CHAP.

Produced by Al Haines.

[Illustration: Dust cover art]

[Illustration: SHE HERSELF ... WAS THE CENTRAL FIGURE. _Page_ 118.]

[Illustration: Title page]

*THE

ADMIRAL'S

DAUGHTER*

*MARGARET

STUART

LANE*

HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

LONDON

Reprinted 1927 in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD.

at the University Press, Edinburgh

*CONTENTS*

CHAP.

I. THE 'FAIR RETURN'

II. GARTH HOUSE

III. A LETTER FROM KENSINGTON

IV. ROGER TREVANNION

V. 'MY LITTLE NIECE'

VI. A LADY IN WAITING

VII. SIMONE LEBLANC

VIII. HAUNTED COVE

IX. A MORNING VISIT

X. FOREBODING

XI. AUNT AND NIECE

XII. CHARITY'S LETTER

XIII. THE ESCORT

XIV. A HALT ON THE ROAD

XV. IN THE HARNESS ROOM

XVI. EXETER

XVII. AN EAST WINDOW

XVIII. THE SIGNAL

XIX. THE GAOL YARD

XX. ZACCHARY'S QUEST

XXI. DAWN

XXII. THE ROAD TO THE WEST

XXIII. HOME

XXIV. ELISE PASSES OUT

XXV. A FAMILY PARTY

XXVI. 'SUMER IS A-COMEN IN'

*CHAPTER I*

*THE *_*FAIR RETURN*_

Spring had come to the West Country, a joyous spring laden with soft

airs and odours of distant flowering lands, and filling the hearts of

men with a restless delight. It seemed impossible not to be happy, with

a blue sky flecked by little clouds running down to meet a blue sea, the

hedgerows gleaming with blackthorn, and the pink tips of the beeches

shining in the sun. Children were out in the copses, picking primroses;

farmers counted their lambs in the pasture, and down in the harbour

sailor boys watched the rising tide and were all impatience to be

aboard.

On the highest point of a headland to the west of the village of Garth a

youth was sitting, staring out on the Channel. A jutting ledge of rock,

with a tall boulder at its back, formed a natural chair of stone, and

from it the green sward dipped steeply to the cliff. The boy's long,

loosely set limbs, showing thin under the wrinkles of his knee breeches,

sprawled restlessly across the rocky seat; the heels of his riding boots

tore at the grass. In his fixed, seaward gaze there was nothing of the

expectancy and hope that marked the faces of the youths in the harbour

below. His eyes, that could be so merry, with gold lights dancing in

the brown, were sad and dark under the black lashes, and his mouth,

losing its shape of laughter, was set in hard lines. The world might be

full of glamour, but 'twas not for him; fortune and the hour were all

awry; he was out of tune with the spring. And when from the cobbled

streets below rose the sound of sailors singing, mingled with the noises

which to a practised ear betokened tide and time, the boy's black head

dropped, and with a smothered word he set his knees together and drew

his hands across his ears.

Sitting there he was unaware of the approach of light footsteps along a

narrow path that wound over the headland, and only when a hand tapped

his shoulder did he raise his head.

'Marion!' he said, springing to his feet, a smile banishing his dark

looks; 'where have you been all this time?'

The brown eyes, now all alight, met a pair of steady grey ones whose

owner dropped him a mock curtsey, then stood looking at him from head to

foot and back again.

'You are a most uncomfortable person to know, Roger,' she said. 'I

cannot keep the same impression of you two months together. You are

inches taller than when I saw you last; your shoulders bid fair to burst

your jacket seams; your eyebrows are several degrees blacker. I wish

you would determine what length you are going to be, and abide by it.'

The boy looked ruefully down at the long limbs, all unaware (as the girl

knew) how generously nature had dealt out her gifts to him, so that his

great size was carried with an easy grace.

'You'll have to bear with it, I fear,' he said, with a shyness that

always overcame him when considering his length and girth. 'I suppose

it comes of having tall forbears. Sit down and talk to me. What is in

that basket?'

'Bake-meats for your funeral, I judged, coming along. Ah! This is

good.'

The girl settled on the stone seat, folding her hands in her lap, and

turned her face to the sea. She did not at once begin to speak, and her

companion, knowing her ways, sat silent. He took the occasion to steal

one or two sidelong looks at the profile offered him, and in doing so

was assailed (not for the first time) by the disquieting thought that

his little playmate was altering fast. The chin was still a shade long,

the nose rather short, the mouth still drooped at the corners, the

freckles still over-ran the colourless skin: all the peculiarities which

Roger had not failed to bring to the owner's notice, whenever an

opportunity offered itself during the last ten years, were without doubt

unchanged. According to Marion, Roger's progress towards manhood was

measurable in square feet. Her own advancing womanhood was much less

tangible a growth. Stealthily eyeing the averted face, Roger found

himself at a loss to define the change, and not being given to habits of

analysis, he left the mystery unsolved.

For a while the girl watched the sea-gulls flashing in the sunlight;

then turned to her companion.

'This is good,' she repeated. 'For the first time for six weeks I feel

free. All this age I have been in attendance on Aunt Keziah. She left

us yesterday, you know, and before she went she must needs turn the

house topsy-turvy. Curnow has been at her wits' end. My aunt had the

guest-chamber hangings down, and discovered a flaw in the gold stitch;

and nothing must serve but that Elise and I should sit with our

needles--and--in all this lovely weather--and go over the whole pattern.

And then, after that--oh la! I won't talk about it. That is where I've

been. And you?'

'Lambs,' said the young man shortly. 'Calves, pigs, chickens. Twenty

acres ploughed.' The unhappy expression came into his face.

The girl's grey eyes rested on him a moment. 'Still the same?' she

asked, her voice soft.

Roger looked at her and looked away again to the sea, making no reply.

His companion waited, sitting motionless. Twenty times in his growing

manhood he had tried to shut the door on his sorrows, and twenty times

it had opened at the sound of those gentle tones.

'I do not know how long I can go on bearing it,' he said, after a time.

'Last night I spoke to my mother again, and she wept and begged me to

wait another little while ... gave me once more, as if I should

forget--or as if it could make any difference--the story of my father's

drowning. For that matter, what sailor would wish to die abed? But

women can never understand that.' Roger poked the grass with his holly

stick and went on, not seeing the look of mingled pity and amusement

that ran across his hearer's face. 'Do you know that down yonder in the

harbour is the _Fair Return_, put in from Plymouth, outward bound

for--oh--the other end of the world. They are picking up Jack Poole

here. _Jack Poole_. And here am I, my father's son, who had sailed to

the Indies and back before he was my age; and I am--a prosperous young

farmer. Bah! Did you see her, the _Fair Return_?'

'I did.'

'I cannot bear to see her set sail, and I cannot bear not to. That is

why I am up here. In another hour the tide will turn and she will go.

I cannot bear to look at the sea, even, and I cannot bear not to. All

my life slipping away from me. Pigs, calves, lambs. Twenty acres

ploughed. And yonder'--the boy's eyes sought the west--'uncharted seas

to cross, lands to explore, fortunes to find; the great, great world. No

one knows how big the world is. And I shall never know because my

mother weeps and bids me wait--wait. Do you know what the sea is like

when it calls?'

The girl's face was turned away.

'Really, Roger,' she said lightly, after a moment's pause. 'How old are

you? I should know, for there are but twelve months between us.

Eighteen and a half, are you? And you say your life is slipping away.

You are truly laughable. You might be an old man of thirty. Patience,

Roger!' she went on, her voice deepening a little. 'What guarantee have

you from fate that what has happened must continue so to happen--that

life must needs go on for ever as it is now? Patience for another

little while! Who knows what fortune, what great fortune, is awaiting

you? What adventure, what discoveries, what honours? And how worth

while the little waiting will have been! A ship seven times fairer than

the _Fair Return_--nay, seven ships. Seven uncharted seas to cross--nay,

seven worlds to sail round!' She laughed a brave little laugh, and the

youth turned his eyes from the sea and his discontent.... 'I should

like to shake you! Now come along with me to old Mother Poole's. I

have a dozen of eggs and one of Curnow's spiced cakes for her in this

basket, to comfort her somewhat for the departure of that rascal of a

son.'

Roger sprang to his feet and drew a long breath. 'And if I have seven

ships, they shall all be called Marion. You always put heart in me,

little Mawfy. You are wiser than I.'

The girl made a grimace. 'I feel as old as Aunt Keziah this minute, but

don't make me also feel I should wear cassock and bands, sir.'

Turning inland, the two walked slowly across the hill.

'So Mistress Penrock has gone away,' said Roger. 'I'm very glad. I am

mortally afraid of your Aunt Keziah, although I only saw her once, when

she was walking with the Admiral. Where is she going to stay now?'

'At Bath, where she says she will hear a little of the world, and not be

dependent on a news sheet. How we live in this monstrously dull hole

she cannot conceive. She said so her last night at supper.'

'And your father?'

'My father laughs at her. He loves to hear her talk. So does Elise,

although she and my aunt are sworn enemies'--Marion smiled--'But Aunt

Keziah has unsettled Elise a little, I think. Elise has a great

hankering after gaiety. Do you know, Roger, my father has written

asking my Aunt Constance to visit us from London. I have never seen

her, but like you with my Aunt Keziah, I am in terror of her already.

Aunt Keziah says (rather scornfully, I think, to hide her envy) that

Aunt Constance is one of the greatest ladies at Court.'

'Why did the Admiral ask her then?' innocently inquired Roger. 'Garth

is not the place for a Court beauty.'

'My father loves to be entertained. Apart from that, he thinks I am

growing up entirely lacking in the airs and graces that do become a

young lady,' said Marion demurely. 'And if my aunt will not come here,

perhaps I may go to her.'

'What! You go to London--you?'

'I, sir, I. Why not?'

Roger stood still and looked down at the mocking face, the black bars of

his eyebrows drawn together.

'I think the Admiral must be going mad! London! Pshaw! The

Court!--airs, graces, forsooth! Intrigues and ferments. Discontent

with the simple life you are so contented with now. Why cannot the

Admiral let well alone?'

Marion gave one of her father's sudden chuckles.

'You won't be here to see the result of my father's folly, you know.

You'll be out on the seven seas adventuring. What can the happenings

down here count for a sailor? Now, if you cannot hold that basket

carefully, give it to me.'

'I say the Admiral is mad,' said the young man again, kicking at the

stones in his path. 'What would the world be were one ten times a

sailor, without places like Garth and Marions living in them? 'Tis for

men to go abroad, and maids to stay at home--or, if one of you must go,

let Elise go, who has a craving for society, and to become an elegant

lady.'

'Yes, but, Roger, I am my father's daughter, and Elise is but his ward.

It is only fair that I should go first and Elise later. But all this is

idle talk. It may never happen at all. Look! is not that beautiful?'

The path had wound round the head of a copse that curled like a snake in

and out of the folds of the hills. For some time their eyes had been on

the trees and bushes of the glades, the primroses starring their path.

Suddenly, bearing round the edge of the wood, they were come in view of

the village and open harbour again, the cottages at the waterside

nestling in the soft haze, and beyond the twin headlands of the water

mouth, the sapphire bar of the sea. The young man looked once, but his

eyes were caught by the lines of the _Fair Return_, and with a pang he

turned his face inland again.

'Yes!' he said constrainedly. 'It is beautiful.' His keen gaze swept

the valley. 'Ah--look there--horsemen coming down the Bodmin Road.

What can be wanting in Garth?'

'Mother Poole will tell us,' said Marion. 'She knows everything.'

The fisherwife's cottage lay about a mile up the valley, and the two,

bearing down to it on narrow paths, lost for a time the sight of the

high road.

'See! There are the horsemen still!' exclaimed Marion when the prospect

widened again. 'They have turned into the lane. They are making for

Mother Poole's cottage. Oh Roger'--Marion gripped his arm--'surely,

surely 'tis nothing about Jack and that terrible rising. I thought it

was forgotten long ago.'

'The spies of Jeffreys never forget,' replied Roger quietly. 'And Jack

broke out of gaol, you remember. He is still in the eyes of the law a

prisoner. Brave lad, Jack! But if 'tis he they're after, with luck

they'll miss their man. He should be aboard by now, and Jeffreys will

need a long arm to catch Poole on the _Fair Return_ once past the mouth.

I think I'll just run down and see what they're about.'

'Roger'--Marion's hand tightened--'you cannot, you cannot. There are

six horsemen yonder, all armed. A word from you and they'll take you as

well.'

'I cannot let Jack be caught like a rat in a trap,' said Roger. 'Let go

my arm, Mawfy.'

At that moment the cottage door opened and a man in sailor's garb came

down the path. An old woman, her apron at her eyes, stood in the

doorway looking after him. Not till he reached the gate--perhaps

because the sadness of his mother's farewell dimmed his eyes--did he

become aware of the horsemen in the path. He gave one glance round, a

step backward, and then stood still. It was too late. In three minutes

the sorry little act was played out. A couple of the horsemen swung

from their saddles. Another covered the sailor with his carbine. The

old woman, running to her son's side, was roughly thrust away.

'No, Roger, no,' came Marion's whisper on the slope above, almost in

earshot of the group in the lane. 'No.' Both her hands, white at the

knuckles, gripped his sleeve, the boy dragging away from her. At that

moment the leader of the soldiers caught sight of the two above. The

young man's attitude and desire were clear to his eyes. A few low words

passed between the men. One set his horse at the slope and was

recalled; some urgency bade the group go on their way: one of the swift

decisions that serve to toss a straw into the balance of fate. They

turned their horses, the sailor running at the stirrup of his captor.

But the leader looked again, a searching look, at the motionless youth

on the slope. And as he cantered off, Marion dropped the arm she held

and stared after him, shivering slightly.

'I shall know him if I see him again, anyhow,' said Roger, smiling.

'Come, Mawfy, there's old Mother Poole sorely in need of comfort now.'

*CHAPTER II*

*GARTH HOUSE*

The little fishing village of Garth had two chief points of pride: its

harbour and the family of Penrock. And it was not the way of the

villagers to hide their light under a bushel. They wore their honours

with a flourish and imposed them on the public eye. Let a fishing

vessel manned by Devon men (the natural and first-hand enemies of the

Cornish) be driven before a sudden gale to take shelter in Garth

harbour, and her crew by so much as a glance doubt the superiority of

that harbour, then those unhappy sailors would find that the rocks

without the river mouth had been a kinder refuge. And no one knew

better than the fishing folk of Garth how the fortunes of the village

had for generations been linked with those of the grey, gabled house

nestling in its combe a mile up the valley.

They might rail at the 'Admur'l' as they liked; it was an affectionate

raillery. That lean, wooden-legged figure stumping about the terrace at

Garth House was their hearts' lord. Like the king, he could do no

wrong. Whether his eyes twinkled with merriment or took on that round,

unwinking stare which was a sign of anger, it was all one to the

villagers. They could as ill have spared sun and wind as the Admiral,

were he cross or hearty. In fact, if a week went by without a sight of

him 'down along,' they grew uneasy; and when his rosy face, with its

overhanging brows and huge nose, looking like that of a benevolent

eagle, peered in at their casements, and a deep voice--as of the sea

heard through a fog--boomed out a greeting, all would be well again.

His clumping tread heard on the cobblestones would bring the children

from the farther cottages with their fingers tugging their forelocks,

and crying, ''Ere be the Admur'l, Mother. Marnin', Admur'l'; and down

on the quay, 'Will 'ee be telling us now, Admur'l, what so be's wrong

with they ropes? Un don't knot like as they belong to do.'

Had the Admiral by some miracle been able to change the flagstones of

his terrace for the decks of a ship, all Garth would have flocked to his

standard. But the Admiral's fighting days were over. He had seen his

last shot fired in an engagement with the Dutch, twenty years earlier,

and few Garth seamen had cared to enlist in another's service. Fishing

was now the villagers' daily employment, fighting roving French Channel

pirates their recreation. And if sometimes their little craft ran up

the river with cargoes of a more mysterious nature than the harvest of

the sea, the wise Admiral was sure to know nothing about it.

For that matter, in these days he had ample for his employment. There

were the affairs of the parish over which, with Parson Stowe at his

elbow as chancellor, he cast an imperial eye. He was a county

magistrate, and since the Restoration that had been no easy office.

There were the lands and farming of Garth to supervise. Moreover, since

the death of my lady, now ten years ago, he had been father, mother, and

tutor to his little daughter Marion.

The Admiral had always been a headstrong, self-willed man, hard to move

except (as his wife knew) by love, or (as his servants knew) by

laughter. And when my lady died--leaving him harder stricken by the

blow than folk knew--he would consider no plans but his own for the

upbringing of his little daughter. The two were constantly together;

the child, with her solemn white little face which could suddenly break

into heartening laughter--a trick inherited from her father--running

backwards and forwards from the length of his hand as they walked about

the garden or watched the men busy in the fields; the child sitting at a

high chair by her father's place at table, struggling with the food he

piled on her plate at dinner, or at supper eating her bread and milk

from the silver bowl that bore her mother's name. Every night the

Admiral stumped upstairs to kiss her face on the pillow and draw the

curtains close, his 'good-night' booming on the stairs after he had

closed the door with something of the thunder of the tides on the

headlands below.

The first few months after my lady's death passed thus. Then the

relatives of the Admiral begged to be allowed--as they thought--to come

to the rescue. First the Admiral's two sisters, then various cousins,

offered to come to Garth and mother the motherless maid for him. The

Admiral made short work of it, answering each with a blank refusal. The

refusal sufficed for all except one: Mistress Keziah Penrock, a maiden

lady living at Exeter in a great rambling house that had been built by

an eccentric maternal grandfather in the shadow of old Rougemont Castle.

A correspondence lasting for some months ran between the pair, the lady

holding up the prospect of 'civilisation' in the Cathedral town in

contrast with the savage state of a remote Cornish village. In the end,

Mistress Keziah, losing her temper, wrote a letter which the wise

Admiral left unanswered, knowing that in no way would the last word be

said quite so effectively as in silence. Meantime half a year had run

on and little Marion was still untended.

The parson, hearing rumour of this from Mrs. Curnow, the housekeeper,

ventured to come up and argue the point with his patron over a game of

piquet. But the Admiral listened only to the first few words.

'Let her be brought up well or ill,' he said, laying down his cards and

fixing the parson with an unwinking, parrot-like stare, 'she bides here

alone with me. The matter is settled. The housekeeper can teach her

her needle. There's Mistress Trevannion yonder who, I'll wager, will

know when she wants a new petticoat. You and I will see to her books.'

And that, Mr. Stowe found, was the end of the argument; but the Admiral,

roused (though he would not have confessed it) to the sense of his

child's needs, bestirred himself.

The carrier brought down from a book-stall at the sign of the _Three

Bibles_ on London Bridge, a box of school books, French and Latin. On

these volumes, which the small pupil turned over in unfeigned dislike,

the parson nodded approval. 'Must I learn all these?' asked Marion, her

mouth down at the corners. 'I had far rather play with you, Father.'

'And my daughter be brought up as unlearned as a kitchen-wench?'

retorted the Admiral.

The child pondered. 'Did my mother know all these books?' she asked.

'She did,' said the Admiral, his great voice breaking. 'She was wiser

than your father.'

Here the parson bethought himself. 'But the English reading, sir,' he

said. 'There's nothing here but foreign tongues.'

His patron pointed to the two volumes that constituted his own library:

Hakluyt's Voyages and Plutarch's Lives. 'And there is the Bible and

Master Shakespeare's works in her mother's room above,' he said. 'If

she thrives not on these she thrives not at all.'

The lessons began, and brought with them a new and secret joy for the

Admiral. He had never been much of a school man, and his knowledge of

Latin and French grammar was slight. True, he spoke the French language

with ease, and failed not to hector the parson on the subject of accent;

but he soon found that in grammar he must needs be a pupil instead of

tutor, as he had originally stated to Mr. Stowe. The Admiral and

Marion, sitting side by side, conned their declensions together, the

seaman's double bass and the child's pipe blended. In this duet the

slender clear notes were so often drowned that the parson plucked up

courage to remonstrate.

'Sir,' he said, 'if you will not be silent, how can I hear the child

construe?'

The Admiral regarding him, his face growing purple with merriment, left

the table to splutter at his ease on the terrace. Certainly, whatever

the result might be for Marion, schooling was good for her father,

seeing that, in the pages of his grammar, and under the parson's solemn

eye, he found again the laughter he had lost.

Other matters went apace. With the help of the housekeeper and Mistress

Trevannion of the Manor House, the little girl learned not only to hem

her sheets, but to make those numerous 'stitches' in embroidery that

were her teacher's delight. Concerning this branch of her industry, it

being beyond his ken, the Admiral was disposed to be critical. Secretly

proud as he was of the little maid's skill, he became nevertheless

uneasy about the hours she must needs bend over her silks. To the

housekeeper's argument that all young ladies spent their time thus he

paid no heed save to 'Pish!' and 'Pshaw.' And one day when Mistress

Trevannion, thinking to win his approval, counted on her fingers the

stitches Marion had already learned--cross-stitch, tent-stitch, long and

short stitch, crewel and feather-stitch, tent-on-the-finger,

tent-on-the-frame, gold-stitch, fern-stitch, satin-stitch, and rosemary

stitch--the Admiral cried for mercy and vowed his brain was reeling.

'Enough,' he said, striking with his stick on the stone flags of the

hall. 'Let be. There are hangings and quilts and cushions in the house

to last my grandsons. And the child has already wrought me three

night-caps in such a device I dare not sleep in them for fear of dreams.

Let be. She may stitch, if stitch she must, at that satin sheet you

have just set in her frame. 'Twill last her, on and off, a lifetime.

But she shall do it when she pleases.'

Mrs. Trevannion was aghast at this heresy, but the Admiral had his way.

The work-stand holding Marion's 'wrought sheet'--a crimson quilt

embroidered with a pattern of flowers--was placed by the great chimney

in the hall, and the young lady took up her silks and laid them down as

she willed. Much more to her taste were her rides with Zacchary the

groom and Roger Trevannion, who from childhood days had been her

constant playfellow; the long mornings she and Roger spent with their

bows and arrows, shooting at targets set by the Admiral; her days in

Jack Poole's boat on the river, the fishing expeditions in Bob

Tregarthen's cutter; her afternoons spent in the garden on a pretence of

reading with her father. Once a week a tutor rode out from Bodmin to

teach her dancing and music. Next to the archery practice, in which

sport she was becoming unusually skilled, these lessons were Marion's

special delight, and were shared by Roger until he went to school at

Blundell's in Tiverton.

With Roger and her father, and kind Mistress Trevannion in the

background, Marion's life had been a happy one. Roger's going was a

sore blow, and would have saddened the autumn for her, had not fate put

up a finger to turn her thoughts in another direction.

Coming up from the village one morning, she found the house in a

commotion, the great travelling coach with its four horses out in the

courtyard, and Zacchary ready, as outrider, with the chestnut mare.

'Here a be!' called one of the stable boys to some one within, 'here be

Mistress Marion.'

Forthwith Marion was hastily summoned to her father's room, where Peter,

his man, was dressing him in his best clothes. A travelling cloak and a

couple of pistols lay on the bed.

'Father!' cried Marion, 'where are you going?'

Then the Admiral put Peter to the door, saying he would do very well

now, and took the maid upon his knee, pressing a kiss upon her troubled

face.

'It means this, sweetheart,' he said. 'I'm going to London. Yes, to

London, to bring some one back. A playmate for you, little one.'

He stroked her waving hair as he spoke, and kissed her again, the child,

as was her way, taking it very quietly, but opening her grey eyes wide.

'You remember what I told you about poor de Delauret?'

Marion nodded. More than once her father had related the incident of

his friendship for the French gentleman whom he had met on an expedition

to the Indies. They had begun as enemies and crossed swords; they had

ended by being sworn friends. De Delauret had nursed the Admiral

through a vile fever; the Englishman later on had saved his friend from

death at the hand of a rascal, who was for having his purse and jewelled

rapier. During the years of the Admiral's fighting life the two had

kept up a constant intercourse. Once the Admiral had gone to visit de

Delauret in his home in Brittany, and found the Frenchman in sore

trouble. His wife had just died and left him with an infant daughter,

and he himself was ailing.

'What shall I do,' says he, 'about the little one, should I die? My

Elise may be a great heiress through her mother's house. She will be

sought after, taken to Court. And, saving the King's Majesty, you know

what the Court of Louis is.'

The Admiral took the sick man's hand in his great one.

'You're not going to die,' says he. 'But, if you do, s'death, man!

I'll take your child, and my wife shall bring her up at Garth.'

So the compact was settled. M. de Delauret did not die. But he was

never again strong enough to travel, the Admiral later on was invalided;

so the two lost sight of each other, and the great friendship was

expressed only in occasional letters.

'And now poor de Delauret's gone,' said the Admiral, 'and wrote me a

letter before he died, reminding me of my promise. Three months the

letter has been in coming. Elise and her woman are in London. I must

hasten and fetch her at once. And I must see my lawyer in London so

that he can arrange the poor child's affairs with de Delauret's attorney

in Paris. That is the story, little one. Kiss me and let me go.'

Presently with a great bustle the Admiral was gone, Marion watching the

coach from the terrace and waving her handkerchief as the horses took

the corner by the church. Then she flung herself on the grass and burst

into tears.

'I shall hate her,' she said. 'I hate her now.'

But when the Admiral came back, a fortnight later, with the sallow,

frightened-looking little girl who was a year younger than Marion, she

was so much interested that she forgot all about the hating. Only when

there was another girl in the house did Marion realise how lonely it had

been before. Elise's gowns and cloaks, too, her boxes full of finery,

woke in Marion an instinct that had been sleeping. Nothing would serve

but the tailor must be ordered from Plymouth to make Marion some new

gowns. Marion's halting French and Elise's lisped English joined to

make a commotion in the house, just as Elise's maid, Victoire, conspired

with Mrs. Curnow the housekeeper to make the servants' quarters

unusually lively. The two children, adaptable as only the very young

are, soon learned each other's ways and became great friends.

'One thing is certain,' mused the Admiral, who, in truth, was the one to

be pitied, as he dragged his wooden leg in solitude about the garden,

'times are changed. Whether for good or ill we shall see.'

After a while, the Admiral concluded that 'good or ill' was beside the

mark. The results of the coming of his ward could not be so easily

assessed. The French girl brought a certain quality into the house

which was for Marion's improvement: racial touches, the stories of her

own land and coast, a new string of interests about which Marion's

thoughts began to twine themselves. On the other hand, there were

points in Elise's character that made the Admiral uneasy for his

daughter's sake. The French girl seemed to be lacking in the sense of

honour which, fully developed in Marion, was her father's pride. She

was not above petty deceptions; there ran a strain of secrecy through

her doings which her guardian, appearing not to notice, thoroughly

condemned. 'Any one would think she had something to hide,' he mused.

Had the Admiral been aware of the stories growing in the village and the

gossip in the servants' hall when Victoire was absent, he would have

been more uneasy still. But nothing came to his ears.

The household, if not greatly liking the French girl, tolerated her.

But there was one person in whom she inspired a profound distrust, and

that was Roger Trevannion. Roger took the innovation with bad grace

when he came home for his first holidays and found the Admiral's ward

installed at Garth, and was scarce better minded on the second (when he

brought his school friend, Dick Hooper, with him), thereby making

himself the object of much raillery from Marion. Dick Hooper, a

fair-faced, fair-haired youth, was the son of the Squire of St.

Brennion. Marion found the company of the two boys agreeably diverting

after the quieter life she had been leading with Elise. Her old headlong

rides were resumed in their company, Elise on these occasions absenting

herself, to the undisguised relief of two of the party. Bows and arrows

came out once more, and Roger forgave Marion for beating him by a yard

because Hooper was watching; and Roger's pride in Marion was unbounded.

As time went on, the Admiral could deceive himself no longer. He was

disappointed in the daughter of his friend. Many times he considered

whether it would not be wise to separate the two girls for a time,

sending one or the other on a round of visits among his kinsfolk. Then

he saw how untouched Marion was, how proof her nature was against any

contact, what a pleasant intercourse seemed to obtain between the two,

and he put the matter from him.

So months drifted into years. Marion grew up a tall, supple girl, but

without the promise of her mother's perfect beauty. 'Her'll never be so

lovely as my lady,' said the village. 'Wait,' said the mistress of the

Manor. 'Hair gold to russet. Her mother's poise of head and her

mother's neck and throat. A skin like curds. Her father's grey eyes

and the Penrock look. Wait.'

Not until the girl was nearly seventeen did the Admiral suddenly wake up

to realise that his 'little maid' was dangerously near womanhood. Also,

he could not hide from himself the fact that Elise, now the heiress of a

considerable estate in France (governed by Delauret's attorney) could

not for ever stay hidden in a Cornish village. Hazy ideas of the future

began to float about his mind, of his duty to these two young ladies in

his care. But with Marion's seventeenth birthday came the landing of

Monmouth at Lyme. The Admiral ceased to be a father and became a

loyalist magistrate.

With the spring of the following year, however, Mistress Keziah Penrock

came down with her coach and servants from Bath, and before she left,

did more than find holes in the guest chamber hangings. Time, and the

lady's curiosity about her niece, had healed the breach between brother

and sister. Thus, for the first time for twelve years, Mistress Keziah

visited the home of her childhood. In Marion she scarcely recognised

the little one she had seen before; but during her stay the shrewd eyes

had glimpses of depths of resolution and hardihood under the girl's

gentle demeanour that made the old woman grave. 'She'll go her own

way,' she mused. 'And whether 'tis a bid for sorrow or happiness 'twill

be just the same. Her mother's given her that sweetness, but she's a

Penrock.'

One night when 'the child,' as the Admiral persisted in calling his

daughter, was abed, Mistress Keziah hazarded to her brother a plan she

had conceived concerning her niece's future. A slight disappointment

had preceded the making of this plan. She had hoped Marion would be

affectionately inclined towards her and consent to coming to Exeter

awhile. But the lady, not realising in time that Marion was no longer a

child--indeed being the age when most girls in that period were either

married or embroidering their wedding clothes--had weighed a little too

heavily on her authority. She had said, 'Do this, my child,' where it

had been wiser to say 'Will you, my dear?' She was keen-sighted enough

to see that the girl would not come to her for her pleasure, and being

sincerely attached to her, decided to try other means of wresting her

from that beleaguered garrison which she was pleased to consider Garth

had become. Deciding the moment was good, she opened fire on the

Admiral.

'Let Marion go up to Constance a spell, or get Constance to come here.

A beautiful girl like that should not be married off-hand to a country

squire.'

'Married!' said the Admiral, aghast. 'Who's talking of marriage, pray?

Not the child herself?'

'Marion has never even thought of it,' said the lady quietly. 'That is

the way you have brought her up.'

'All the better,' replied the Admiral with a look of content. Then the

heavy brows drew down at an unaccustomed idea. 'Beautiful? Marion

beautiful? Nonsense!'

'It were just as well Marion did not hear you say so, or the men fishing

in the Channel for that matter,' icily remarked the lady.

The thought was new to the Admiral, who had long ago settled his mind to

the fact that however adorable his child might be, beauty was not her

lot.

'Her chin is a trifle long,' mused the lady, 'her nose a trifle short.

But somehow each makes the other right. 'Tis a straight little nose.

She has no colouring, it is true, and her hair is rather spoiled,

bleached in parts, through exposure to the sun. But she has the Penrock

eyes and air.' The lady drew herself up. She had been a noted beauty in

her youth.

The Admiral pish'd and pshaw'd at regular intervals during his sister's

recital. 'Why, even Elise says----' he began gravely, watching her.

'Elise!' cries Mistress Keziah, fanning herself with great energy. 'I

pray you, brother, do not mention that young person to me just now. I

have more to say about her anon. And now, sir,' rising and dropping a

state curtsey, 'I will bid you good night.'

And so the old lady swept off to her room.

Between Mistress Keziah and Elise there had been war from the beginning,

and only Marion's tact had saved an open breach before her aunt's visit

came to an end. The Admiral, watching the sparring of his sister and

his ward, and noting how shrewdly the young girl delivered her blows,

had been greatly entertained and amused. But the night before she left,

Mistress Keziah was closeted a long time with her brother, and when she

sought her own chamber the man's chuckles had ceased.

For a long time he sat smoking over the dying logs. Then as he rose and

knocked out his pipe, he looked at the portrait of his wife, hanging

above the mantelshelf.

'If thou hadst not gone, sweetheart,' he said, the grim old face

sorrowful, 'all this had been changed long ago.'

*CHAPTER III*

*A LETTER FROM KENSINGTON*

When Marion told, at supper, the story of Jack Poole's arrest, the

Admiral had no pity whatever to show. If there was one failing about

which he was merciless, it was a sympathy with the rebel cause. The

truth might be, as Marion guessed, that his heart was sore for Poole's

folly in joining Monmouth's standard, for Jack and Bob Tregarthen had

more nearly touched the inner circle of the life at Garth than any other

of the villagers; but he gave no sign of it.

'Poole has made his bed, and he must lie on it,' he said, slicing at the

collared head. 'And all the more pity for his mother.'

'And Charity Borlase,' softly put in Marion. 'Poor girl!'

'He not only made his bed,' remarked Elise, 'but he turned it when he

escaped from Bodmin gaol. 'Tis bad enough to make a bed, but to turn it

is sheer folly. Defying fate, I say.'

The lack of sympathy in the girl's tone nettled Marion. Indeed, the

words were more than unsympathetic; behind them seemed to lie a touch of

hardness, of calculated malice, as if on the whole Elise was pleased at

the fisher-lad's detention.

Marion's grey eyes looked hard at her across the table. Something had

lately seemed to emerge like a cloud that blurred her old regard for

Elise, an instinct, hitherto sleeping, rising to respond to her aunt's

criticism of her. And Marion was quite unaware that the sharp-eyed

French girl was conscious of a subtle change in the attitude of her

friend.

More than once Elise had heartily wished Mistress Penrock had never

darkened the doors of her guardian's house. She had had overmuch of

Aunt Keziah, more than Marion knew. Elise was genuinely fond of Marion.

She had never felt more attached to her than at the present moment, in

the relief of the elder lady's departure; but the demon lurking in her

heart nevertheless singled out Marion as a point of attack; and Elise

knew better than any one else just where to strike. Here was a chance

of paying back on the niece the snubs she had received from the aunt.

In the short silence that fell after Elise's remarks, Marion had a

sudden vision of the look her aunt would have cast on the speaker. How

nearly her own expression resembled that of the old lady at the time

Marion did not know, but Elise saw it and her mouth tightened. The

Admiral, with his sister's warnings fresh in his mind, glanced at his

ward sitting there in her elaborate gown that contrasted so much with

Marion's. (For though Marion had taken a keen interest in her gowns

since the French girl's arrival, she had a naturally simple and rather

austere taste.) The Admiral considered the girl afresh. It was not

that Elise's skin was unpleasantly sallow, or her features too sharp;

but there was something in the expression of the face that made it seem

so. As Mistress Keziah had said to her brother when he spoke of the

'poor girl's' looks, 'Tut, tut, brother, where are those sharp eyes of

yours? 'Tis not her face. Her face is well enough for a Frenchwoman.

All Frenchwomen are yellow. What's wrong with Elise's face is Elise.'

Though neither knew it, the same thought was passing through the mind of

father and daughter.

'It was a very great pity that Jack did not get aboard the _Fair Return_

sooner,' Marion went quietly on. 'She's bound for Virginia, I think, and

Jack would have been well out of the way.'

'So you are on his side, as well as Roger?'

Marion started and looked again, harder than ever, at Elise. The French

girl's face was set, and a malicious gleam shot from her eyes. The

Admiral gave a glance over his shoulder, but the servant was gone to the

buttery for more ale.

'I said not Roger was on his side,' said Marion, in her usual even

tones.

Elise, angrier than ever in the face of Marion's calm, threw all

discretion to the winds.

'But he would have tried to save him had you not stopped him.'

Here the Admiral turned his eagle look full on Elise. 'Not a word before

the servants,' he said sternly.

The man came in as he spoke, and filling his master's tankard took his

place behind his chair. A dark flush mounted to Elise's face, but she

said no more. Presently Peter placed the pudding and custards and went

out.

'Was there any one else with you when you saw Poole's arrest?' suddenly

asked the Admiral of his ward. He had been thinking a little while

Marion, in her tranquil way, showing no sign of uneasiness, had gone on

talking of ordinary affairs.

Elise, taken off her guard by an unexpected question, stammered

slightly. 'I, sir? I never said...' Then faced by her guardian's

penetrating eye. 'No, sir.'

The Admiral 'humphed' and turned to the pudding. Marion was silent.

Then after a pause, in ominously quiet tones he spoke again. 'Tell us

once more exactly what passed, Marion.'

The colour came and went in Marion's face as she obeyed. 'It was not

that Roger was on anybody's side, sir,' she said at the finish. 'But

Roger always had a great kindness for Jack, as I truly have, as we all

have, and he was thinking of the boy, not the party.'

'Of course, of course,' came the Admiral's deep voice in hearty assent.

'Roger Trevannion cares neither for Rebel nor Loyalist, Catholic nor

Protestant. All he cares for is to be a sailor.'

Her father's words at once dispelled Marion's lurking fears concerning

his attitude to Roger, and her face relaxed a little. Then looking up

at Elise she saw a peculiar expression in her eyes, and a dim sense of

foreboding assailed her.

There was silence for a few minutes. The man at the head of the table

was wearing a look his fellows on the bench knew well. His eyes grew

round and hard, as if he had borrowed blue granite marbles for the

occasion. Marion, fearing a storm, cast about for some excuse to leave

the table. While she was pondering, her father spoke.

'What I cannot understand, Elise,' he said, obviously trying to soften

his voice, 'is how your father's daughter comes to have such ways. He

was never crooked. He could not be. You know full well, as well as I,

the truth of what I have just said concerning the direction of Roger's

interests. You are shrewd enough.'

The ugly colour flushed the girl's sallow face again, but she said no

word.

The Admiral, staunch loyalist as he was known to be, lowered his voice

again, glancing at the closed doors. 'From what we have seen here of the

results of that miserable rising, you also know as well as I that such

words as you spoke of Roger, overheard by the domestics, breathed abroad

and strengthened, as is the way of idle tales, are enough to send the

lad to the gallows. Were you one of Jeffreys' agents, well and good.

Were you not of the family, well and good. All's fair in war, folk say.

But, out of idle malice to give away the life of one's own people--Roger

Trevannion is almost as my own son--s'death, girl!' the Admiral's fist

smote the table, and his voice slipped its leash, 'how comes a de

Delauret to act thus?'

Marion sat aghast, trembling.

'Father,' she implored, distressed and embarrassed at the outburst.

Never before had she heard the Admiral speak thus to his ward. But

before her father could say anything more, Elise rose from the table,

tears in her eyes.

'I am sorry to have offended you, sir,' she said. 'And if my presence is

irksome----'

The man stirred uneasily in his chair. He could never abide the sight

of women's tears.

'Tut, tut--there's no call for weeping. Sit down. We'll say no more

about it. Let us have some more of that pudding, Marion.'

Elise wiped her eyes on her lace handkerchief and pulled awkwardly at

its border.

'A little more conserve, Elise,' said Marion gently. ''Tis your

favourite, you know.'

The awkward moment passed. The Admiral poured out a little wine for the

ladies, and calling 'The King!' drained his own glass.

Presently Marion rose, and the two girls, leaving the Admiral to finish

his bottle, went into the hall, which served as a general sitting-room.

The little drawing-room above had never been used since my lady's death.

According to the wishes of the Admiral that apartment had never been

invaded by 'the children.' It remained exactly as in the last days of

its mistress, with the little card box and the sugar-plum box on the

small table by the high-backed chair, and the work frame with its

needle, now sadly rusted, where the fair fingers of the lady of Garth

had left it. The servants used lovingly to say that their master went

to pray there; and certainly he had been seen to come out with a

suspiciously dim look in his honest sailor's eyes.

The evening was soft and warm, full of spring airs, and the doors and

casements of the hall were set wide. Without a word Elise settled

herself in one of the broad mullioned window seats and took up the

embroidery of a petticoat she had in hand. Her mouth was tightly set,

her eyes over bright. Marion, her thoughts all criss-cross in her head,

like Elise's fancy stitches, sat down at the spinet. She found a relief

in drawing out the tinkling airs, and oddly to her as she sat came a dim

memory of her mother in a rose-coloured gown sitting on that same stool,

playing, when her little daughter, her 'sweet baby,' was taken in to

kiss her good night. A wave of loneliness surged over her, and finding

her fingers, turned her tunes into sad ones. For the first time she

realised that her aunt's presence, while appearing in the nature of a

trial, had been a support whose need she had only just begun to realise.

She suddenly felt very young, very inexperienced, very forlorn. There

was an indefinable change coming over the house, as shapeless as the

first wisps that fore-ran the grey sea fogs of the coast. The sad

tinkling airs went on and presently drew the Admiral from his bottle.

'Mawfy, Mawfy,' says he, pulling aside the curtain that hung over the

dining-room door, 'if you go on much longer I'll be calling to be

measured for my shroud.'

Marion smiled and turned into a livelier key but before she had played

many bars a door opened to admit Peter bearing a salver.

'A letter, sir,' he said. 'Zacchary found un waiting down to the

coaching house to Lostwithiel, sir.'

The Admiral gave a glance at the superscription, then broke the seals.

'Our fair Constance, if I mistake not. Let us see what she writes.'

In a few minutes he laid the letter down with a broad smile.

'None of the Penrocks can write,' he observed, 'and Connie was ever the

worst. Her brother has somewhat amended himself since he became his

daughter's fellow pupil, but Constance has not had that advantage.

Still, the letter has the great virtue of brevity. Read it, Mawfy.'

'Deere brother,' wrote the lady, 'the cumming of your letter was a grate

occation of rejoysing for me, I nott having scene your writing this

menny years. I am greaved to deny your wish to vissit Garth, but I doe

dessire that my littel neace Marion should comme and stay at my house

for a space. It will give me grate joy and somme to her I doupt not. I

will promisse shee is dressed,--Your trewly loving sister,