A MEETING AT ROSE COTTAGE
It had not taken Sara very long to cut a niche for herself in the
household at Sunnyside. In a dwelling where the master of the house was
away the greater part of the day, the mistress a chronic invalid, and
the daughter a beautiful young thing whose mind was intent upon
“colour” and “atmosphere,” and altogether hazy concerning the practical
necessities of housekeeping, the advent of any one possessing even
half Sara's intelligent efficiency would have been provocative of many
reforms.
Dick Selwyn, pushed to the uttermost limits of his strength by the
demands of his wide practice and by the nervous strain of combating his
wife's incessant fretfulness, quickly learned to turn to Sara for that
sympathetic understanding which had hitherto been denied him in his
home-life.
He had, of course, never again discussed with her his wife's incurable
self-absorption, as on the day of her arrival, when the painful scene
created by Mrs. Selwyn had practically forced him into some sort of
explanation, but Sara's quick grasp of the situation had infinitely
simplified matters, and by devoting a considerable amount of her own
time to the entertainment of the captious invalid, and thus keeping her
in a good humour, she contrived to save Selwyn many a bad half-hour of
recrimination and complaint.
Sara was essentially a good “comrade,” as Patrick Lovell had recognized
in the old days at Barrow Court, and instinctively Selwyn came to share
with her the pin-prick worries that dog a man's footsteps in this vale
of woe, learning to laugh at them; and even his apprehensions concerning
Molly's ultimate development and welfare were lessened by the knowledge
that Sara was at hand.
Molly herself seemed to float through life like a big, beautiful moth,
sailing serenely along, and now and then blundering into things, but
never learning by experience the dangers of such blunders. One day, in
the course of her inconsequent path through life, she would probably
flutter too near the attractive blaze of some perilous fire, just as
a moth flies against the flame of a candle and singes its frail, soft
wings in the process.
It was of this that Sara was inwardly afraid, realizing, perhaps more
clearly than the girl's overworked and sometimes absent-minded father,
the risks attaching to her temperament.
Of late, Molly had manifested a certain moodiness and irritability very
unlike her usual facile sweetness of disposition, and Sara was somewhat
nonplussed to account for it. Finally, she approached the matter by way
of a direct inquiry.
“What's wrong, Molly?”
Molly was hunched up in the biggest and shabbiest armchair by the fire,
smoking innumerable cigarettes and flinging them away half-finished. At
Sara's question, she looked up with a shade of defiance in her eyes.
“Why should anything be wrong?” she countered, obviously on the
defensive.
“I don't know, I'm sure,” responded Sara good-humouredly. “But I'm
pretty certain there is something. Come, out with it, you great baby!”
Molly sighed, smoked furiously for a moment, and then tossed her
cigarette into the fire.
“Well, yes,” she admitted at last. “There is--something wrong.” She rose
and stood looking across at Sara like a big, perplexed child. “I--I owe
some money.”
Sara was conscious of a distinct shock.
“How much?” she asked sharply.
“It's--it's rather a lot--twenty pounds!”
“Twenty pounds!” This was certainly a large sum for Molly--whose annual
dress allowance totaled very little more--to be in debt. “What on earth
have you been up to? Buying a new trousseau? Where do you owe it--Carr &
Bishop's?”--mentioning the principal draper's shop in Oldhampton.
“No. I--don't owe it to a shop at all. It's--it's a bridge debt!” The
confession came out rather hurriedly.
Sara's face grew grave.
“But, Molly, you little fool, you've no business to be playing bridge.
Where have you been playing?”
“Oh, we play sometimes at the studios--when the light's too bad to go on
painting, you know”--airily.
“You mean,” said Sara, “the artists' club people play?”
“Yes.”
Sara frowned. She knew that Molly was one of the youngest members of
this club of rather irresponsible and happy-go-lucky folk, and privately
considered that Selwyn had made a great mistake in ever allowing her to
join it. It embodied, as she had discovered by inquiry, some of the
most rapid elements of Oldhampton's society, and was, moreover, open to
receive as temporary members artists who come from other parts of the
country to paint in the neighbourhood. More than one well-known name had
figured in the temporary membership list, and, in addition, the name of
certain _dilettanti_ to whom the freedom from convention of the artistic
life signified far more that art itself.
“I don't understand,” said Sara slowly, “how they let you go on playing
until you owed twenty pounds. Don't you square up at the end of the
afternoon's play?”
“Yes. But I'd--I'd been losing badly, and--and some one lent me the
money.”
Molly flushed a bewitching rose-colour and appealed with big, pathetic
eyes. It was difficult to be righteously wroth with her, but Sara
steeled her heart.
“You'd no right to borrow,” she said shortly.
“No. I know I hadn't. But, don't you see, I thought I should be sure
to win it all back? I couldn't ask Dad for it. Every penny he can spare
goes on something that mother can't possibly do without,” added the girl
with unwonted bitterness.
The latter fact was incontrovertible, and Sara remained silent. In her
own mind she regarded Mrs. Selwyn as a species of vampire, sucking out
all that was good, and sweet, and wholesome from the lives of those
about her--even that of her own daughter. Did the woman realize, she
wondered, that instead of being the help all mothers were sent into the
world to be, she was nothing but a hindrance and a stumbling-block?
“I don't know what to do, I simply don't.” Molly's humble, dejected
tones broke through the current of Sara's thoughts. “You see, the worst
of it is”--she blushed even more bewitchingly than before--“that I owe
it to a _man_. It's detestable owing money to a man!”--with suppressed
irritation.
Two fine lines drew themselves between Sara's level brows. This was
worse than she had imagined.
“Who is it?” she asked, at last, quietly.
“Lester Kent.”
“And who--or what--is Lester Kent?”
“He's--he's an artist--by choice. I mean,” stumbled Molly, “that he's
quite well off--he only paints for pleasure. He often runs down from
town for a month or two at a time and takes out a temporary membership
for our club.”
“And he has lent you this money?”
“Yes”--rather shamefacedly.
“Well, he must be paid back at once. At once, do you understand? I will
give you the twenty pounds--you're not to bother your father about it.”
“Oh, Sara! You are a blessed duck!”
In an instant Molly's cares had slipped from her shoulders, and she
beamed across at her deliverer with the most disarming gratitude.
“Wait a moment,” continued Sara firmly. “You must never borrow from Mr.
Kent--or any one else--again.”
“Oh, I won't! Indeed, I won't!” Molly was fervent in her assurances.
“I've been wretched over this. Although”--brightening--“Lester Kent was
really most awfully nice about it. He said it didn't matter one bit.”
“Did he indeed?” Sara spoke rather grimly. “And how old is this Lester
Kent?”
“How old? Oh”--vaguely--“thirty-five--forty, perhaps. I really don't
know. Somehow he's not the sort of person whose age one thinks about.”
“Anyway, he's old enough to know better than to be lending you money
to play bridge with,” commented Sara. “I wish you'd give up playing,
Molly.”
“Oh, I couldn't!” coaxingly. “We play for very small stakes--as a
rule. But it _is_ amusing, Sara. And, you know this place is as dull
as ditchwater unless one does _something_. But I won't get into debt
again--I really won't.”
Molly had all the caressing charm of a nice kitten, and now that the
pressing matter of her indebtedness to Lester Kent was settled, she
relapsed into her usual tranquil, happy-go-lucky self. She rubbed her
cheek confidingly against Sara's.
“You are a pet angel, Sara, my own,” she said. “I'm so glad you adopted
us. Now I can go to the Herricks' tea-party this afternoon without
having that twenty pounds nagging at the back of my mind all the time. I
suppose”--glancing at the clock--“it's time we put on our glad rags. The
Lavender Lady said she expected us at four.”
Half-an-hour later, Molly reappeared, looking quite impossibly lovely
in a frock of the cheapest kind of material, “run up” by the local
dressmaker, and very evidently with no other thought “at the back of her
mind” than of the afternoon's entertainment.
The tea-party was a small one, commensurate with the size of the rooms
at Rose Cottage, and included only Sara and Molly, Mrs. Maynard, and, to
Sara's surprise, Garth Trent.
As she entered the room, he turned quietly from the window where he had
been standing looking out at the Herricks' charming garden.
“Mr. Trent”--Miss Lavinia fluttered forward--“let me introduce you to
Miss Tennant.”
The Lavender Lady's pretty, faded blue eyes beamed benevolently on him.
She was so _very_ glad that “that poor, lonely fellow at Far End” had at
last been induced to desert the solitary fastnesses of Monk's Cliff,
but as she was simply terrified at the prospect of entertaining him
herself--and Audrey Maynard seemed already fully occupied, chatting with
Miles--she was only too thankful to turn him across to Sara's competent
hands.
“We've met before, Miss Lavinia,” said Trent, and over her head his
hazel eyes met Sara's with a gamin amusement dancing in them. “Miss
Tennant kindly called on me at Far End.”
“Oh, I didn't know.” Little Miss Lavinia gazed in a puzzled fashion from
one to the other of her guests. “Sara, my dear, you never told me that
you and Dr. Selwyn had called on Mr. Trent.”
Sara laughed outright.
“Dear Lavender Lady--we didn't. Neither of us would have dared to insult
Mr. Trent by doing anything so conventional.” The black eyes flashed
back defiance at the hazel ones. “I got caught in a storm on the
Monk's Cliff, and Mr. Trent--much against his will, I'm
certain”--maliciously--“offered me shelter.”
“Now that was kind of him. I'm sure Sara must have been most grateful to
you.” And the kind old face smiled up into Trent's dark, bitter one so
simply and sincerely that it seemed as though, for the moment, some of
the bitterness melted away. Not even so confirmed a misanthrope as the
hermit of Far End could have entirely resisted the Lavender Lady, with
her serene aroma of an old-world courtesy and grace long since departed
from these hurrying twentieth-century days.
She moved away to the tea-table, leaving Trent and Sara standing
together in the bay of the window.
“So you are overcoming your distaste for visiting,” said Sara a little
nervously. “I didn't expect to meet you here.”
His glance held hers.
“You wished it,” he answered gravely.
A sudden colour flamed up into the warm pallor of her skin.
“Are you suggesting I invited you to meet me here?” she responded,
willfully misinterpreting him. She shook her read regretfully. “You must
have misunderstood me. I should never have imposed such a strain on your
politeness.”
His eyes glinted.
“Do you know,” he said quietly, “that I should very much like to shake
you?”
“I'm glad,” she answered heartily. “It's a devastating feeling! You made
me feel just the same the day I travelled with you. So now we're quits.”
“Won't you--please--try to forget that day in the train?” he said
quickly. “I behaved like a bore. I'm afraid I've no real excuse to
offer, except that I'd been reminded of something that happened long
ago--and I wanted to be alone.”
“To enjoy the memory in solitude?” hazarded Sara flippantly. She was
still nervous and talking rather at random, scarcely heeding what she
said.
A look of bitter irony crossed his face.
“Hardly that,” he said shortly, and Sara knew that somehow she had again
inadvertently laid her hand upon an old hurt. She spoke with a sudden
change of voice.
“Then, as the train doesn't hold pleasant memories for either of us,
let's forget it,” she suggested gently.
“Do you know what that implies?” he asked. “It implies that you are
willing to be friends. Do you mean that?”--incisively.
She nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.
“Thank you,” he said curtly, and then Audrey Maynard's gay voice broke
across the tension of the moment.
“Mr. Trent, I simply cannot allow Sara to monopolize you any longer. Now
that we _have_ succeeded in dragging the hermit out of his shell, we all
want a share of his society, please.”
Trent turned instantly, and Sara slipped across the room and took the
place Audrey had vacated by Miles's couch. He greeted her coming with a
smile, but there were shadows of fatigue beneath his eyes, and his lips
were rather white and drawn-looking.
“This is a lazy way to receive visitors, isn't it?” he said
apologetically. “But my game leg's given out to-day, so you must forgive
me.”
Sara's glance swept his face with quick sympathy.
“You oughtn't to be at the 'party' at all,” she said. “You look far too
tired to be bothered with a parcel of chattering women.”
He smiled.
“Do you know,” he whispered humorously, “that, although you're quite the
four nicest women I know, the shameful truth is that I'm really here on
behalf of the one man! I met him yesterday in the town and booked him
for this afternoon, and, having at last dislodged him from his lone
pinnacle, I hadn't the heart to leave him unsupported.”
“No. I'm glad you dug him out, Miles. It was clever of you.”
“It will give Monkshaven something to talk about, anyway”--whimsically.
“I suppose”--the toe of Sara's narrow foot was busily tracing a pattern
on the carpet--“I suppose you don't know why he shuts himself up like
that at Far End?”
“No, I don't,” he answered. “But I'd wager it's for some better reason
than people give him credit for. Or it may be merely a preference for
his own society. Anyway, it is no business of ours.” Then, swiftly
softening the suggestion of reproof contained in his last sentence, he
added: “Don't encourage me to gossip, Sara. When a man's tied by the
leg, as I am, it's all he can do to curb a tendency towards tattling
village scandal like some garrulous old woman.”
It was evident that the presence of visitors was inflicting a
considerable strain on Herrick's endurance, and, as though by common
consent, the little party broke up shortly after tea.
Molly expressed her intention of accompanying Mrs. Maynard back to
Greenacres--the beautiful house which the latter had had built to her
own design, overlooking the bay--in order to inspect the pretty widow's
recent purchase of a new motor-car.
Trent turned to Sara with a smile.
“Then it devolves on me to see you safely home, Miss Tennant, may I?”
She nodded permission, and they set off through the high-hedged lane,
Sara hurrying along at top speed.
For a few minutes Trent strode beside her in silence. Then:
“Are you catching a train?” he inquired mildly. “Or is it only that you
want to be rid of my company in the shortest possible time?”
She coloured, moderating her pace with an effort. Once again the odd
nervousness engendered by his presence had descended on her. It was
as though something in the man's dominating personality strung all
her nerves to a high tension of consciousness, and she felt herself
overwhelmingly sensible of his proximity.
He smiled down at her.
“Then--if you're not in any hurry to get home--will you let me take you
round by Crabtree Moor? It's part of a small farm of mine, and I want a
word with my tenant.”
Sara acquiesced, and, Trent, having speedily transacted the little
matter of business with his tenant, they made their way across a stretch
of wild moorland which intersected the cultivated fields lying on either
hand.
In the dusk of the evening, with the wan light of the early moon
deepening the shadows and transforming the clumps of furze into strange,
unrecognizable shapes of darkness, it was an eerie enough place. Sara
shivered a little, instinctively moving closer to her companion. And
then, as they rounded a furze-crowned hummock, out of the hazy twilight,
loping along on swift, padding feet, emerged the figure of a man.
With a muttered curse he swerved aside, but Trent's arm shot out, and,
catching him by the shoulder, he swung him round so that he faced them.
“Leggo!” he muttered, twisting in Trent's iron grasp. “Leggo, can't
you?”
“I can, but I'm not going to,” said Trent coolly. “At least, not till
you've explained your presence here. This is private property. What are
you doing on it?”
“I'm doing no harm,” growled the man sullenly.
“No?” Trent passed his free hand swiftly down the fellow's body,
feeling the bulge of his coat. “Then what's the meaning of those rabbits
sticking out under your coat? Now, look here, my man, I know you. You're
Jim Brady, and it's not the first, nor the second, time I've caught you
poaching on my land. But it's the last. Understand that? This time the
Bench shall deal with you.”
The man was silent for a moment. Then suddenly he burst out:
“Look here, sir, pass it over this time. My missus is ill. She's mortal
bad, God's truth she is, and haven't eaten nothing this three days past.
An' I thought mebbe a bit o' stewed rabbit 'ud tempt 'er.”
“Pshaw!” Trent was beginning contemptuously, when Sara leaned forward,
peering into the poacher's face.
“Why,” she exclaimed. “It's Brady--Black Brady from Fallowdene.”
Ne'er-do-well as he was, the mere fact that he came from Fallowdene
warmed her heart towards him.
“Yes, miss, that's so,” he answered readily. “And you're the young lady
what used to live at Barrow Court.”
“Do you know this man?” Trent asked her.
“'Bout as well as you do, sir,” volunteered Brady with an impudent
grin. “Catched me poachin' one morning. Fired me gun at 'er, too, I did,
to frighten 'er,” he continued reminiscently. “And she never blinked.
You're a good-plucked 'un, miss,”--with frank admiration.
Sara looked at the man doubtfully.
“I didn't know you lived here,” she said.
“It's my native village, miss, Monks'aven is. But I didn't think 'twas
too 'healthy for me down here, back along”--grinning--“so I shifted to
Fallowdene, where me grandmother lives. I came back here to marry Bessie
Windrake' she've stuck to me like a straight 'un. But I didn't mean to
get collared poachin' again. Me and Bess was goin' to live respectable.
'Twas her bein' ill and me out of work w'at did it.”
“Let him go,” said Sara, appealing to Trent. But he shook his head.
“I can't do that,” he answered with decision.
“Not 'im, miss, 'e won't,” broke in Brady. “'E's not the soft-'earted
kind, isn't Mr. Trent.”
Trent's brows drew together ominously.
“You won't mend matters by impudence, Brady,” he said sharply. “Get
along now”--releasing his hold of the man's arm--“but you'll hear of
this again.”
Brady shot away into the darkness like an arrow, probably chortling
to himself that his captor had omitted to relieve him of the brace of
rabbits he had poached; and Sara, turning again to Trent, renewed her
plea for clemency.
But Trent remained adamant.
“Why shouldn't he stand his punishment like any other man?” he said.
“Well, if it's true that his wife is ill, and that he has been out of
work--”
“Are you offering those facts as an excuse for dishonesty?” asked Trent
drily.
Sara smiled.
“Yes, I believe I am,” she acknowledged.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Like nine-tenths of your sex, you are fiercely Tory in theory and a
rank socialist in practice,” he grumbled.
“Well, I'm not sure that that isn't a very good working basis to go on,”
she retorted.
As they stood in the porch at Sunnyside, she made yet one more effort
to smooth matters over for the evil-doer, but Trent's face still showed
unrelenting in the light that streamed out through the open doorway.
“Ask me something else,” he said. “I would do anything to please you,
Sara, except”--with a sudden tense decision--“except interfere with the
course of justice. Let every man pay the penalty for his own sin.”
“That's a hard creed,” objected Sara.
“Hard?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps it is. But”--grimly--“it's
the only creed I believe in. Good-night”--he held out his hand abruptly.
“I'm sorry I can't do as you ask about Jim Brady.”
Before Sara could reply, he was striding away down the path, and a
minute later the darkness had hidden him from view.