“Gan away!” he said. “George Pickerin’ ’ud chuck you ower t’ top o’ t’ hotel if ye said ‘Booh’ to ’im.”
But Fred, too, grinned, blinking like an owl in daylight.
“Them as lives t’ longest sees t’ meäst,” he muttered, and walked toward the stables, passing close to Kitty, who looked through him without seeing him.
Suddenly there was a stir among the loiterers. Mrs. Saumarez was walking through the village with Mr. Beckett-Smythe. Behind the pair came the squire’s two sons and Angèle. The great man had called on the new visitor to Elmsdale, and together they strolled forth, while he explained the festivities of the coming week, and told the lady that these “feasts” were the creation of an act of Charles II. as a protest against the Puritanism of the Commonwealth.
Martin stood at the side of the road. Mrs. Saumarez did not notice him, but Angèle did. She lifted her chin and dropped her eyelids in clever burlesque of Elsie Herbert, the vicar’s daughter, but ignored him otherwise. Martin was hurt, though he hardly expected to be spoken to in the presence of distinguished company. But he could not help looking after the party. Angèle turned and caught his glance. She put out her tongue.
He heard a mocking laugh and knew that Evelyn Atkinson was telling her sisters of the incident, whereupon he dug his hands in his pockets and whistled.
A shooting gallery was in process of erection, and its glories soon dispelled the gloom of Angèle’s snub. The long tube was supported on stays, the target put in place, the gaudy front pieced together, and half a dozen rifles unpacked. The proprietor meant to earn a few honest pennies that night, and some of the men were persuaded to try their prowess.
Martin was a born sportsman. He watched the competitors so keenly that Angèle returned with her youthful cavaliers without attracting his attention. Worse than that, Evelyn Atkinson, scenting the possibility of rustic intrigue, caught Martin’s elbow and asked quite innocently why a bell rang if the shooter hit the bull’s-eye.
Proud of his knowledge, he explained that there was a hole in the iron plate, and that no bell, but a sheet of copper, was suspended in the box at the back where the lamp was.
Both Angèle and Evelyn appreciated the situation exactly. The boy alone was ignorant of their tacit rivalry.
Angèle pointed out Martin to the Beckett-Smythes.
“He is such a nice boy,” she said sweetly. “I see him every day. He can fight any boy in the village.”
“Hum,” said the heir. “How old is he?”
“Fourteen.”
“I am fifteen.”
Angèle smiled like a seraph.
“Regardez-vous donc!” she said. “He could twiddleyou round—so,” and she spun one hand over the other.
“I’d like to see him try,” snorted the aristocrat. The opportunity offered itself sooner than he expected, but the purring of a high-powered car coming through the village street caused the pedestrians to draw aside. The car, a new and expensive one, was driven by a chauffeur, but held no passengers.
Mr. Beckett-Smythe gazed after it reflectively.
“Well, I thought I knew every car in this district,” he began.
“It is mine, I expect,” announced Mrs. Saumarez. “I’ve ordered one, and it should arrive to-day. I need an automobile for an occasional long run. For pottering about the village lanes, I may buy a pony cart.”
“What make is your car?” inquired the Squire.
“A Mercedes. I’m told it is by far the best at the price.”
“It’s the best German car, of course, but I can hardly admit that it equals the French, or even our own leading types.”
“Oh, I don’t profess to understand these things. I only know that my banker advised me to buy none other. He explained the matter simply enough. The German manufacturers want to get into the trade and are content to lose money for a year or so. You know how pushful they are.”
Beckett-Smythe saw the point clearly. He was even then hesitating between a Panhard and an Austin. He decided to wait a little longer and ascertain the facts about the Mercedes. A month later he purchased one. Mrs. Saumarez’s chauffeur, a smart young mechanic from Bremen, who spoke English fluently, demonstratedthat the buyer was given more than his money’s worth. The amiable Briton wondered how such things could be, but was content to benefit personally. He, in time, spread the story. German cars enjoyed a year’s boomlet in that part of Yorkshire. With nearly every car came a smart young chauffeur mechanic. Surely, this was wisdom personified. They knew the engine, could effect nearly all road repairs, demanded less wages than English drivers, and were always civil and reliable.
“Go-ahead people, these Germans!” was the general verdict.
An Elmsdale Sunday was a day of rest for man and beast alike. There could be no manner of doubt that the horses and dogs were able to distinguish the Sabbath from the workaday week. Prince, six-year-old Cleveland bay, the strongest and tallest horse in the stable, when his headstall was taken off on Sunday morning, showed his canny Yorkshire sense by walking past the row of carts and pushing open a rickety gate that led to a tiny meadow kept expressly for odd grazing. After him, in Indian file, went five other horses; yet, on any other day in the week they would stand patiently in the big yard, waiting to be led away singly or in pairs.
Curly and Jim, the two sheep-dogs—who never failed between Monday and Saturday to yawn and stretch expectantly by the side of John Bolland’s sturdy nag in the small yard near the house—on the seventh day made their way to the foreman’s cottage, there attending his leisure for a scamper over the breezy moorland.
For, Sunday or weekday, sheep must be counted. If any are missing, the almost preternatural intelligence of the collie is invoked to discover the hollow in which the lost ones are reposing helplessly on their backs. They will die in a few hours if not placed on their legsagain. Turn over unaided they cannot. Man or dog must help, or they choke.
Even the cocks and hens, the waddling geese and ducks, the huge shorthorns, which are the pride of the village, seemed to grasp the subtle distinction between life on a quiet day and the well-filled existence of the six days that had gone before. At least, Martin thought so; but he did not know then that the windows of the soul let in imageries that depend more on mood than on reality.
Personally he hated Sunday, or fancied he did. He had Sunday clothes, Sunday boots, Sunday food, a Sunday face, and a Sunday conscience. Things were wrong on Sunday that were right during the rest of the week. Though the sky was as bright, the grass as green, the birds as tuneful on that day as on others, he was supposed to undergo a metamorphosis throughout all the weary waking hours. His troubles often began the moment he quitted his bed. As his “best” clothes and boots were so little worn, they naturally maintained a spick-and-span appearance during many months. Hence, he was given a fresh assortment about once a year, and the outfit possessed three distinct periods of use, of which the first tortured his mind and the third his body.
He being a growing lad, the coat was made too long in the sleeves, the trousers too long in the legs, and the boots too large. At the beginning of this epoch he looked and felt ridiculous. Gradually, the effect of roast beef and suet dumplings brought about a better fit, and during four months of the year he was fairly smart in appearance. Then there came an ominous shrinkage.His wrists dangled below the coat cuffs, there was an ever-widening rim of stocking between the tops of the boots and the trousers’ ends, while Mrs. Bolland began to grumble each week about the amount of darning his stockings required. Moreover, there were certain quite insurmountable difficulties in the matter of buttons, and it was with a joy tempered only by fear of the grotesque that he beheld the “best” suit given away to an urchin several sizes smaller than himself.
Happily for his peace of mind, the Feast occurred in the middle stage of the current supply of raiment, so he was as presentable as a peripatetic tailor who worked in the house a fortnight at Christmas could make him.
But this Sunday dragged terribly. The routine of chapel from 10:30A.M.to noon, Sunday-school from 3P.M.to 4:30P.M., and chapel again from 6:30P.M.to 8P.M., was inevitable, but there were compensations in the whispered confidences of Jim Bates and Tommy Beadlam, the latter nicknamed “White Head,” as to the nature of some of the shows.
The new conditions brought into his life by Angèle Saumarez troubled him far more than he could measure. Her mere presence in the secluded village carried a breath of the unknown. Her talk was of London and Paris, of parks, theatres, casinos, luxurious automobiles, deck-cabins, and Pullman cars. She seemed to have lived so long and seen so much. Yet she knew very little. Her ceaseless chatter in French and English, which sounded so smart at first, would not endure examination.
She had read nothing. When Martin spoke of “RobinsonCrusoe” and “Ivanhoe,” of “Treasure Island” and “The Last of the Mohicans”—a literary medley devoured for incident and not for style—she had not even heard of them, but produced for inspection an astonishingly rude colored cartoon, the French comments on which she translated literally.
He was a boy aglow with dim but fervent ideals; she, a girl who had evidently been allowed to grow up almost wild in the midst of fashionable life and flippant servants, all exigencies being fulfilled when she spoke nicely and cleverly and wore her clothes with the requisite chic. The two were as opposed in essentials as an honest English apple grown in a wholesome garden and a rare orchid, the product of some poisonous equatorial swamp.
He tried to interest her in the sights and sounds of country life. She met him more than halfway by putting embarrassing questions as to the habits of animals. More than once he told her plainly that there were some things little girls ought not to know, whereat she laughed scornfully, but switched the conversation to a topic on which she could vex him, as was nearly always the case in her references to Elsie Herbert or John Bolland’s Bible teaching.
Yet he was restless and irritable because he did not see her on the Sunday. Mrs. Saumarez, it is true, sped swiftly through the village about three o’clock, and again at half-past seven. On each occasion the particular chapel affected by the Bollands was resounding with a loud-voiced hymn or echoing the vibrant tones of a preacher powerful beyond question in the matter of lungs and dogmatism. The whir of the Mercedes shutoff these sounds; but Martin heard the passing of the car and knew that Angèle was in it.
It was a novel experience for the Misses Walker to find that their lodgers recognized no difference between Sunday and the rest of the week. Mrs. Saumarez dined at 6:30P.M., a concession of an hour and a half to rural habits, but she scouted the suggestion that a cold meal should be served to enable the “girls” to go to church. The old ladies dared not quarrel with one who paid so well. They remained at home and cooked and served the dinner.
As Françoise, to a large extent, waited on her mistress, this development might not have been noticed had not Angèle’s quick eyes seen Miss Emmy Walker carrying a chicken and a dish of French beans to a small table in the hall.
She told her mother, and Mrs. Saumarez was annoyed. She had informed Miss Martha that if the servants required a “night out,” the addition of another domestic to the household at her expense would give them a good deal more liberty, but this ridiculous “Sunday-evening” notion must stop forthwith.
“It gets on my nerves, this British Sabbath,” she exclaimed peevishly. “In London I entertain largely on a Sunday and have never had any trouble. Do you mean to say I cannot invite guests to dinner on Sunday merely to humor a cook or a housemaid? Absurd!”
Miss Martha promised reform.
“Let her have her way,” she said to Miss Emmy. “Another servant will have nothing to do, and all the girls will grow lazy; but we must keep Mrs. Saumarez as long as we can. Oh, if she would only remain a year,we’d be out of debt, with the house practically recarpeted throughout!”
Unfortunately, Mrs. Saumarez’s nerves were upset. She was snappy all the evening. Françoise tried many expedients to soothe her mistress’s ruffled feelings. She brought a bundle of illustrated papers, a parcel of books, the scores of a couple of operas, even a gorgeous assortment of patterns of the new autumn dress fabrics, but each and all failed to attract. For some reason the preternaturally acute Angèle avoided her mother. She seemed to be afraid of her when in this mood. The Misses Walker, seeing the anxiety of the maid and the unwonted retreat of the child to bed at an early hour, were miserable at the thought that such a trivial matter should have given their wealthy tenant cause for dire offense.
So Sunday passed irksomely, and everyone was glad when the next morning dawned in bright cheerfulness.
From an early hour there was evidence in plenty that the Elmsdale Feast would be an unqualified success, though shorn of many of its ancient glories.
Time was when the village used to indulge in a week’s saturnalia, but the march of progress had affected rural Yorkshire even so long ago as 1906. The younger people could visit Leeds, York, Scarborough, or Whitby by Saturday afternoon “trips”—special excursion trains run at cheap rates—while “week-ends” in London were not unknown luxuries, and these frequent opportunities for change of scene and recreation had lessened the scope of the annual revels. Still, the trading instinct kept alive the commercial side of the Feast;the splendid hospitality of the north country asserted itself; church and chapels seized the chance of reaching enlarged congregations, and a number of itinerant showmen regarded Elmsdale as a fixture in the yearly round.
So, on the Monday, every neighboring village and moorland hamlet poured in its quota. The people came on foot from the railway station, distant nearly two miles, on horseback, in every sort of conveyance. The roads were alive with cattle, sheep, and pigs. The programme mapped out bore a general resemblance on each of the four days. The morning was devoted to business, the afternoon and evening to religion or pleasure.
The proceedings opened with a horse fair. An agent of the German Government snapped up every Cleveland bay offered for sale. George Pickering, in sporting garb, and smoking a big cigar, was an early arrival. He bid vainly for a couple of mares which he needed to complete his stud. Germany wanted them more urgently.
A splendid mare, the property of John Bolland, was put up for auction. The auctioneer read her pedigree, and proved its authenticity by reference to the Stud Book.
“Is she in foal?” asked Pickering, and a laugh went around. Bolland scowled blackly. If a look could have slain the younger man he would assuredly have fallen dead.
The bidding commenced at £40 and rose rapidly to £60.
Then Pickering lost his temper. The agent for Germany was too pertinacious.
“Seventy,” he shouted, though the bids hitherto had mounted by single sovereigns.
“Seventy-one,” said the agent.
“Eighty!” roared Pickering.
“Eighty-one!” nodded the agent.
“The reserve is off,” interposed the auctioneer, and again the surrounding farmers guffawed, as the mare had already gone to twenty pounds beyond her value.
Pickering swallowed his rage with an effort. He turned to Bolland.
“That’s an offset for my hard words the other day,” he said.
But the farmer thrust aside the proffered olive branch.
“Once a fule, always a fule,” he growled. Pickering, though anything but a fool in business, took the ungracious remark pleasantly enough.
“He ought to sing a rare hymn this afternoon,” he cried. “I’ve put a score of extra sovereigns in his pocket, and he doesn’t even say ‘Thank you.’ Well, it’s the way of the world. Who’s dry?”
This invitation caused an adjournment to the “Black Lion.” The auctioneer knew his clients.
Pickering’s allusion to the hymn was not made without knowledge. At three o’clock, on a part of the green farthest removed from the thronged stalls and the blare of a steam-driven organ, Bolland and a few other earnest spirits surrounded the stentorian preacher and held an open-air service. They selected tunes which everybody knew and, as a result, soon attracted a crowd of older people, some of whom brought their children. Martin, of course, was in the gathering.
Meanwhile, along the line of booths, a couple of leather-lunged men were singing old-time ballads, dealing for the most part with sporting incidents. They soon became the centers of two packed audiences, mainly young men and boys, but containing more than a sprinkling of girls. The ditties were couched in “broad Yorkshire”—sometimes too broad for modern taste. Whenever a particularly crude stanza was bawled forth a chuckle would run through the audience, and coppers in plenty were forthcoming for printed copies of the song, which, however, usually fell short of the blunt phraseology of the original. The raucous ballad singers took risks feared by the printer.
Mrs. Saumarez, leading Angèle by the hand, thought she would like to hear one of these rustic melodies, and halted. Instantly the vendor changed his cue. The lady might be the wife of a magistrate. Once he got fourteen days as a rogue and a vagabond at the instance of just such another interested spectator, who put the police in action.
Quickly surfeited by the only half-understood humor of a song describing the sale of a dead horse, she wandered on, and soon came across the preacher and his lay helpers.
To her surprise she saw John Bolland standing bareheaded in the front rank, and with him Martin. She had never pictured the keen-eyed, crusty old farmer in this guise. It amused her. The minister began to offer up a prayer. The men hid their faces in their hats, the women bowed reverently, and fervent ejaculations punctuated each pause in the preacher’s appeal.
“I do believe!”
“Amen! Amen!”
“Spare us, O Lord!”
Mrs. Saumarez stared at the gathering with real wonderment.
“C’est incroyable!” she murmured.
“What are they doing, mamma?” cried Angèle, trying to guess why Martin had buried his eyes in his cap.
“They are praying, dearest. It reminds one of the Covenanters. It really is very touching.”
“Who were the Covenanters?”
“When you are older, ma belle, you will read of them in history.”
That was Mrs. Saumarez’s way. She treated her daughter’s education as a matter for governesses whom she did not employ and masters to whose control Angèle would probably never be entrusted.
The two entered the White House. There they found Mrs. Bolland, radiant in a black silk dress, a bonnet trimmed with huge roses, and a velvet dolman, the wings of which were thrown back over her portly shoulders to permit her the better to press all comers to partake of her hospitality.
Several women and one or two men were seated at the big table, while people were coming and going constantly.
It flustered and gratified Mrs. Bolland not a little to receive such a distinguished visitor.
“Eh, my leddy,” she cried, “I’m glad to see ye. Will ye tek a chair? And t’ young leddy, too? Will ye hev a glass o’ wine?”
This was the recognized formula. There was a decanter of port wine on the sideboard, but most of thevisitors partook of tea or beer. One of the men drew himself a foaming tankard from a barrel in the corner.
Mrs. Saumarez smiled wistfully.
“No wine, thank you,” she said; “but that beer looks very nice. I’ll have some, if I may.”
Not until that moment did Mrs. Bolland remember that her guest was a reputed teetotaller. So, then, Mrs. Atkinson, proprietress of the “Black Lion,” was mistaken.
“That ye may, an’ welcome,” she said in her hearty way.
Angèle murmured something in French, but her mother gave a curt answer, and the child subsided, being, perhaps, interested by the evident amazement and admiration she evoked among the country people. To-day, Angèle was dressed in a painted muslin, with hat and sash of the same material, long black silk stockings, and patent-leather shoes. She looked elegantly old-fashioned, and might have walked bodily out of one of Caran d’Ache’s sketches of French society.
Suddenly she bounced up like an india-rubber ball.
“Tra la!” she cried. “V’là mon cher Martin!”
The prayer meeting had ended, and Martin was speeding home, well knowing who had arrived there.
Angèle ran to meet him.
“She’s a rale fairy,” whispered Mrs. Summersgill, mistress of the Dale End Farm. “She’s rigged out like a pet doll.”
“Ay,” agreed her neighbor. “D’ye ken wheer they coom frae?”
“Frae Lunnon, I reckon. They’re staying wi’ t’Miss Walkers. That’s t’ muther, a Mrs. Saumarez, they call her, but they say she’s a Jarman baroness.”
“Well, bless her heart, she hez a rare swallow for a gill o’ ale.”
This was perfectly true. The lady had emptied her glass with real gusto.
“I was so hot and tired,” she said, with an apologetic smile at her hostess. “Now, I can admire your wonderful store of good things to eat,” and she focussed the display through gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
Truly, the broad kitchen table presented a spectacle that would kill a dyspeptic. A cold sirloin, a portly ham, two pairs of chickens, three brace of grouse—these solids were mere garnishings to dishes piled with currant cakes, currant loaves and plain bread cut and buttered, jam turnovers, open tarts of many varieties, “fat rascals,” Queen cakes, sponge cakes—battalions and army corps of all the sweet and toothsome articles known to the culinary skill of the North.
“I’m feared, my leddy, they won’t suit your taste,” began Mrs. Bolland, but the other broke in eagerly:
“Oh, don’t say that! They look so good, so wholesome, so different from the French cooking we weary of in town. If I were not afraid of spoiling my dinner and earning a scolding from Françoise I would certainly ask for some of that cold beef and a slice of bread and butter.”
“Tek my advice, ma’am, an’ eat while ye’re in t’ humor,” cried Mrs. Bolland, instantly helping her guest to the eatables named.
Mrs. Saumarez laughed delightedly and peeled off a pair of white kid gloves. She ate a little of the meatand crumbled a slice of bread. Mrs. Bolland refilled the glass with beer.
Then the lady made herself generally popular by asking questions. Did they use lard or butter in the pastry? How was the sponge cake made so light? What a curious custom it was to put currants into plain dough; she had never seen it done before. Were the servants able to do these things, or had they to be taught by the mistress of the house? She amused the women by telling of the airs and graces of London domestics, and evoked a feeling akin to horror by relating the items of the weekly bills in her town house.
“Seven pund o’ beäcan for breakfast i’ t’ kitchen!” exclaimed Mrs. Summersgill. “Wheä ivver heerd tell o’ sike waste?”
“Eh, ma’am,” cried another, “but ye mun addle yer money aisy t’ let ’em carry on that gait.”
Martin, who found Angèle in her most charming mood—unconsciously pleased, too, that her costume was not sooutréas to run any risk of caustic comment by strangers—came in and asked if he might take her along the row of stalls. Mrs. Bolland had given him a shilling that morning, and he resolved magnanimously to let the shooting gallery wait; Angèle should be treated to a shilling’s worth of aught she fancied.
But Mrs. Saumarez rose.
“Your mother will kill me with kindness, Martin, if I remain longer,” she said. “Take me, too, and we’ll see if the fair contains any toys.”
She emptied the second glass of ale, drew on her gloves, bade the company farewell with as much courtesyas if they were so many countesses, and walked away with the youngsters.
At one stall she bought Martin a pneumatic gun, a powerful toy which the dealer never expected to sell in that locality. At another she would have purchased a doll for Angèle, but the child shrugged her shoulders and declared that she would greatly prefer to ride on the roundabouts with Martin. Mrs. Saumarez agreed instantly, and the pair mounted the hobby-horses.
Among the children who watched them enviously were Jim Bates and Evelyn Atkinson. When the steam organ was in full blast and the horses were flying round at a merry pace, Mrs. Saumarez bent over Jim Bates and placed half a sovereign in his hand.
“Go to the ‘Black Lion,’” she said, “and bring me a bottle of the best brandy. See that it is wrapped in paper. I do not care to go myself to a place where there are so many men.”
Jim darted off. The roundabout slackened speed and stopped, but Mrs. Saumarez ordered another ride. The whirl had begun again when Bates returned with a parcel.
“It was four shillin’s, ma’am,” he said.
“Thank you, very much. Keep the change.”
Even Evelyn Atkinson was so awed by the magnitude of the tip that she forgot for a moment to glue her eyes on Angèle and Martin.
But Angèle, wildly elated though she was with the sensation of flight, and seated astride like a boy, until the tops of her stockings were exposed to view, did not fail to notice the conclusion of Jim Bates’s errand.
“Mamma will be ill to-night,” she screamed in Martin’sear. “Françoise will be busy waiting on her. I’ll come out again at eight o’clock.”
“You must not,” shouted the boy. “It will be very rough here then.”
“C’la va—I mean, I know that quite well. It’ll be all the more jolly. Meet me at the gate. I’ll bring plenty of money.”
“I can’t,” protested Martin.
“You must!”
“But I’m supposed to be home myself at eight o’clock.”
“If you don’t come, I’ll find some other boy. Frank Beckett-Smythe said he would try and turn up every evening, in case I got a chance to sneak out.”
“All right. I’ll be there.”
Martin intended to hurry her through the fair and take her home again. If he received a “hiding” for being late, he would put up with it. In any case, the squire’s eldest son could not be allowed to steal his wilful playmate without a struggle. Probably Adam reasoned along similar lines when Eve first offered him an apple. Be that as it may, it never occurred to Martin that the third chapter of Genesis could have the remotest bearing on the night’s frolic.
Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle returned to The Elms, but Martin had to forego accompanying them. He knew that—with Bible opened at the Third Book of Kings—John Bolland was waiting in a bedroom, every downstairs apartment being crowded.
He ran all the way along the village street and darted upstairs, striving desperately to avoid even the semblance of undue haste. Bolland was thumbing the book impatiently. He frowned over his spectacles.
“Why are ye late?” he demanded.
“Mrs. Saumarez asked me to walk with her through the village,” answered Martin truthfully.
“Ay. T’ wife telt me she was here.”
The explanation served, and Martin breathed more freely. The reading commenced:
“Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.“Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.”
“Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
“Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.”
Martin, with his mind in a tumult on account of the threatened escapade, did not care a pin what methodwas adopted to restore the feeble circulation of the withered King so long as the lesson passed off satisfactorily.
With rare self-control, he bent over the, to him, unmeaning page, and acquitted himself so well in the parrot repetition which he knew would be pleasing that he ventured to say:
“May I stay out a little later to-night, sir?”
“What for? You’re better i’ bed than gapin’ at shows an’ listenin’ te drunken men.”
“I only ask because—because I’m told that Mrs. Saumarez’s little girl means to see the fair by night, and she—er—would like me to be with her.”
John Bolland laughed dryly.
“Mrs. Saumarez’ll soon hev more’n eneuf on’t,” he said. “Ay, lad, ye can stay wi’ her, if that’s all.”
Martin never, under any circumstances, told a downright lie, but he feared that this was sailing rather too near the wind to be honest. The nature of Angèle’s statement was so nebulous. He could hardly explain outright that Mrs. Saumarez was not coming—that Angèle alone would be the sightseer. So he flushed, and felt that he was obtaining the required permission by false pretense. He could have pulled Angèle’s pretty ears for placing him in such a dilemma, but with a man so utterly unsympathetic as Bolland it was impossible to be quite candid.
He had clear ideas of right and wrong. He knew it was wrong for Angèle to come out unattended and mix in the scene of rowdyism which the village would present until midnight. If she really could succeed in leaving The Elms unnoticed, the most effectual way to stop her wasto go now to her mother or to one of the Misses Walker and report her intention. But this, according to the boy’s code of honor, was to play the sneak, than which there is no worse crime in the calendar. No. He would look after her himself. There was a spice of adventure, too, in acting as the chosen squire of this sprightly damsel. Strong-minded as he was, and resolute beyond his years, Angèle’s wilfulness, her quick tongue, the diablerie of her glance, the witchery of her elegant little person, captivated heart and brain, and benumbed the inchoate murmurings of conscience.
Oddly enough, he often found himself comparing her with Elsie Herbert, a girl with whom he had never exchanged a word, and Angèle Saumarez invariably figured badly in the comparison. The boy did not know then that he must become a man, perhaps soured of life, bitter with experience, before he would understand the difference between respect and fascination.
With housewife prudence, Mrs. Bolland hailed him as he was passing through the back kitchen.
“Noo, then, Martin, don’t ye go racketin’ about too much in your best clothes. And mind your straw hat isn’t blown off if ye go on one o’ them whirligigs.”
“All right, mother,” he said cheerfully, and was gone in a flash.
Two hours must elapse before Angèle could appear. Jim Bates, who bore no malice, stood treat in gingerbread and lemonade out of the largesse bestowed by Mrs. Saumarez. Martin, carried away by sight of a champion boxer who offered a sovereign to any local man under twelve stone who stood up to him for three two-minute rounds, spent sixpence in securing seatsfor himself and Jim when the gage of combat was thrown down by his gamekeeper friend.
There was a furious fight with four-ounce gloves. The showman discovered quickly that Velveteens “knew a bit.” Repeated attempts to “out” him with “the right” on the “point” resulted in heavy “counters” on the ribs, and a terrific uppercut failed because of the keeper’s quick sight.
The proprietor of the booth, who acted as timekeeper, gave every favor to his henchman, but at the end of the third round the professional was more blown than the amateur. The sovereign was handed over with apparent good will, both showmen realizing that it might be money well spent. And it was, as the black eyes and swollen lips among the would-be pugilists of Elmsdale testified for many days thereafter.
Martin, who had never before seen a real boxing match, was entranced. With a troop of boys he accompanied the two combatants to the door of the “Black Lion,” where a fair proportion of the sovereign was soon converted into beer.
George Pickering had witnessed the contest. Generous to a fault, he started a purse to be fought for in rounds inside the booth. Wanting a pencil and paper, he ran upstairs to his room—he had resolved to stay at the inn for a couple of nights—and encountered Kitty Thwaites on the stairs.
She carried a laden tray, so he slipped an arm around her waist, and she was powerless to prevent him from kissing her unless she dropped the tray or risked upsetting its contents. She had no intention of doing either of these things.
“Oh, go on, do!” she cried, not averting her face too much.
He whispered something.
“Not me!” she giggled. “Besides, I won’t have a minnit to spare till closin’ time.”
Pickering hugged her again. She descended the stairs, laughing and very red.
The boys heard something of the details of the proposed Elmsdale championship boxing competition. Entries were pouring in, there being no fee. George Pickering was appointed referee, and the professional named as judge. The first round would be fought at 3P.M.next day.
The time passed more quickly than Martin expected; as for his money, it simply melted. Tenpence out of the shilling had vanished before he realized how precious little remained wherewith to entertain Angèle. She said she would have “plenty of money,” but he imagined that a walk through the fair and a ride on the roundabout would satisfy her. Not even at fourteen does the male understand the female of twelve.
A few minutes before eight he escaped from his companions and strolled toward The Elms. The house was not like the suburban villa which stands in the center of a row and proudly styles itself Oakdene. It was hidden in a cluster of lordly elms, and already the day was so far spent that the entrance gate was invisible save at a few yards’ distance.
The nearest railway station was situated two miles along this very road. A number of slow-moving country people were sauntering to the station, where the north train was due at 9:05P.M.Another train, thatfrom the south, arrived at 9:20, and would be the last that night. A full moon was rising, but her glories were hidden by the distant hills. There was no wind; the weather was fine and settled. The Elmsdale Feast was lucky in its dates.
Martin waited near the gate and heard the church clock chime the hour. Two boys on bicycles came flying toward the village. They were the Beckett-Smythes. They slackened pace as they neared The Elms.
“Wonder if she’ll get out to-night?” said Ernest, the younger.
“There’s no use waiting here. She said she’d dodge out one evening for certain. If she’s not in the village, we’d better skip back before we’re missed,” said the heir.
“Oh, that’s all right. Pater thinks we’re in the grounds, and there won’t be any bother if we show up at nine.”
They rode on. The quarter-hour chimed, and Martin became impatient.
“She was humbugging me, as usual,” he reflected. “Well, this time I’m pleased.”
An eager voice whispered:
“Hold the gate! It’ll rattle when I climb over. They’ve not heard me. I crept here on the grass.”
Angèle had changed her dress to a dark-blue serge and sailor hat. This was decidedly thoughtful. In her day attire she must have attracted a great deal of notice. Now, in the dark, neither the excellence of her clothing nor the elegance of her carriage would differentiate her too markedly from the village girls.
She was breathless with haste, but her tongue rattled on rapidly.
“Mammaisill. I knew she would be. I told Françoise I had a headache, and went to bed. Then I crept downstairs again. Miss Walker nearly caught me, but she’s so upset that she never saw me. As for Fritz, if I meet him—poof!”
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Saumarez?” asked Martin.
“Trop de cognac, mon chéri.”
“What’s that?”
“It means a ‘bit wobbly, my dear.’”
“Is her head bad?”
“Yes. It will be for a week. But never mind mamma. She’ll be all right, with Françoise to look after her. Here! You pay for everything. There’s ten shillings in silver. I have a sovereign in my stocking, if we want it.”
They were hurrying toward the distant medley of sound. Flaring naptha lamps gave the village street a Rembrandt effect. Love-making couples, with arms entwined, were coming away from the glare of the booths. Their forms cast long shadows on the white road.
“Ten shillings!” gasped Martin. “Whatever do we want with ten shillings?”
“To enjoy ourselves, you silly. You can’t have any fun without money. Why, when mamma dines at the Savoy and takes a party to the theater afterwards, it costs her as many pounds. I know, because I’ve seen the checks.”
“That has nothing to do with it. We can’t spend ten shillings here.”
“Oh, can’t we? You leave that to me. Mais, voyez-vous,imbécile, are you going to be nasty?” She halted and stamped an angry foot.
“No, I’m not; but——”
“Then come on, stupid. I’m late as it is.”
“The stalls remain open until eleven.”
“Magnifique! What a row there’ll be if I have to knock to get in!”
Martin held his tongue. He resolved privately that Angèle should be home at nine, at latest, if he dragged her thither by main force. The affair promised difficulties. She was so intractable that a serious quarrel would result. Well, he could not help it. Better a lasting break than the wild hubbub that would spring up if they both remained out till the heinous hour she contemplated.
In the village they encountered Jim Bates and Evelyn Atkinson, surrounded by seven or eight boys and girls, for Jim was disposing rapidly of his six shillings, and Evelyn bestowed favor on him for the nonce.
“Hello! here’s Martin,” whooped Bates. “I thowt ye’d gone yam (home). Where hev ye——”
Jim’s eloquence died away abruptly. He caught sight of Angèle and was abashed. Not so Evelyn.
“Martin’s been to fetch his sweetheart,” she said maliciously.
Angèle simpered sufficiently to annoy Evelyn. Then she laughed agreement.
“Yes. And won’t we have a time! Come on! Everybody have a ride.”
She sprang toward the horses. Martin alone followed.
“Come on!” she screamed. “Martin will pay for the lot. He has heaps of money.”
No second invitation was needed. Several times the whole party swung round with lively yelling. From the roundabouts they went to the swings; from the swings to the cocoanut shies. Here they were joined by the Beckett-Smythes, who endeavored promptly to assume the leadership.
Martin’s blood was fired by the contest. He was essentially a boy foredoomed to dominate his fellows, whether for good or evil. He pitched restraint to the winds. He could throw better than either of the young aristocrats; he could shoot straighter at the galleries; he could describe the heroic combat between the boxer and Velveteens; he would swing Angèle higher than any, until they looked over the crossbar after each giddy swirl.
The Beckett-Smythes kept pace with him only in expenditure, Jim Bates being quickly drained, and even they wondered how long the village lad could last.
The ten shillings were soon dissipated.
“I want that sovereign,” he shouted, when Angèle and he were riding together again on the hobby-horses.
“I told you so,” she screamed. She turned up her dress to extricate the money from a fold of her stocking. The light flashed on her white skin, and Frank Beckett-Smythe, who rode behind with one of the Atkinson girls, wondered what she was doing.
She bent over Martin and whispered:
“There aretwo! Keep the fun going!”
The young spark in the rear thought that she was kissing Martin; he was wild with jealousy. At the nextshow—that of a woman grossly fat, who allowed the gapers to pinch her leg at a penny a pinch—he paid with his last half-crown. When they went to refresh themselves on ginger-beer, Martin produced a sovereign. The woman who owned the stall bit it, surveyed him suspiciously, and tried to swindle him in the change. She failed badly.
“Eleven bottles at twopence and eleven cakes at a penny make two-and-nine. I want two more shillings, please,” he said coolly.
“Be aff wid ye! I gev ye seventeen and thruppence. If ye thry anny uv yer tricks an me I’ll be afther askin’ where ye got the pound.”
“Give me two more shillings, or I’ll call the police.”
Mrs. Maguire was beaten; she paid up.
The crowd left her, with cries of “Irish Molly!” “Where’s Mick?” and even coarser expressions. Angèle screamed at her:
“Why don’t you stick to ginger-beer? You’re muzzy.”
The taunt stung, and the old Irishwoman cursed her tormentor as a black-eyed little witch.
Angèle, seeing that Martin carried all before him, began straightway to flirt with the heir. At first the defection was not noted, but when she elected to sit by Frank while they watched the acrobats the new swain took heart once more and squeezed her arm.
Evelyn Atkinson, who was in a smiling temper, felt that a crisis might be brought about now. There was not much time. It was nearly ten o’clock, and soon her mother would be storming at her for not having taken herself and her sisters to bed, though, in justice be itsaid, the girls could not possibly sleep until the house was cleared.
Ernest Beckett-Smythe was her cavalier at the moment.
“We’ve seen all there is te see,” she whispered. “Let’s go and have a dance in our yard. Jim Bates can play a mouth-organ.”
Ernest was a slow-witted youth.
“Where’s the good?” he said. “There’s more fun here.”
“You try it, an’ see,” she murmured coyly.
The suggestion caught on. It was discussed while Martin and Jim Bates were driving a weight up a pole by striking a lever with a heavy hammer. Anything in the shape of an athletic feat always attracted Martin.
Angèle was delighted. She scented a row. These village urchins were imps after her own heart.
“Oh, let’s,” she agreed. “It’ll be a change. I’ll show you the American two-step.”
Frank had his arm around her waist now.
“Right-o!” he cried. “Evelyn, you and Ernest lead the way.”
The girl, flattered by being bracketed publicly with one of the squire’s sons, enjoined caution.
“Once we’re past t’ stables it’s all right,” she said. “I don’t suppose Fred’ll hear us, anyhow.”
Fred was at the front of the hotel watching the road, watching Kitty Thwaites as she flitted upstairs and down, watching George Pickering through the bar window, and grinning like a fiend when he saw that somewhat ardent wooer, hilarious now, but sober enoughaccording to his standard, glancing occasionally at his watch.
There was a gate on each side of the hotel. That on the left led to the yard, with its row of stables and cart-sheds, and thence to a spacious area occupied by hay-stacks, piles of firewood, hen-houses, and all the miscellaneous lumber of an establishment half inn, half farm. The gate on the right opened into a bowling-green and skittle-alley. Behind these lay the kitchen garden and orchard. A hedge separated one section from the other, and entrance could be obtained to either from the back door of the hotel.
The radiance of a full moon now decked the earth in silver and black; in the shade the darkness was intense by contrast. The church clock struck ten.
Half a dozen youngsters crept silently into the stable yard. Angèle kicked up a dainty foot in a preliminarypas seul, but Evelyn stopped her unceremoniously. The village girl’s sharp ears had caught footsteps on the garden path beyond the hedge.
It was George Pickering, with his arm around Kitty’s shoulders. He was talking in a low tone, and she was giggling nervously.
“They’re sweetheartin’,” whispered a girl.
“So are we,” declared Frank Beckett-Smythe. “Aren’t we, Angèle?”
“Sapristi! I should think so. Where’s Martin?”
“Never mind. We don’t want him.”
“Oh, he will be furious. Let’s hide. There will be such a row when he goes home, and he daren’t go till he finds me.”
Master Beckett-Smythe experienced a second’s twingeat thought of the greeting he and his brother would receive at the Hall. But here was Angèle pretending timidity and cowering in his arms. He would not leave her now were he to be flayed alive.
The footsteps of Pickering and Kitty died away. They had gone into the orchard.
Evelyn Atkinson breathed freely again.
“Even if Kitty sees us now, I don’t care,” she said. “She daren’t tell mother, when she knows that we saw her and Mr. Pickerin’. He ought to have married her sister.”
“Poof!” tittered Angèle. “Who heeds a domestic?”
Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted:
“Angèle! Angèle! Are you there?”
Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth.
“Shut up, you fool!” hissed Frank. “Do you want the whole village to know where we are?”
Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angèle by the shoulder. He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings.
“Why did you leave me?” he demanded angrily. “You must come home at once. It is past ten o’clock.”
“Don’t be angry, Martin,” she pouted. “I am just a little tired of the noise. I want to show you and the rest a new dance.”
The minx was playing her part well. She had read Evelyn Atkinson’s soul. She felt every throb of young Beckett-Smythe’s foolish heart. She was quite certain that Martin would find her and cause a scene. There was deeper intrigue afoot now than the mere folly of unlicensed frolic in the fair. Her vanity, too, was gratified by the leading rôle she filled among them all. The puppets bore themselves according to their temperaments. Evelyn bit her lip with rage and nearly yielded to a wild impulse to spring at Angèle and scratch her face. Martin was white with determination. As for Master Frank, he boiled over instantly.
“You just leave her alone, young Bolland,” he said thickly. “She came here to please herself, and can stay here, if she likes. I’ll see to that.”
Martin did not answer.
“Angèle,” he said quietly, “come away.”
Seeing that he had lived in the village nearly all his life, it was passing strange that this boy should have dissociated himself so completely from its ways. But the early hours he kept, his love of horses, dogs, and books, his preference for the society of grooms and gamekeepers—above all, a keen, if unrecognized, love of nature in all her varying moods, an almost pagan worship of mountain, moor, and stream—had kept him aloof from village life. A boy of fourteen does not indulge in introspection. It simply came as a fearful shock to find the daughter of a lady like Mrs. Saumarez so ready to forget her social standing. Surely, she could not know what she was doing. He was undeceived, promptly and thoroughly.
Angèle snatched her shoulder from his grasp.
“Don’t you dare hold me,” she snapped. “I’m not coming. I won’t come with you, anyhow. Ma foi, Frank is far nicer.”
“Then I’ll drag you home,” said Martin.
“Oh, will you, indeed? I’ll see to that.”
Beckett-Smythe deemed Angèle a girl worth fighting for. In any case, this clodhopper who spent money like a lord must be taught manners.
Martin smiled. In his bemused brain the idea was gaining ground that Angèle would be flattered if he “licked” the squire’s son for her sake.
“Very well,” he said, stepping back into the moonlight. “We’ll settle it that way. Ifyoubeatme, Angèle remains. IfIbeatyou, she goes home. Here, Jim. Hold my coat and hat. And, no matter what happens, mind you don’t play for any dancing.”
Martin stated terms and issued orders like an emperor. In the hour of stress he felt himself immeasurably superior to this gang of urchins, whether their manners smacked of Elmsdale or of Eton.
Angèle’s acquaintance with popular fiction told her that at this stage of the game the heroine should cling in tears to the one she loved, and implore him to desist, to be calm for her sake. But the riot in her veins brought a new sensation. There were possibilities hitherto unsuspected in the darkness, the secrecy, the candid brutality of the fight. She almost feared lest Beckett-Smythe should be defeated.
And how the other girls must envy her, to be fought for by the two boys pre-eminent among them, to be the acknowledged princess of this village carnival!
So she clapped her hands.
“O là là!” she cried. “Going to fight about poor little me! Well, I can’t stop you, can I?”
“Yes, you can,” said one.
“She won’t, anyhow,” scoffed the other. “Are you ready?”
“Quite!”
“Then ‘go.’”
And the battle began.
They fought like a couple of young bulls. Frank intended to demolish his rival at the outset. He was a year older and slightly heavier, but Martin was more active, more sure-footed, sharper of vision. Above all, he had laid to heart the three-pennyworth of tuition obtained in the boxing booth a few hours earlier.
He had noted then that a boxer dodged as many blows with his head as he warded with his arms. He grasped the necessity to keep moving, and thus disconcert an adversary’s sudden rush. Again, he had seen the excellence of a forward spring without changing the relative positions of the feet. Assuming you were sparring with the left hand and foot advanced, a quick jump of eighteen inches enabled you to get the right home with all your force. You must keep the head well back and the eye fixed unflinchingly on your opponent’s. Above all, meet offense with offense. Hit hard and quickly and as often as might be.
These were sound principles, and he proceeded to put them into execution, to the growing distress and singular annoyance of Master Beckett-Smythe.
Ernest acted as referee—in the language of the village, he “saw fair play”—but was wise enough to call “time” early in the first round, when his brother drew off after a fierce set-to. The forcing tactics had failed,but honors were divided. The taller boy’s reach had told in his favor, while Martin’s newly acquired science redressed the balance.
Martin’s lip was cut and there was a lump on his left cheek, but Frank felt an eye closing and had received a staggerer in the ribs. He was aware of an uneasy feeling that if Martin survived the next round he (Frank) would be beaten, so there was nothing for it but to summon all his reserves and deliver a Napoleonic attack. The enemy must be crushed by sheer force.
He was a plucky lad and was stung to frenzy by seeing Angèle offer Martin the use of a lace handkerchief for the bleeding lip, a delicate tenderness quietly repulsed.
So, when the rush came, Martin had to fight desperately to avoid annihilation. He was compelled to give way, and backed toward the hedge. Behind lay an unseen stackpole. At the instant when Beckett-Smythe lowered his head and endeavored to butt Martin violently in the stomach, the latter felt the obstruction with his heel. Had he lost his nerve then or flickered an eyelid, he would have taken a nasty fall and a severe shaking. As it was, he met the charge more than halfway, and delivered the same swinging upper stroke which had nearly proved fatal to his gamekeeper friend.
It was wholly disastrous to Beckett-Smythe. It caught him fairly on the nose, and, as the blow was in accord with the correct theory of dynamics as applied to forces in motion, it knocked him silly. His head flew up, his knees bent, and he dropped to the ground with a horrible feeling that the sky had fallen and that stars were sparkling among the rough paving-stones.
“That’s a finisher. He’s whopped!” exulted Jim Bates.
“No, he’s not. It was a chance blow,” cried Ernest, who was strongly inclined to challenge the victor on his own account. “Get up, Frank. Have another go at him!”
But Frank, who could neither see nor hear distinctly, was too groggy to rise, and the village girls drew together in an alarmed group. Such violent treatment of the squire’s son savored of sacrilege. They were sure that Martin would receive some condign punishment by the law for pummeling a superior being so unmercifully.
Angèle, somewhat frightened herself, tried to console her discomfited champion.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “It was all my fault.”
“Oh, go away!” he protested. “Ernest, where’s there a pump?”
Assisted by his brother, he struggled to his feet. His nose was bleeding freely and his face was ghastly in the moonlight. But he was a spirited youngster. He held out a hand to Martin.
“I’ve had enough just now,” he said, with an attempt at a smile. “Some other day, when my eye is all right, I’d like to——”
A woman’s scream of terror, a man’s cry of agony, startled the silent night and nearly scared the children out of their wits.
Someone came running up the garden path. It was Kitty Thwaites. She swayed unsteadily as she ran; her arms were lifted in frantic supplication.
“Oh, Betsy, Betsy, you’ve killed him!” she wailed.“Murder! Murder! Come, someone! For God’s sake, come!”
She stumbled and fell, shrieking frenziedly for help. Another woman—a woman whose extended right hand clutched a long, thin knife such as is used to carve game—appeared from the gloom of the orchard. Her wan face was raised to the sky, and a baleful light shone in her eyes.
“Ay, I’ll swing for him,” she cried in a voice shrill with hysteria. “May the Lord deal wi’ him as he dealt wi’ me! And my own sister, too! Out on ye, ye strumpet! ’Twould sarve ye right if I stuck ye wi’ t’ same knife.”
With a clatter of ironshod boots, most of the frightened children stampeded out of the stable yard. Martin, to whom Angèle clung in speechless fear, and the two Beckett-Smythes alone were left.
The din of steam organ and drums, the ceaseless turmoil of the fair, the constant fusillade at the shooting gallery, and the bawling of men in charge of the various sideshows, had kept the women’s shrieks from other ears thus far. But Kitty Thwaites, though almost shocked out of her senses, gained strength from the imminence of peril. Springing up from the path just in time to avoid the vengeful oncoming of her sister, she staggered toward the hotel and created instant alarm by her cries of “Murder! Help! George Pickering has been stabbed!”
A crowd of men poured out from bar and smoking-room. One, who took thought, rushed through the front door and snatched a naphtha lamp from a stall. Meanwhile, the three boys and the girl on the other side ofthe hedge, seeing and hearing everything, but unseen and unheard themselves, took counsel in some sort.
“I say,” Ernest Beckett-Smythe urged his brother, “let’s get out of this. Father will thrash us to death if we’re mixed up in this business.”
The advice was good. Frank forgot his dizziness for the moment, and the two raced to secure their bicycles from a stall-holder’s care. They rode away to the Hall unnoticed.
Martin remained curiously quiet. All the excitement had left him. If Elmsdale were rent by an earthquake just then, he would have watched the toppling houses with equanimity.
“I suppose you don’t wish to stop here now?” he said to Angèle.
The girl was sobbing bitterly. Her small body shook as though each gulp were a racking cough. She could not answer. He placed his arm around her and led her to the gate. While they were crossing the yard the people from the hotel crowded into the garden. The man with the lamp had reached the back of the house across the bowling green, and a stalwart farmer had caught Betsy Thwaites by the wrist. The blood-stained knife fell from her fingers. She moaned helplessly in disjointed phrases.
“It’s all overed now. God help me! Why was I born?”
Already a crowd was surging into the hotel through the front door. Martin guided his trembling companion to the right; in a few strides they were clear of the fair, only to run into Mrs. Saumarez’s German chauffeur.
He was not in uniform; in a well-fitting blue sergesuit and straw hat, he looked more like a young officer in mufti than a mechanic. He was the first to recognize Angèle, and was so frankly astonished that he bowed to her without lifting his hat.
“You, mees?” he cried, seemingly at a loss for other words.
Angèle recovered her wits at once. She said something which Martin could not understand, though he was sure it was not in French, as the girl’s frequent use of that language was familiarizing his ears with its sounds. As a matter of fact, she spoke German, telling the chauffeur to mind his own business, and she would mind hers; but if any talking were done her tongue might wag more than his.
At any rate, the man did then raise his hat politely and walk on. The remainder of the road between Elmsdale and The Elms was deserted. Martin hardly realized the pace at which he was literally dragging his companion homeward until she protested.
“Martin, you’re hurting my arm! What’s the hurry?... Did she really kill him?”
“She said so. I don’t know,” he replied.
“Who was she?”
“Kitty Thwaites’s sister, I suppose. I never saw her before. They were not bred in this village.”
“And why did she kill him?”
“How can I tell?”
“She had a knife in her hand.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps she killed him because she was jealous.”
“Perhaps.”
“Martin, don’t be angry with me. I didn’t mean anyharm. I was only having a lark. I did it just to tease you—and Evelyn Atkinson.”
“That’s all very fine. What will your mother say?”
The quietude, the sound of her own voice, were giving the girl courage. She tossed her head with something of contempt.
“She can say nothing. You leave her to me. You saw how I shut Fritz’s mouth. What was the name of the man who was killed?”
“George Pickering.”
“Ah. He walked down the garden with Kitty Thwaites.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. When I get in I can tell Miss Walker and Françoise all about it. They will be so excited. There will be no fuss about me being out. V’là la bonne fortune!”
“Speak English, please.”
“Well, it is good luck I was there. I can make up such a story.”
“Good luck that a poor fellow should be stabbed!”
“That wasn’t my fault, was it? Good-night, Martin. You fought beautifully. Kiss me!”
“I won’t kiss you. Run in, now. I’ll wait till the door opens.”
“ThenI’llkissyou. There! I like you better than all the world—just now.”
She opened the gate, careless whether it clanged or not. Martin heard her quick footsteps on the gravel of the short drive. She rattled loudly on the door.
“Good-night, Martin—dear!” she cried.
He did not answer. There was some delay. Evidently she had not been missed.
“Are you there?” She was impatient of his continued coldness.
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you speak, silly?”
The door opened with the clanking of a chain. There was a woman’s startled cry as the inner light fell on Angèle. Then he turned.
Not until he reached the “Black Lion” and its well-lighted area did he realize that he was coatless and hatless. Jim Bates had vanished with both of these necessary articles. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound! There would be a fearful row, and the thrashing would be the same in any case.
He avoided the crowd, keeping to the darker side of the street. A policeman had just come out of the inn and was telling the people to go away. All the village seemed to have gathered during the few minutes which had elapsed since the tragedy took place. He felt strangely sorry for Betsy Thwaites. Would she be locked up, handcuffed, with chains on her ankles? What would they do with the knife? Why should she want to kill Mr. Pickering? Wouldn’t he marry her? Even so, that was no reason he should be stabbed. Where did she stick him? Did he quiver like Absalom when Joab thrust the darts into his heart?