I only saw her once when she came to stay with you two years ago, and brought her rather pretty daughter with her."
"Yes, that was when Mathilde told me she would marry anyone—a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man who broke stones in the road—to get away from home. She told me her mother really wanted a white slave to live with her. So, you see, Godfrey, I know what would be in store for me if I went."
"It's a letter of an unhappy woman," said Godfrey, looking at her with his clear blue eyes; "and she seems to want you badly."
"Now don't tell me I ought to go. My duty is to remain in that state of life in which God has called me. That is in the catechism of my youth. I am happy where I am. Why should I deliberately choose to leave my present life for one in which I know I should be miserable?"
"Is our own happiness the chief aim in our lives?" said the young man slowly. "And do we really know what makes our happiness? I rather doubt it. I thought at one time when I gave up going into the Church that I was giving up my happiness, but I found I was not."
Adrienne looked at him thoughtfully. She knew that from his boyhood Godfrey's whole aim had been to take Holy Orders. He was at Oxford when his eldest brother had died. Things were not going smoothly at home. His father had died when his sons were quite children. His mother knew nothing of business and had been for many years in the hands of a dishonest agent; the estate was in a very bad way when the eldest boy Ernest came into his property. He manfully put his shoulder to the wheel, dismissed the agent and worked the estate himself, but just at a critical stage, he was struck down by pneumonia and died after a few days' illness. Lady Sutherland summoned Godfrey home, and told him it was his duty to come back and take his brother's place.
And after a terrible conflict in his own mind, Godfrey gave up his own will and heart's desire, and came home to be the comfort and joy of his mother's life. His frank sunny nature did not alter; and though many of his college friends blamed him for having, as they said, "put his hand to the plough and looked back," Godfrey went on his way serenely, perhaps influencing more people by his personality as a landed proprietor than as a parson, for he had something in his heart and soul worth passing on, and was not ashamed to do it.
But a few of his friends—and Adrienne was one of them—knew that the sacrifice of his soul's desire had been a heavy one. She had always admired his serenity and cheerfulness, as he had carried out the wishes and whims of a rather capricious mother. And now, as she met his gaze, the colour mounted into her cheeks.
"You think me a selfish pig to talk or think about my own happiness. But I can't help it. I hate being unhappy. When I was a little girl I always did, and I remember saying to a governess who punished me for some impertinent remark to her:
"'If I was wrong to speak rudely to you, you're much more wrong to make me miserable!'
"Besides, I know your creed—it is that in making others happy, our own happiness comes. And that's what I'm doing. I know I make my uncles happy by living with them. We're all as jolly as we can be together. And they want me. They've always told me so. They paid for my schooling; my aunt never did. She was always a spoiled selfish wayward girl. Uncle Derrick told me so."
Adrienne spoke eagerly, but there was a pleading tone in her voice. She added:
"Oh, do tell me it wouldn't be right to leave the uncles!"
Godfrey laughed.
"I am not your Father Confessor. I wish I could advise you one way or the other, but it wouldn't be wise. You are old enough to judge for yourself. We must come to cross-ways in our journey when we have to decide which path is to be ours."
"I hate cross-ways!" exclaimed Adrienne vehemently and childishly.
"You have been in the sunshine so long, and you have so much of it in your heart," said Godfrey slowly, "that it does not follow you will lose it by going into the shade for a time. Isn't it possible that you could make the dark corner sunny?"
"Now I know that you are on Aunt Cecily's side," said Adrienne; and tears were not far from her eyes as she spoke.
They were now approaching the village, which lay covered in snow, and looked silent and deserted. As they came up to the little general shop next the post office, a girl came out of it. She was rather taller than Adrienne and had a fair freckled face, and reddish golden hair which was bobbed in the modern fashion. She was clad in a rough frieze coat and Russian boots reaching to her knees. A close green felt hat covered her head and ears.
She waved her hand cheerily as Godfrey and Adrienne approached her.
"A jolly morning, eh? I'm not going to market to-day. Am trying to dispose of three dozen eggs in the village. We never expected this weather, and the drifts are four feet deep they say on the Newton Road."
"Are you going home, Phemie? Wait for me," pleaded Adrienne. Then she turned to Godfrey, who was about to leave her.
"I came out on purpose to hunt you up, and see what you would say. You've done me good, though you may not think it. Good-bye."
"If this frost holds, we'll have skating on the ponds," he said. "Anyhow, I'll see you again before you settle anything. Good-bye to you both. How's Dick, Miss Moray?"
"First-rate," the girl replied; "but very cross at the snow stopping his ploughing to-day."
The young squire with his big dog went his way.
Adrienne went into the shop, and got her pound of nails and a few other trifles as well.
Then she linked her arm into that of Phemie Moray's, and the two girls began to chat together in a light-hearted fashion. Adrienne was her sunny self again, she cast off all thoughts of the letter in her pocket, and listened to Phemie's humorous account of her struggles with two belligerent cows that morning, and the arrival of a calf the evening before.
"I believe you are getting to love your farm life," said Adrienne presently.
But Phemie shook her head.
"It is too absorbing; and you know how strenuous and strong and dogged Mother is? Of course I know she is splendid; she is determined that Dick shall make his farm pay, but she works us both like carthorses. And often I ask myself, is it worth it? I've never time to read a book, hardly a minute to mend and keep myself tidy. If it isn't the poultry or the pigs or the cows, it is the meals and the house. Oh, how I hate the mud that makes such work round a farm!
"But I don't mean to grumble. And when I think of Mother and me stuck away in dingy lodgings in a Bayswater road, and Dick, poor Dick tramping round with his discharge papers and medals in search of work, and coming home in the evening to eat margarine and a bit of cold mutton, and to tell Mother once again of his non-success, I can thank God for where he has placed us now. Mother and Dick are always blessing Sir Godfrey for his remembrance and interest in his old war chums. And I think that is what makes Mother so eager over it. She's so grateful for the farm, that she wants to show Sir Godfrey he won't be the loser by his generosity. And if pertinacity and continuous hard grinding work will do it, we ought to make the farm a success."
"I'm sure you will," said Adrienne cheerfully. "Everyone is saying that your brother might be a born farmer from the way he works."
"They don't know how much he owes to Mother. She is behind him. What he doesn't know, she gets out of practical farm books, or out of talks with the farmers round. She never forgets what she reads or hears. I wish I were more like her."
"Do you never wish yourself back in London again?"
"Oh, often. I dream of a big legacy coming to us. And of my going back there and taking up my life in a Kensington studio and studying art. You don't know what cravings come over me to handle pencil and paints again. Mother never had any sympathy with artists. She used to tell me that they were an improvident immoral set, and she will never believe that I could have earned my living by art. She said only one in a hundred made their fortunes by painting, and that I would certainly not be that one. Doesn't it seem hard that here, where I see the wonderful sunsets over the hills, and the beautiful nooks in woods and valleys which are crying out to be painted, I have not the leisure to reproduce them for the benefit of others? I always say that artists are benefactors. It is not a selfish profession. Nothing that you produce is."
"And now you're producing milk and butter and corn and all the necessities of life for others by your labour," said Adrienne. "What an idle drone I am beside you!"
Phemie laughed merrily, then she pointed down over some fields to a valley in the distance, lined on one side by a fringe of snow-clad pines:
"Isn't that a picture?" she exclaimed. "There is one thing—if I am not allowed to make a poor attempt at reproduction, I get pictures for my own delight and pleasure, and pictures fresh from the Hands of God."
She soon parted with Adrienne, who went on her way thoughtfully pondering over two round pegs in square holes—Godfrey, who had been turned from a parson into a squire, and Phemie, who had been turned from an artist into a farmer.
"And they are both contented and happy," she said. "I wonder if everyone in this world is baulked of their own desires, and I wonder, how I wonder, whether I ought to go to Aunt Cecily or not."
AN ACCIDENT
WHEN Adrienne reached home, she was met at the door by Drake with a very solemn face.
Drake was virtually the butler, but he was in reality the factotum in the house. He valeted both the Admiral and the General; he initiated the maids as well as the bootboy into their work, and kept his eagle eye on every part of the house. He saw that the brasses were shining, that the floors were well polished, that every nook and corner was thoroughly dusted. If the cook felt ill, he could take her place at a moment's notice, and his cooking did him credit. If horses or dogs were ill, he doctored them; if china was broken, he could mend it. As Adrienne leant upon Mrs. Page, so did the Admiral and General lean upon Drake.
Adrienne saw at once that something had happened.
"The General has had a nasty fall, miss. He slipped just outside the stable on a bit of ice. We've sent for the doctor. He has hurt his knee, but I don't think it is broken. A bad sprain, I should say. We got him up to his room, and he's on his bed."
"Oh, Drake, how dreadful! Poor Uncle Tom!"
She ran lightly up the stairs into the big sunny front room, which belonged to the General.
The next moment she was bending over her uncle tenderly.
"That you, Adrienne? This confounded frost has knocked me over, and I'm done for, as far as hunting this week is concerned. It was that dolt of a stable boy!—Slopping about with his buckets, and making pools all over the place—didn't even finish my job at the pipes out there—Have turned Drake on to them—Why on earth hasn't that fool of a doctor arrived? My knee is swelling up like a gas bag—smashed the knee-cap, I should say! And it hurts like fury!"
"You must have it bathed—a cold compress, I should say. Let me do it for you!"
"I won't have it touched—can't stand the pain of it—dislocated, I should say! If it's a long job, how am I to stick it? I was never meant to be off my feet. If this pain goes on, he must give me gas-morphia-chloroform—what's the stuff that puts you to sleep?"
As Adrienne was trying to soothe him, she heard the doctor's car drive up.
And thankfully she went to meet him.
The Admiral and she were both a little relieved at the verdict delivered a short time later.
Dr. Tracy told them the knee was badly sprained, and some of the ligaments were twisted, but that with rest and treatment it would soon be better.
"He will be a bad patient," he said to Adrienne; "but you and the Admiral must keep him in bed. Try to amuse and entertain him there, and keep him as still as possible."
Easier said than done. General Chesterton was a very bad patient, restless and irritable, and before that day was over Adrienne felt utterly exhausted. In the evening, after dinner, the General had at last gone off to sleep. Drake took up his position as head nurse in his room, and Adrienne and her uncle Derrick sat over the fire in the smoking-room and discussed the accident.
"We must read aloud to him," said Adrienne cheerfully; "and I dare say to-morrow evening he will be well enough to have his game of chess. He's very fond of detective stories. There's one just come down from Mudie's. And if this frost holds out, it will comfort him to feel that he couldn't hunt in any case."
And then, for the first time since the morning, she thought of the letter she had received from her aunt, and felt delightfully at rest now that she had a definite reason for not going to her.
"Uncle Derrick," she said presently, "I got a letter from Aunt Cecily this morning."
"Did you? You never mentioned it."
"No; I was keeping it from you, I am afraid. I wanted to answer it, before I told you about it."
"I suppose she wants you to visit her?"
"I'll go and get the letter. I left it in the pocket of my tweed skirt." She left the room and returned with it.
The Admiral read it through. Once he smiled; but he looked very grave as he handed it back to her. "We don't want to lose you, dear child. In any case, this accident of Tom's prevents your leaving us at present. He'll want your youth and gaiety to carry him through his days. What parasites upon the young we older folk are!"
"Now, Uncle Derrick, don't dare to talk like that! This is my home and I love it, and Aunt Cecily has no claim upon me. She owns herself that she did nothing for me when I was a child. I wanted care and attention then, but I got it from you and not from her. Her letter makes me feel bitter against her. I'm to go to minister to her wants. I shall have no life of my own, but will have to be an unpaid servant in her house. That is what Mathilde was."
"No, no, as a daughter, it was her duty to be with her mother and help her."
"Well, now she can get a companion and pay her. She's very well off, is she not?"
"I don't think so. We wanted her to get rid of the Château years ago when her husband died, but she would not. Indeed, I think she cannot, under the terms of his will. It is to go to a son of her husband's. She was the second wife, and, strangely enough, his first wife was American, not French. She wrote to me a few weeks ago mentioning him, and I gathered that he has lately appeared in her neighbourhood, and she is very angry because he won't live with her in the Château."
"Then she has somebody belonging to her? I did not know she had."
"You must write to her at once, Adrienne. She will be expecting you. Tell her about your uncle's accident and she will understand."
So Adrienne moved across to the big writing-table, and there and then composed a very nice refusal of her aunt's invitation.
As she sealed and stamped it, she brought down her slender fist upon it with some force.
"There! That's my final word to her. I have suggested that she should get a companion."
She came across to the fire, and threw herself into the big easy-chair opposite her uncle.
She looked at him affectionately:
"I believe you're missing your game of chess. Now, aren't you? Will you let me play with you and I dare say to-morrow evening Uncle Tom will be well enough to play himself."
"I think we might have a game," said the Admiral with alacrity; "you can play very well if you like, Adrienne."
And Adrienne did, throwing her whole heart and soul into the contest, and casting all thoughts of her aunt to the winds.
It was only when she went to bed that she murmured to herself:
"Fate has been kind. I am no longer hesitating between cross-ways, but cheerfully trudging along in the sunshine, and in the path which I love."
She went to visit the invalid just before breakfast the next day. She found him irritable.
"What kind of a night have I had? The devil of a night, and I've been swearing like a trooper all through! That fool of a Drake snored—yes, he snored like a bull! Out of my room he shall go to-night. He fussed himself in, but what good did he do me? My knee feels as big as a Christmas pudding. I wanted sleep and relief from pain. Why didn't that young jackass give me an opiate to make me sleep? What's the weather like?"
"The frost still holds," said Adrienne cheerfully; "so there 'll be no hunting, and you look in the lap of comfort with your blazing fire and breakfast tray by your side. It won't be half bad, Uncle Tom, to be in bed for a few days. I'll come up and read to you, and Uncle Derrick will bring the chess-board. I'm sorry you're still in pain, but you might have been worse—cracked your head or your spine, or broken your jaw or your nose!"
The General gave a grim smile.
"You're too cheeky by half, young woman! Just ring the bell for Drake. He might have brought me 'The Times.' Go on down to breakfast. I've had mine, worse luck. There's nothing to do in bed but eat and sleep, and I can't do either now."
"I'll come and see you very soon, and tell you something. You did me a good turn by falling down, but you'll never guess how. I'll send up the paper."
Adrienne left him and ran lightly downstairs. She found her uncle Derrick waiting for her.
"How's our invalid? Drake said he slept fairly well, but I went into his room early this morning, and he told me a different tale. We shall have a pretty stiff time with him."
"Yes, but he looks well, and he has eaten a good breakfast. Of course he is never ill, so he feels it all the more now. Will you dine at the Hall on Thursday?"
"I don't think so," said the Admiral slowly.
"Will you go, and let me stay at home? You know I hate dinners. Now do, Uncle Derrick. Lady Sutherland is very fond of you, so you must not disappoint her."
"And what will Godfrey say if you don't appear?"
"It won't cause him the flutter of an eyelid. We see each other as often as we want to. I told him about Aunt Cecily's letter to-day. Of course he thought I ought to go."
"He's a bit of a prig. A good parson spoiled, I always say!"
"Oh, I won't have you call him a prig! He's not a bit. He is too natural and unaffected to be that!"
The Admiral smiled, and Adrienne began discussing other things.
The day proved to be more difficult than she had anticipated.
The Admiral, who was a J.P., had to attend some court meeting in the neighbouring town, and he went off soon after breakfast in his closed car, and did not return till half-past three in the afternoon. All that time, with the exception of half an hour for lunch, Adrienne was in the General's room. She talked, she read, she played games with him. He would not try to sleep, and was like a child in his restlessness and discontent. The doctor came at twelve o'clock, and offended him greatly by some plain speaking.
"Your pulse is good, and so is your heart; there's nothing for it but to set your teeth and endure the discomfort and pain. Your knee is going on very well; but if you won't keep the limb still, you'll make it a longer job. And we must put it into a cradle. You won't like that."
"He's a cussed jackanapes!" said the General to Adrienne when his visit was over.
She shook her head at him, but did not argue the point. And then she began to tell him about her aunt's letter. That really interested him.
"Cecily is a hypochondriac—she always has been—since her husband's death. She ought to be ashamed of herself to write to you like that! Don't turn a hair. Derrick and I mean to keep you with us. You surely didn't wish to go to her?"
"No, oh, no! But if you hadn't been ill, I might have gone to her for a little visit!"
"Not to be thought of! When once you're over there, you'll never get away! I went once soon after her husband's death, but never again! I loathe those French meals; you starve till twelve o'clock, then overeat yourself—not with good nourishing food, but all kinds of slops and vegetable messes. They give you cabbage-water for soup, and their chickens are all skin and bone. And as for drink, some white wine is Cecily's one and only! She always was a bad housekeeper, but her meals over there are perfect cautions!"
"How came she to marry a Frenchman?"
"She met him in Paris. Your father was Consul there at the time, and she went to stay with him, and got acquainted with the Count. I think the title and Château had some weight with her. He was a nice old chap, years older than herself, and he had been married before, and had one son."
"Then how is it that his son doesn't have the Château? Why does Aunt Cecily live in it?"
"Châteaux are not very attractive in these days. There is seldom enough money to keep them up, and they're cold and draughty, and tumbling to pieces. He told his father before he died that he would never live in it. He was a keen explorer and has spent his life travelling round the world. I believe he has come back now for a time. He owns the small home farm, not far from the Château, where he stays. He paid us a visit here once. It was when you were at school. Rather a bumptious young fellow. Not a bit French! Takes after his mother, who was an American."
Adrienne thought over this.
"Then I suppose Aunt Cecily owns the Château, and she likes it better than England."
"She's more French than a genuine Frenchwoman; always liked Paris—its ways—and its gowns! No, she'll never end her days in England!"
Then giving a lurch in bed, he hurt his knee. Conversation was at an end, and Adrienne needed all her patience to cheer and soothe him.
When the Admiral returned, things were better, and she was able to get away, and have a little time to herself.
But the General was in bed for a week, and when at last he could get downstairs, it was only to hobble about with the help of a crutch.
The frost disappeared and hunting recommenced. Adrienne had the pleasure of exercising "Catkins," the hunter. She was a good rider, and did not often get as much riding as she would have liked. Sir Godfrey lent her a mount occasionally, and sometimes she would take the old pony that did the station work and ride off across the hills to a bit of Dartmoor. When she did this, she would take some lunch in her pocket and be out all day. She loved solitude, and the moon had a peculiar attraction for her. The strange thing was that, though she liked riding, she did not care for hunting. She told her uncle she loved the horses and the jumps, but hated the chase of the fox. Every animal's life under the sun was precious in her eyes and nobody could argue her out of it.
One morning she took Catkins off to the Morays' farm on a quest of a broody hen. She managed the poultry yard herself, and had a sitting of ducks' eggs, but no hen to oblige her. It was a sunny morning in February. Since the disappearance of the snow, there was distinctly a promise of spring in the air. The catkins hung their yellow heads in the sunshine; the sap was rising in the bare brown trees and swelling their tiny buds; a few early primroses were in the sheltered lanes. Bruce trotted happily along at the heels of her horse, and Adrienne lifted up her sunny face to the blue sky, inhaling the fresh sweet air with delight.
Tents' Farm, as it was called, lay halfway down a sunny slope of pasture land. The house itself was small, with stout cob walls and thatched roof. The buildings behind it were more modern, and, in common with all Sutherland property, in thorough good repair. There was a small garden in front of the house. Adrienne pulled up outside the green wooden gate and called. In a moment or two a young man opened the porch door and came down the path.
"Come in and have a cup of tea," he said when he had learnt her errand. "Phemie and I are alone. Mother went off to Lufton this morning, and hasn't got back yet. How's the General?"