A week later Alwynne was sitting in a diminutive go-cart drawn by a
large pony, and driven by a large lady with a wide smile and bulgy
knees, with which, as the little cart jolted over the stony road, she
unconsciously nudged Alwynne, imparting an air of sly familiarity to her
pleasant, formal talk. This, Alwynne supposed, was Alicia. She liked
her, liked her fat kind face, her comfortable rotundity, and her sweet
voice. She liked her cool disregard of her own comical appearance,
wedged in among portmanteaux and Alwynne and a basket of market produce,
with an old sun-hat tied bonnet-fashion to shade her eyes, and her scarf
ends fluttering madly, as she thwacked and tugged at the iron-mouthed
pony.
She was more than middle-aged, a woman of flopping draperies and
haphazard hookings, and scatter-brained grey locks, that had been a
fringe in the days of fringes. She moved, as Alwynne noticed later, like
a hurried cow, and tripped continually over her long skirts. Yet, in
spite of her ramshackle exterior, she was not ridiculous. The good-men
and stray children they encountered greeted her with obvious respect.
Alwynne, comparing the keen eyes and their cheerful crowsfeet, with the
chin, firm enough in its cushion of fat, guessed her the ruling spirit
of the Dene household, and wondered why she had not married a vicar.
But Alicia, though Alwynne listened politely to her flow of talk, and
answered prettily when she must, did not long occupy her attention.
She was in her own country again. She loved the country--woods, fields,
hedges and lanes--as she loved no city or sea-town of them all. London,
Paris, Rome--Swiss mountains or Italian lakes--she would have given
them all for Kent and Hampshire and the Sussex Weald. But Clare would
never hear of a country holiday. Alwynne took deep breaths of the clean,
kindly air, and wondered to herself that she had taken the proposal of
her holiday so dully. She had not realised that she was going into the
country--she had not realised anything, except that she was tired, and
that Elsbeth would not leave her alone. She had shrunk painfully from
the idea of meeting strangers, from the exertion of accommodating
herself to them. But this good air made one feel alive again....
She stared over the pony's ears at the gay spring landscape.
"Those are the Dene fields," said Alicia, following her glance. "There
are two Denes, you know--Dene Village and Dene Fields. There's a couple
of miles between them. We are in the hollow, where the road dips, at the
foot of Witch Hill."
"Witch Hill?"
Alicia flourished her whip at the sky-line. The fields were spread over
the hillside in sections of chocolate and magenta and silver-green, with
here and again a parti-coloured patch, where oats and dandelions,
pimpernel and sky-blue flax choked and strangled on an ash-heap. From
the slopes Witch Hill lifted a brow of blank white chalk, crowned and
draped in woodland, lying against pillows of cloud, for all the world
like a hag abed, knees hunched, and patchwork quilt drawn up to ragged
eyebrows. Round her neck the road wound like a silver riband; looped,
dipped, disappeared, for two unfenced miles--to flash into view but a
parrot's flight away, and swerve, with a steep little rush, round a
house with French windows thatched in yellow jessamine.
Alwynne's eyes lit up.
"What a good name! Who was she before she was turned into that?" She
stopped, flushing. Alicia would think her stupid.
Alicia laughed pleasantly.
"Do you like fairy tales? You've come to the right place--the
country-side's full of them. There's a fairy fort--Roman I suppose,
really, and a haunted barn out beyond Dene Compton, besides Witch Hill
and the Witch Wood just behind our house. There's a story, of course. I
don't know it--you must ask Roger. He's always picking up stories."
"Roger?"
"My nephew, Roger Lumsden. Hasn't Elsbeth----?"
"Oh yes, of course."
"He's away just now. Look, now you can see the house properly."
"Behind the hill?" Alwynne had caught sight of a group of buildings
crowning a secondary slope.
"No, no--that's the school, Dene Compton."
"A school?" Alwynne screwed up her eyes to look at it. "What a big
place! Girls or boys?"
"Both."
"Oh! A board school!" Alwynne's interest flagged.
"Scarcely!" Alicia laughed. "Haven't you heard of Dene Compton? And you
a school-mistress!"
Alwynne was politely blank.
"The thin end of the co-educational wedge. It's unique--or was, till a
few years ago. There are several now, dotted about England. You ladies'
seminaries should be trembling in your shoes."
"Boys and girls! What a mad idea! Yes, I believe Clare--I believe I did
hear something about it. It's all cranks and simple lifers and
socialists though, isn't it?"
"You'd better come up one day and see. I'll take you."
"Why, do you know them?"
"I teach there."
"You? Oh--I beg your pardon," cried Alwynne strickenly.
Alicia laughed.
"I'm accustomed to it. Jean will be delighted with an ally. She
pretends to disapprove. But Roger and I are generally too much for her."
"Is he a master, then?"
"Good gracious, no! But he has a lot of friends at the school. He ought
to be interested--it's his land, you know. His people lived there for
generations--the Lumsdens of Dene Compton. The head master has the old
house, but the school itself is new--all those buildings you see. No,
not those--" Alwynne's eyes were caught by a glitter of glass
roofs--"those are Roger's houses. He's a gardener, you know. He lives
for his bulbs and his manures."
The tiny cart rocked as the pony bucketed down the dip of the road and
whirled it through the gates and up the short drive. Alwynne clutched
the inadequate rail.
"He will do it," said Alicia resignedly. "He wants his tea. There's
Jean. Mind the door."
She pulled up the rocketing pony as the ridiculous little door burst
open and Alwynne and her baggage were precipitated on to the gravel.
A little woman ran out from the porch.
"Are you hurt? It always does that. I'm always asking Alicia to tell
Bryce to take it to be seen to. Alicia--I shall speak to Roger if you
don't. My dear, I hope you haven't hurt yourself. That pretty frock--but
it will all brush off. And how is Elsbeth, and why didn't you bring her
with you? Come in at once and have some tea. Alicia has driven round to
the stables. It's Bryce's afternoon off."
Jean was a prim little red-haired woman, some years younger than Alicia,
with brisk ways, and a clacking tongue. She had Alwynne in a chair, had
given her tea, deplored her white looks, suggested three infallible
remedies, recounted their effect on her own constitution and Alicia's
and her nephew's, and, digressing easily, was beginning a detailed
history of Roger's health since, at the age of five or thereabouts, he
had come under her care, before Alwynne had had time to realise more
than that the room was very cheerful, Jean very talkative, and she
herself very, very tired. She could not help being relieved when Alicia
returned. Jean, with her neat dress and knowledgeable ways and little
air of apologising for her slap-dash elder, should, by all the rules,
have been the more reliable of the cousins. Yet Alwynne turned
instinctively to Alicia; and Alicia, spread upon a chair, fanning
herself cyclonically with her enormous hat, did not fail her.
"Jean! The child's as white as a sheet. You can ask about Elsbeth
to-morrow, and Roger will keep. Take her up to her room, leave her to
unpack and lie down in peace and quiet, and come back and give me my
tea. Supper's at seven, Alwynne. Take my advice and have a good rest.
There are plenty of books--oh, yes, I know all about your likes and
dislikes. Elsbeth's a talker too--on paper! Jean--if you're not down in
five minutes, I'll come and fetch you."
Alwynne, half an hour later, curled comfortably upon a sofa, in front of
a blazing fire, with a lazy hour before her and a Copperfield upon her
knee, thought that Alicia was a perfect dear. And Jean? Jean, pulling
out the sofa, poking the fire, pattering about her like a too
intelligent terrier--Jean was a dear too.... They were a couple of
comical dears.
And "The Dears" was Alwynne's name for them from that day on.