192
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 this193should 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.”
194XV“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. She195had 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.196“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,197whistled 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 a198dull 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!”
199
“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 talk200when 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.
201
“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 at202the 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!”
203
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 the204least 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 to205her. 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!”
206
“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’t207think 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.208Miss 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?”
209
“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.
210XVITWO 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 me211will 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.
212
“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 you213walk? 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 with214Duckie. 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, Prince215Charlie, 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 by216the 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.”
217XVIIMRS. 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 had218weakly 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––bent219upon 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,220who 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 approached221the 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 her222door, 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. Without223further 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, even224should 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.”
225
“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––I226says, ‘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 transfer227of 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 two228now 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-toed229across 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 better230cottage? 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,231and ’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.”
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“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!
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“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.
234XVIIITHE 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 afternoon235train 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 interview236with 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 with237violet 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 asotto vocediscussion 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,238put 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 you239had 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.