fallen to us to try it, for of course it simply had to be tried. It
is thrillingly interesting, whatever it may turn out, and I wish I
might live to see the end of it. We are creating a race, Aunt de
Tracy; think of that!"
"It's as difficult for nations as for individuals to hit the happy
medium," said Lavendar, stirring the fire. "Enterprise carried too far
becomes vulgar hustling, while stability and conservatism often pass
the coveted point of repose and degenerate into torpor."
"This part of England seems to me singularly free from faults,"
interposed Mrs. de Tracy in didactic tones. "We have a wonderful
climate; more sunshine than in any part of the island, I believe. Our
local society is singularly free from scandal. The clergy, if not
quite as eloquent or profound as in London (and in my opinion it is
the better for being neither) is strictly conscientious. We have no
burglars or locusts or gnats or even midges, as I'm told they
unfortunately have in Scotland, and our dinner-parties, though quiet
and dignified, are never dull.... What is the matter, Robinetta?"
"A sudden catch in my throat," said Robinette, struggling with some
sort of vocal difficulty and avoiding Lavendar's eye. "Thank you," as
he offered her a glass of water from the punctual and strictly
temperate evening tray. "Don't look at me," she added under her
voice.
"Not for a million of money!" he whispered. Then he said aloud: "If I
ever stand for Parliament, Mrs. Loring, I should like you to help me
with my constituency!"
The unruffled temper and sweet reasonableness of Robinette's answers
to questions by no means always devoid of malice, had struck the young
man very much, as he listened.
"She is good!" he thought to himself. "Good and sweet and generous.
Her loveliness is not only in her face; it is in her heart." And some
favorite lines began to run in his head that night, with new
conviction:--
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,--
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames will waste away.
But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined--
but here Lavendar broke off with a laugh.
"It's not come to that yet!" he thought. "I wonder if it ever will?"
X
A NEW KINSMAN
Young Mrs. Loring was making her way slowly at Stoke Revel Manor, and
Mrs. de Tracy, though never affectionate, treated her with a little
less indifference as the days went on. "The Admiral's niece is a
lady," she admitted to herself privately; "not perhaps the highest
type of English lady; that, considering her mixed ancestry and
American education, would be too much to expect; but in the broad,
general meaning of the word, unmistakably a lady!"
Mrs. Benson, though not melting outwardly as yet, held more lenient
views still with regard to the American guest. Bates, the butler, was
elderly, and severely Church of England; his knowledge of widows was
confined to the type ably represented by his mistress and he regarded
young Mrs. Loring as inclined to be "flighty." The footman, who was
entirely under the butler's thumb in mundane matters, had fallen into
the habit of sharing his opinions, and while agreeing in the general
feeling of flightiness, declared boldly that the lady in question gave
a certain "style" to the dinner-table that it had lacked before her
advent.
For a helpless victim, however, a slave bound in fetters of steel, one
would have to know Cummins, the under housemaid, who lighted Mrs.
Loring's fire night and morning. She was young, shy, country bred, and
new to service. When Mrs. Benson sent her to the guest's room at eight
o'clock on the morning after her arrival she stopped outside the door
in a panic of fear.
"Come in!" called a cheerful voice. "Come in!"
Cummins entered, bearing her box with brush and cloth and kindlings.
To her further embarrassment Mrs. Loring was sitting up in bed with an
ermine coat on, over which her bright hair fell in picturesque
disorder. She had brought the coat for theatre and opera, but as these
attractions were lacking at Stoke Revel and as life there was, to her,
one prolonged Polar expedition, with dashes farthest north morning and
evening, she had diverted it to practical uses.
"Make me a quick fire please, a big fire, a hot fire," she begged, "or
I shall be late for breakfast; I never can step into that tin tub till
the ice is melted."
"There's no ice in it, ma'am," expostulated Cummins gently, with the
voice of a wood dove.
"You can't see it because you're English," said the strange lady, "but
I can see it and feel it. Oh, you make _such_ a good fire! What is
your name, please?"
"Cummins, ma'am."
"There's another Cummins downstairs, but she is tall and large. You
shall be 'Little Cummins.'"
Now every morning the shy maid palpitated outside the bedroom door,
having given her modest knock; palpitated for fear it should be all a
dream. But no, it was not! there would be a clear-voiced "Come in!"
and then, as she entered; "Good morning, Little Cummins. I've been
longing for you since daybreak!" A trifle later on it was, "Good
Little Cummins bearing coals of comfort! Kind Little Cummins," and
other strange and wonderful terms of praise, until Little Cummins felt
herself consumed by a passion to which Mrs. de Tracy's coals became as
less than naught unless they could be heaped on the altar of the
beloved.
So life went on at Stoke Revel, outwardly even and often dull, while
in reality many subtle changes were taking place below the surface;
changes slight in themselves but not without meaning.
Robinette ran up to her room directly after breakfast one morning and
pinned on her hat as she came downstairs. Mark Lavendar had gone to
London for a few days, but even the dullness of breakfast-table
conversation had not robbed her of her joy in the early sunshine, made
more cheery by the prospect of a walk with Carnaby, with whom she was
now fast friends.
Carnaby looked at her beamingly as they stood together on the steps.
"You're the best turned-out woman of my acquaintance," he said
approvingly, with a laughable struggle for the tone of a middle-aged
man of the world.
"How many ladies of fashion do you know, my child?" enquired
Robinetta, pulling on her gloves.
"I see a lot of 'em off and on," Carnaby answered somewhat huffily,
"and they don't call me a child either!"
"Don't they? Then that's because they're timid and don't dare address
a future Admiral as Infant-in-Arms! Come on, Middy dear, let's walk."
Robinette wore a white serge dress and jacket, and her hat was a rough
straw turned up saucily in two places with black owls' heads. Mrs.
Benson and Little Cummins had looked at it curiously while Robinette
was at breakfast.
"'Tis black underneath and white on top, Mrs. Benson. 'Ow can that be?
It looks as if one 'at 'ad been clapped on another!"
"That's what it is, Cummins. It's a double hat; but they'll do
anything in America. It's a double hat with two black owls' heads, and
I'll wager they charged double price for it!"
"She's a lovely beauty in anythink and everythink she wears," said
Little Cummins loyally.
"May I call you 'Cousin Robin'?" Carnaby asked as they walked along.
"Robinette is such a long name."
"Cousin Robin is very nice, I think," she answered. "As a matter
of fact I ought to be your Aunt Robin; it would be much more
appropriate."
"Aunt be blowed!" ejaculated Carnaby.
"You're very fond of making yourself out old, but it's no go! When I
first heard you were a widow I thought you would be grandmother's
age,--I say--do you think you will marry another time, Cousin Robin?"
"That's a very leading question for a gentleman to put to a lady! Were
you intending to ask me to wait for you, Middy dear?" asked Robinette,
putting her arm in the boy's laughingly, quite unconscious of his
mood.
"I'd wait quick enough if you'd let me! I'd wait a lifetime! There
never was anybody like you in the world!"
The words were said half under the boy's breath and the emotion in his
tone was a complete and disagreeable surprise. Here was something that
must be nipped in the bud, instantly and courageously. Robinette
dropped Carnaby's arm and said: "We'll talk that over at once, Middy
dear, but first you shall race me to the top of the twisting path,
down past the tulip beds, to the seat under the big ash tree.--Come
on!"
The two reached the tree in a moment, Carnaby sufficiently in advance
to preserve his self-respect and with a colour heightened by something
other than the exercise of running.
"Sit down, first cousin once removed!" said Robinette. "Do you know
the story of Sydney Smith, who wrote apologizing to somebody for not
being able to come to dinner? 'The house is full of cousins,' he said;
'would they were "once removed"!'"
"It's no good telling me literary anecdotes!--You're not treating me
fairly," said Carnaby sulkily.
"I'm treating you exactly as you should be treated, Infant-in-Arms,"
Robinette answered firmly. "Give me your two paws, and look me
straight in the eye."
Carnaby was no coward. His steel-grey eyes blazed as he met his
cousin's look. "Carnaby dear, do you know what you are to me? You are
my kinsman; my only male relation. I'm so fond of you already, don't
spoil it! Think what you can be to me if you will. I am all alone in
the world and when you grow a little older how I should like to depend
upon you! I need affection; so do you, dear boy; can't I see how you
are just starving for it? There is no reason in the world why we
shouldn't be fond of each other! Oh! how grateful I should be to think
of a strong young middy growing up to advise me and take me about! It
was that kind of care and thought of me that was in your mind just
now!"
"You'll be marrying somebody one of these days," blurted Carnaby,
wholly moved, but only half convinced. "Then you'll forget all about
your 'kinsman.'"
"I have no intention in that direction," said Robinette, "but if I
change my mind I'll consult you first; how will that do?"
"It wouldn't do any good," sighed the boy, "so I'd rather you
wouldn't! You'd have your own way spite of everything a fellow could
say against it!"
There was a moment of embarrassment; then the silence was promptly
broken by Robinette.
"Well, Middy dear, are we the best of friends?" she asked, rising from
the bench and putting out her hand.
The lad took it and said all in a glow of chivalry, "You're the
dearest, the best, and the prettiest cousin in the world! You don't
mind my thinking you're the prettiest?"
"Mind it? I delight in it! I shall come to your ship and pour out tea
for you in my most fetching frock. Your friends will say: 'Who is that
particularly agreeable lady, Carnaby?' And you, with swelling chest,
will respond, 'That's my American cousin, Mrs. Loring. She's a nice
creature; I'm glad you like her!'"
Robinette's imitation of Carnaby's possible pomposity was so amusing
and so clever that it drew a laugh from the boy in spite of himself.
"Just let anyone try to call you a 'creature'!" he exclaimed. "He'd
have me to reckon with! Oh! I am so tired of being a boy! The inside
of me is all grown up and everybody keeps on looking at the outside
and thinking I'm just the same as I always was!"
"Dear old Middy, you're quite old enough to be my protector and that
is what you shall be! Now shall we go in? I want you to stand near by
while I ask your grandmother a favor."
"She won't do it if she can help it," was Carnaby's succinct reply.
"Oh, I am not sure! Where shall we find her,--in the library?"
"Yes; come along! Get up your circulation; you'll need it!"
"Aunt de Tracy, there is something at Stoke Revel I am very anxious to
have if you will give it to me," said Robinette, as she came into the
library a few minutes later.
Mrs. de Tracy looked up from her knitting solemnly. "If it belongs to
me, I shall no doubt be willing, as I know you would not ask for
anything out of the common; but I own little here; nearly all is
Carnaby's."
"This was my mother's," said Robinette. "It is a picture hanging in
the smoking room; one that was a great favorite of hers, called
'Robinetta.' Her drawing-master found an Italian artist in London who
went to the National Gallery and made a copy of the Sir Joshua
picture, and I was named after it."
"I wish your mother could have been a little less romantic," sighed
Mrs. de Tracy. "There were such fine old family names she might have
used: Marcia and Elspeth, and Rosamond and Winifred!"
"I am sorry, Aunt de Tracy. If I had been consulted I believe I should
have agreed with you. Perhaps when my mother was in America the family
ties were not drawn as tightly as in the former years?"
"If it was so, it was only natural," said the old lady. "However, if
you ask Carnaby, and if the picture has no great value, I am sure he
will wish you to have it, especially if you know it to have been your
mother's property." Here Carnaby sauntered into the room. "That's all
right, grandmother," he said, "I heard what you were saying; only I
wish it was a real Sir Joshua we were giving Cousin Robin instead of a
copy!"
"Thank you, Carnaby dear, and thank you, too, Aunt de Tracy. You can't
think how much it is to me to have this; it is a precious link between
mother's girlhood, and mother, and me." So saying, she dropped a timid
kiss upon Mrs. de Tracy's iron-grey hair, and left the room.
"If she could live in England long enough to get over that excessive
freedom of manner, your cousin would be quite a pleasing person, but I
am afraid it goes too deep to be cured," Mrs. de Tracy remarked as she
smoothed the hairs that might have been ruffled by Robinette's kiss.
Carnaby made no reply. He was looking out into the garden and feeling
half a boy, half a man, but wholly, though not very contentedly, a
kinsman.
XI
THE SANDS AT WESTON
"Thursday morning? Is it possible that this is Thursday morning? And I
must run up to London on Saturday," said Lavendar to himself as he
finished dressing by the open window. He looked up the day of the week
in his calendar first, in order to make quite sure of the fact. Yes,
there was no doubt at all that it was Thursday. His sense of time must
have suffered some strange confusion; in one way it seemed only an
hour ago that he had arrived from the clangour and darkness of London
to the silence of the country, the cuckoos calling across the river
between the wooded hills, and the April sunshine on the orchard trees;
in another, years might have passed since the moment when he first saw
Robinette Loring sitting under Mrs. Prettyman's plum tree.
"Eight days have we spent together in this house, and yet since that
time when we first crossed in the boat, I've never been more than half
an hour alone with her," he thought. "There are only three other
people in the house after all, but they seem to have the power of
multiplying themselves like the loaves and fishes (only when they're
not wanted) so that we're eternally in a crowd. That boy particularly!
I like Carnaby, if he could get it into his thick head that his
presence isn't always necessary; it must bother Mrs. Loring too; he's
quite off his head about her if she only knew it. However, it's my
last day very likely, and if I have to outwit Machiavelli I'll manage
it somehow! Surely one lame old woman, and a torpid machine for
knitting and writing notes like Miss Smeardon, can't want to be out of
doors all day. Hang that boy, though! He'll come anywhere." Here he
stopped and sat down suddenly at the dressing-table, covering his face
with his hands in comic despair. "Mrs. Loring can't like it! She must
be doing it on purpose, avoiding being alone with me because she sees
I admire her," he sighed. "After all why should I ever suppose that I
interest her as much as she does me?"
No one could have told from Lavendar's face, when he appeared fresh
and smiling at the breakfast table half an hour later, that he was
hatching any deep-laid schemes.
Robinette entered the dining room five minutes late, as usual, pretty
as a pink, breathless with hurrying. She wore a white dress again,
with one rose stuck at her waistband, "A little tribute from the
gardener," she said, as she noticed Lavendar glance at it. She went
rapidly around the table shaking hands, and gave Carnaby's red cheeks
a pinch in passing that made Lavendar long to tweak the boy's ear.
"Good morning, all!" she said cheerily, "and how is my first cousin
once removed? Is he going to Weston with me this morning to buy
hairpins?"
"He is!" Carnaby answered joyfully, between mouthfuls of bacon and
eggs. "He has been out of hairpins for a week."
"Does he need tapes and buttons also?" asked Robinette, taking the
piece of muffin from his hand and buttering it for herself; an act
highly disapproved of by Mrs. de Tracy, who hurriedly requested Bates
to pass the bread.
"He needs everything you need," Carnaby said with heightened colour.
"My hair is giving me a good deal of trouble, lately," remarked
Lavendar, passing his hand over a thickly thatched head.
"I have an excellent American tonic that I will give you after
breakfast," said Robinette roguishly. "You need to apply it with a
brush at ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock, sitting in the sun
continuously between those hours so that the scalp may be well
invigorated. Carnaby, will you buy me butter scotch and lemonade and
oranges in Weston?"
"I will, if Grandmother'll increase my allowance," said Carnaby
malevolently, "for I need every penny I've got in hand for the
hairpins."
"I hope you are not hungry, Robinetta," said Mrs. de Tracy, "that you
have to buy food in Weston."
"No, indeed," said Robinette, "I was only longing to test Carnaby's
generosity and educate him in buying trifles for pretty ladies."
"He can probably be relied on to educate himself in that line when the
time comes," Mrs. de Tracy remarked; "and now if you have all finished
talking about hair, I will take up my breakfast again."
"Oh, Aunt de Tracy, I am so sorry if it wasn't a nice subject, but I
never thought. Anyway I only talked about hairpins; it was Mr.
Lavendar who introduced hair into the conversation; wasn't it, Middy
dear?"
Lavendar thought he could have annihilated them both for their open
comradeship, their obvious delight in each other's society. Was he to
be put on the shelf like a dry old bachelor? Not he! He would
circumvent them in some way or another, although the rôle of
gooseberry was new to him.
The two young people set off in high spirits, and Mrs. de Tracy and
Miss Smeardon watched them as they walked down the avenue on their way
to the station, their clasped hands swinging in a merry rhythm as they
hummed a bit of the last popular song.
"I hope Robinetta will not Americanize Carnaby," said Mrs. de Tracy.
"He seems so foolishly elated, so feverishly gay all at once. Her
manner is too informal; Carnaby requires constant repression."
"Perhaps his temperature has not returned to normal since his attack
of quinsy," Miss Smeardon observed, reassuringly.
Meanwhile Lavendar sat in Admiral de Tracy's old smoking room for half
an hour writing letters. Every time that he glanced up from his work,
and he did so pretty often, his eyes fell on a picture that hung upon
the opposite wall. It was the copy of Sir Joshua's "Robinetta" made
long ago and just presented to its namesake.
In the portrait the girl's hair was a still brighter gold; yet
certainly there was a likeness somewhere about it, he thought; partly
in the expression, partly in the broad low forehead, and the eyes that
looked as if they were seeing fairies.
Of course to his mind Mrs. Loring was a hundred times more lovely than
Sir Joshua's famous girl with a robin. He felt very ill-used because
Robinette and Carnaby had deliberately gone for an excursion without
him and had left him toiling over business papers when they had gone
off to enjoy themselves.
How bright it was out there in the sunshine, to be sure! And why
should it be Carnaby, not he, who was by this time walking along the
sea front of Weston, and watching the breeze flutter Robinette's scarf
and bring a brighter colour to her lips?
There! the last words were written, and taking up his bunch of
letters, watch in hand, he sought Mrs. de Tracy, and explained that he
would bicycle to Weston and catch the London post himself.
"I'll send William"--she began; but Lavendar hastily assured her that
he should enjoy the ride, and hurried off in triumph. Miss Smeardon
smiled an acid smile as she watched him go. "He has forgotten all
about poor Miss Meredith, I suppose," she murmured. "Yet it was not so
long ago that they were supposed to be all in all to each other!"
"It was a foolish engagement, Miss Smeardon," said Mrs. de Tracy in a
cold voice. "I never thought the girl was suited to Mark, and I
understand that old Mr. Lavendar was relieved when the whole thing
came to an end."
"Quite so; certainly; no doubt Miss Meredith would never have made him
happy," said Miss Smeardon at once, "though it is always more
agreeable when the lady discovers the fact first. In this case she
confessed openly that Mr. Lavendar broke her heart with his
indifference."
"She was an ill-bred young woman," said Mrs. de Tracy, as if the
subject were now closed. "However, I hope that the son of my family
solicitor would think it only proper to pay a certain amount of
attention to the Admiral's niece, were she ever so obnoxious to him."
Miss Smeardon made no audible reply, but her thoughts were to the
effect that never was an obnoxious duty performed by any man with a
better grace.
The sea front at Weston was the most prosaic scene in the world, a
long esplanade with an asphalt path running its full length, and ugly
jerrybuilt houses glaring out upon it, a gimcrack pier with a
gingerbread sort of band-stand and glass house at the end;--all that
could have been done to ruin nature had been determinedly done there.
But you cannot ruin a spring day, nor youth, nor the colour of the
sea. Along the level shore, the placid waves swept and broke, and then
gathered up their white skirts, and retreated to return with the same
musical laugh. Children and dogs played about on the wet sands. The
wind blew freshly and the sea stretched all one pure blue, till it met
on the horizon with the bluer skies.
Weston seemed to Lavendar a very fresh and delightful spot at
that moment, although had he been in a different mood its sordidness
only would have struck him. Yes, there they were in the distance;
he knew Robinette's white dress and the figure of the boy beside
her. Hang that boy! Were they really going to buy hairpins? If
so, then a hair-dresser's he must find. Lavendar turned up the
little street that led from the sea-front, scanning all the
signs--Boots--Dairies--Vegetable shops--Heavens! were there
nothing but vegetable and boot shops in Weston? Boots again. At last
a Hairdresser; Lavendar stood in the doorway until he made sure
that Robinette and the middy had turned in that direction, and
then he boldly entered the shop.
To his horror he found himself confronted by a smiling young woman,
whose own very marvellous erection of hair made him think she must be
used as an advertisement for the goods she supplied.
In another moment Robinette and the boy would be upon him, and he must
be found deep in fictitious business. He cast one agonized glance at
the mysteries of the toilet that surrounded him on every side, then
clearing his throat, he said modestly but firmly, that he wanted to
buy a pair of curling tongs for a lady.
"These are the thing if you wish a Marcel wave," was the reply, "but
just for an ordinary crimp we sell a good many of the plain ones."
"Yes, thank you. They will do; the lady--my sister, also wished--"
"A little 'addition,' was it, sir?" she moved smilingly to a drawer.
"A few pin curls are very easily adjusted, or would our guinea
switch--"
At this moment the boy and Robinette entered the shop. Lavendar was
paying for the curling tongs, and not a muscle of his face relaxed.
"Oh, here you are. I have just finished my business," he said, turning
round, "I thought we might encounter one another somewhere!"