"Good-bye for the present, Mrs. de Tracy; I shall be back on Wednesday
probably, if I can arrange it," he said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Loring," and
here he altered the phrase to "Shall I come back on Wednesday?" for
his hostess had left the open door.
There was no hesitation, but all too little sentiment, about
Robinette's reply.
"Wednesday, at the latest, are my orders," she answered merrily, and
with the words ringing in his ears Lavendar took his departure.
"Do you remember that this is the afternoon of the garden party at
Revelsmere?" Mrs. de Tracy enquired, coming into the drawing room a
few minutes later, where Mrs. Loring stood by the open window. She
had allowed herself just five minutes of depression, staring out at
the buttercup meadow. How black the rooks looked as they flew about it
and how dreary everything was, now that Lavendar had gone! She was
woman enough to be able to feel inwardly amused at her own absurdity,
when she recognized that the ensuing three days seemed to stretch out
into a limitless expanse of dullness. "The village seemed asleep or
dead now Lubin was away!" Still, after all, it was an occasion for
wearing a pretty frock, and she knew herself well enough to feel sure
that the sight of a few of her fellow-creatures even pretending to
enjoy themselves, would make her volatile spirits rise like the
mercury in a thermometer on a hot day.
Miss Smeardon was to be her companion, as Mrs. de Tracy had a headache
that afternoon and was afraid of the heat, she said. "What heat?"
Robinette had asked innocently, for in spite of the brilliant sunlight
the wind blew from the east, keen as a knife. "I shall take a good
wrap in the carriage in spite of this tropical temperature," she
thought. Carnaby refused point blank to drive with them; he would
bicycle to the party or else not go at all, so it was alone with Miss
Smeardon that Robinette started in the heavy old landau behind the
palsied horse.
Miss Smeardon gave one glance at Mrs. Loring's dress, and Robinette
gave one glance at Miss Smeardon's, each making her own comments.
"That white cloth will go to the cleaner, I suppose, after one
wearing, and as for that thing on her head with lilac wistaria
drooping over the brim, it can't be meant as a covering, or a
protection, either from sun or wind; it's nothing but an ornament!"
Miss Smeardon commented; while to herself Robinette ejaculated,--
"A penwiper, an old, much-used penwiper, is all that Miss Smeardon
resembles in that black rag!"
Carnaby, watching the start at the door, whistled in open admiration
as Robinette came down the steps.
"Well, well! we are got up to kill this afternoon; pity old Mark has
just gone; but cheer up, Cousin Robin, there's always a curate on
hand!"
For once Robinette's ready tongue played her false, and a sense of
loneliness overcame her at the sound of Lavendar's name. She gathered
up her long white skirts and got into the carriage with as much
dignity as she could muster, while Carnaby, his eyes twinkling with
mischief, stood ready to shut the door after Miss Smeardon.
"Hope you'll enjoy your drive," he jeered. "You'll need to hold on
your hats. Bucephalus goes at such fiery speed that they'll be torn
off your heads unless you do."
"Middy dear, you're not the least amusing," said Robinette quite
crossly, and with a lurch the carriage moved off.
Miss Smeardon settled herself for conversation. "I'm afraid you will
find me but a dull companion, Mrs. Loring," she said, glancing
sideways at Robinette from under the brim of her mushroom hat.
"Oh, you will be able to tell me who everyone is," said Robinette as
cheerfully as she could.
"I am no gossip," Miss Smeardon protested.
"It isn't necessary to gossip, is it?--but I've a wholesome interest
in my fellow creatures."
"And it is well to know about people a little; when one comes among
strangers as you do, Mrs. Loring; one can't be too careful--an
American, particularly."
Miss Smeardon's voice trailed off upon a note of insinuation; but
Robinette took no notice of the remark. She did not seem to have
anything to say, so Miss Smeardon took up another subject.
"What a pity that Mr. Lavendar had to leave before this afternoon; he
would have been such an addition to our party!"
"Yes, wouldn't he?" Robinette agreed, though she carefully kept out of
her voice the real passion of assent that was in her heart.
"Mr. Lavendar is so agreeable, I always think," Miss Smeardon went on.
"Everyone likes him; he almost carries his pleasant ways too far. I
suppose that was how--" She paused, and added again, "Oh, but as I
said, I never talk scandal!"
"Do you think it's possible to be too pleasant?" Robinette remarked,
stupidly enough, scarcely caring what she said.
"Well, when it leads a poor girl to imagine that she is loved! I hear
that Dolly Meredith is just heart-broken. The engagement kept on for
quite a year, I believe, and then to break it off so heartlessly!--I
was reminded of it all by coming here. Miss Meredith is a cousin of
our hostess, and they met first at Revelsmere when they were quite
young."
"There is always a certain amount of talk when an engagement has to
be broken off," said Robinette in a cold voice.
"They seemed quite devoted at first," Miss Smeardon began; but
Robinette interrupted her.
"The sooner such things are forgotten the better, I think," she said.
"No one, except the two people concerned, ever knows the real
truth.--Tell me, Miss Smeardon, whom we are likely to meet at
Revelsmere? Who is our hostess? What sort of parties does she give?"
Being so firmly switched off from the affairs of Mr. Lavendar and Miss
Meredith, it was impossible for Miss Smeardon to talk about them any
more, and she had to turn to a less congenial theme.
"We shall meet the neighbours," she told Robinette, "but I am afraid
they may not interest you very much. I understand that in America you
are accustomed to a great deal of the society of gentlemen. Here there
are so few, and all of them are married."
"All?" laughed Robinette.
"Well, there is Mr. Finch, the curate, but he is a celibate; and young
Mr. Tait of Strewe, but he is slightly paralysed."
"Why, Carnaby must be quite an eligible bachelor in these parts," said
Robinette; but Miss Smeardon was so deadly literal that she accepted
the remark as a serious one.
"Not quite yet; in a few years' time we shall need to be very careful,
there are so many girls here, but not all of them desirable, of
course."
"There are? What a dull time they must have with the Married Men, the
Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby! I'm glad my girlhood wasn't
spent in Devonshire."
Conversation ended here, for the carriage rumbled up the avenue, and
Robinette looked about her eagerly. Revelsmere was a nice old house,
surrounded by fine sloping lawns and a background of sombre
beechwoods. The lawns to-day were dotted with groups of people, mainly
women, and elderly at that. As Robinette and Miss Smeardon alighted
at the door an elderly hostess welcomed them, and an elderly host led
them across the lawn and straightly they fell into the clutches of
more and more elderlies.
"It is fairly bewildering!" Robinette cried in her heart; then she saw
a bevy of girls approaching; such nice-looking girls, happy, well
dressed, but all unattended by their suitable complement of young
men.
"For whom do they dress, here? They've a deal of self-respect, I
think, to go on getting themselves up so nicely for themselves and the
Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby," thought Robinette, as she
watched them.
Presently another couple came across the lawn; the young woman was by
no means a girl, rather heavily built, with a high fixed colour. She
was attended by a man. "Not the Celibate certainly," thought Mrs.
Loring with a glance at his bullock-like figure, his thick neck, and
glossy black hair, "nor the Paralytic; and it's not Carnaby. It must
be a new arrival!"
At that moment it began to rain, but nothing daunted, their hostess
approached her, and saying pleasantly that she wished to introduce her
to Miss Meredith, she left Robinette and the young woman standing
together under a spreading tree, and took the gentleman away with
her.
The moment that she heard the name, Robinette realized who Miss
Meredith was. They seated themselves side by side on a garden bench,
and Miss Meredith remarked upon the heat, planting a rather fat hand
upon the arm of the garden seat, and surveying it complacently,
especially the very bright diamond ring upon the third finger.
After a few preliminary remarks, she asked Mrs. Loring if she were
stopping in the neighbourhood.
"Yes, I am staying at Stoke Revel for a short time," Robinette
replied; "Mrs. de Tracy is my aunt, or at least I am Admiral de
Tracy's niece."
Her companion did not seem to take the least interest in this part of
the information, only when Stoke Revel was mentioned she looked around
suddenly as if surprised.
They talked upon indifferent subjects, while Robinette, as she watched
Miss Meredith, was saying a good deal to herself, although she only
spoke aloud about the weather and the Devonshire scenery.
"I will be just, if I can't be generous," she thought. "She has (or
she must once have had) a fine complexion. I dare say she is sincere
enough; she may be sensible; she might be good-humoured,--when
pleased."
"There is going to be a shower," said Miss Meredith, "but I've nothing
on to spoil," she added, glancing at Robinette's hat.
Sitting there on the bench, hearing the spitting rain upon the water
below them and watching the leaden mists that slowly gathered over the
landscape, Robinette fell upon a moment of soul sickness very unusual
to her. Miss Meredith too was silent, absorbed in her own thoughts.
"If she had looked even a little different it would have been so much
easier to explain," thought Robinette. Then suddenly she glanced up.
She saw that her companion's face had softened, and changed. There was
a look,--Robinette caught it just for one moment,--such as a proud
angry child might have worn: sulky, hurt to the heart, but determined
not to cry. Instantly a chord was struck in Robinette's soul. "She has
suffered, anyway," she thought. "May I be forgiven for my harsh
judgment!"
With a shiver she drew her wrap about her shoulders, and Miss Meredith
turned towards her. The expression Robinette had noticed passed from
the high-coloured face and left it as before, self-complacent and
slightly patronizing. "You seem to feel cold," she said. "I never do;
which is rather unfortunate, as I'm just going out to India!"
"Indeed? How soon are you going?"
"In about six weeks. I'm just going to be married, and we sail
directly afterwards," said Miss Meredith. "You saw Mr. Joyce, I think,
when we came up together a few minutes ago?"
A weight as if of a ton of lead was lifted from Robinette's heart as
she spoke. She could scarcely refrain from jumping up to throw her
arms about Dolly Meredith's neck and kiss her. As it was, she bubbled
over with a kind of sympathetic interest that astonished the other
woman. It is only too easy to lead an approaching bride to talk about
her own affairs, for she can seldom take in the existence of even her
nearest and dearest at such a time, and in a few minutes the two young
women were deep in conversation. When a quarter of an hour later Miss
Smeardon appeared to tell Robinette that they must be going, she
looked up with a start at the sound of footsteps on the gravel path.
"Oh, you are here, Mrs. Loring; we couldn't think where you had
gone," said Miss Smeardon, acidly.
"And here is Miss Meredith of all people!" she continued, "I thought
you were sure to be on the tennis court, Miss Meredith; Mr. Joyce is
playing now."
"Oh, we have had such a delightful talk," said Dolly, so flushed with
pleasure that Miss Smeardon gazed at her in astonishment.
"If only I knew her well enough to send her a munificent wedding
present! How I should love to do so; just to register my own joy,"
said Robinette to herself. As it was she shook hands very warmly with
Miss Meredith before they parted, and when half way across the lawn,
looked back again, and waved her hand gaily. Miss Meredith was pacing
the grass, and treading heavily beside her, with a very gallant air,
was her bullock-like young man.
"Mr. Joyce is quite wealthy," said Miss Smeardon. "I understand that
he is an only son too, and will some day inherit a fine property.
Miss Meredith is most fortunate, at her age and with her history."
Robinette said nothing. She looked out at the glistening reaches of
the river, now shining through the silver mist; at the fields yellow
with buttercups, and the folds of the distant hills. As they drove up
the lane to the house, the birds, refreshed by the rain, were singing
like angels. In her heart too, something was singing as blithely as
any bird amongst them all.
"Sometimes, sometimes our mistakes do not come home to roost!" she
thought, "but fly away and make nests elsewhere--rich nests in India
too!"
"How did you enjoy the party, Cousin Robin?" said Carnaby, who
was waiting for them in the doorway. "I had a good tuck-in of
strawberries. The ladies were a little young for my taste; just
immature girls; no one under sixty, and rather frisky, don't you
think? By the way did you see Number One and her millionaire?"
"I don't know what you mean by Number One," said Robinette, haughtily,
as she passed in at the door.
"You will, when you're Number Two!" rejoined Carnaby, stooping to
pinch Lord Roberts' tail till the hero yelped aloud.
XVI
TWO LETTERS
Lavendar tore up his fourth sheet of paper and began afresh. "Dear
Mrs. Loring." No, that would not do; he took another sheet, and began
again:--
"My dear Mrs. Loring,--Your commission for old Mrs. Prettyman has
taken some little time to execute, for I had to go to two or three
shops before finding a chair 'with green cushions, and a wide seat, so
comfortable that it would almost act as an anæsthetic if her
rheumatism happened to be bad, and yet quite suitable for a cottage
room.' These were my orders, I think, and like all your orders they
demand something better than the mere perfunctory observance. My own
proportions differing a good deal from those of the old lady, it is
still an open question whether what seemed comfortable to me will be
quite the same to her. I can but hope so, and the chair will be
dispatched at once.
"London is noisy and dusty, and grimy and stuffy, and, to one man at
least, very, very dull. A boat on Greenshaw ferry seems the only spot
in the world where any gaiety is to be found. You can hear the cuckoos
calling across the river as you read this, no doubt, and Carnaby is
rendered happier than he deserves by being allowed to row you down to
tell Mrs. Prettyman about the chair. I feel as if, like the Japanese,
I could journey a hundred miles to worship that wonderful tree.--Don't
let the blossoms fall until I come!
"There seems a good deal of business to be done. My father unfortunately
is no better, so he cannot come down to Stoke Revel, and I shall
probably return upon Wednesday morning. A poem of Browning's runs in my
head--something about three days--I can't quote exactly.
"If my sister were writing this letter, she would say that I have been
very hard to please, and uninterested in everything since I came home.
Indeed it seems as if I were. London in this part of it, in hot
weather, makes a man weary for green woods, a sliding river, and a
Book of Verses underneath a Bough. Well, perhaps I shall have all of
them by Wednesday afternoon. You will think I can do nothing but
grumble. All the same, into what was the mere dull routine of
uncongenial work before, your influence has come with a current of new
energy; like the tide from the sea swelling up into the inland
river.--I'm at it again! Rivers on the brain evidently.
"I hope meanwhile that Carnaby behaves himself, and is not too much of
a bore, and that England,--England in spring at least, is gaining a
corner in your heart? Your mother called it home, remember. Yes, do
try to remember that!
"Did you go to the garden party? Did you walk? Did you drive? Did you
like it? Who was there? Were you dull?"
* * * * *
There was a postscript:--
"I have found the verse from Browning, 'So I shall see her in three
days.'
"M. L."
* * * * *
"Tuesday, 19th.
"Dear Mr. Lavendar: First, many thanks for Nurse's armchair, which
arrived in perfect order, and is a shining monument to your good
taste. She does nothing but look at it, shrouding it when she retires
to bed with an old table-cover, to protect it from the night air.
"Whether she will ever make its acquaintance thoroughly enough to sit
in it I do not know, but it will give her an enormous amount of
pleasure. Perhaps her glow of pride in its possession does her as much
good as the comfort she might take in its use.
"Her 'rheumatics' are very painful just now, and I have a good deal to
do with Duckie. You remember Duckie? I call her Mrs. Mackenzie, after
that lady in The Newcomes who talked the Colonel to death. Mrs.
Mackenzie is heavy, elderly, and strong-willed. I am acquainted with
every bone, tendon, and sinew in her body, having to lift her into a
coop behind the cottage where she will not wake Nurse at dawn with her
eternal quacking. She has heretofore slept under Nurse's bedroom
window and dislikes change of any kind. So lucky she has no offspring!
I tremble to think of what maternal example might do in such a
talkative family!
"Stoke Revel is as it was and ever will be, world without end; only
Aunt de Tracy is crosser than when you are here and life is not as
gay, although Carnaby does his dear, cubbish best. If ever you
desire your mental jewels to shine at their brightest; if ever you
wish a tolerably good disposition to seem like that of an angel; if
ever, in a fit of vanity, you would like to appear as a blend of
Apollo, Lancelot, Demosthenes, Prince Charlie, Ajax, and Solomon,
just fly to Stoke Revel and become part of the household. Assume
nothing; simply appear, and the surroundings will do the rest; like
the penny-in-the-slot arrangements. Seen upon a background of Bates,
William, Benson, Big Cummins, the Curate, Miss Smeardon, and may I
dare to add, the lady of the Manor herself,--any living breathing
man takes on an Olympian majesty. I shouldn't miss you in Boston
nor in London; perhaps even in Weston I might find a wretched
substitute, but here you are priceless!
"I have some news for you. On Saturday Miss Smeardon and I went to a
garden party. That was what it was called. The thermometer was only
slightly below zero when we started, and that luminary masquerading as
the sun was pretending to shine. Soon after we arrived at the festive
scene, there were gusts of wind and rain. I sought the shelter of a
spreading tree, the kitchen fire not being available, and I was joined
there by the hostess, who presented her niece, your Miss Meredith.
"Dear Mr. Lavendar, this is a subject we cannot write about, you and
I. I am loyal to my sex, and what Miss Meredith said, and looked, and
did, are all as sacred to me as they ought to be. I only want to tell
you that she is happy; that she has this very week become engaged, and
is going to India with her husband in a month. Now that little
cankerworm, that has been gnawing at your roots of life for the last
year or two, has done its worst, and you are perfectly free to go and
make other mistakes. I only hope you'll get 'scot free' from those,
too, for I don't like to see nice men burn their fingers. We became
such good friends huddled up in that boat when we were stuck in the
mud--Ugh! I can smell it now!--that I am glad to be the first to send
you pleasant news.
"Sincerely yours,
"ROBINETTA LORING."
XVII
MRS. DE TRACY CROSSES THE FERRY
Lavendar's blunt refusal, except under certain conditions, to
announce to Mrs. Prettyman her coming ejection from the cottage at
Wittisham, was unprofessional enough, as he himself felt; but it
was final and categorical. Conveying as it did a sort of tacit
remonstrance, this refusal had an unfortunate effect, for it only
served to rouse Mrs. de Tracy's formidable obstinacy. She had
seized upon one point only in their numberless and wearisome
discussions of the matter: Mrs. Prettyman had no legal claim upon
Stoke Revel. To give her compensation for the plum tree would be to
allow that she had; to create a precedent highly dangerous under the
circumstances. How could one refuse to other old women or old men
leaving their cottages what one had weakly granted to her? The
demands would be unceasing, the trouble endless. So arguing, Mrs. de
Tracy soon brought herself to a state of determination bordering on a
sort of mania. She was old, and in exaggerated harshness her life was
retreating as it were into its last stronghold, at bay.
As good as her word, for she had vowed she would warn Mrs. Prettyman
herself, and she was never one to procrastinate, the lady of the Manor
proceeded to plan her visit to Wittisham. She had not crossed the
river for years. Wittisham, one of the loveliest villages in England,
perhaps, though little known, was a thorn in her side, as it would
have been in that of any other landlord with empty pockets.
What you could not deal with to your own advantage, it was better to
ignore, and on this autocratic principle, Mrs. de Tracy had left
Wittisham to itself.
But now the boat carried her there, alone and fierce--_thrawn_, as
the Scotch say--bent upon a course of conduct that she knew would
hold her up to the hatred of every right-thinking person of her
acquaintance, and bitterly triumphant in the knowledge. The
meanness of her errand never struck her. On the contrary, she would
have argued it was one well worthy of her, a part of the scheme in
the consummation of which she had spent her married life and her whole
indomitable energy, losing actually her own identity in the process,
and becoming an inexorable machine. That scheme was the holding
together of Stoke Revel for the de Tracys, the maintenance of family
dignity and power, the pre-eminence of a race that had always ruled.
The river beneath her, carrying her to the fulfilment of her duty,
the noble river, widening to the sea, subject to its tides and made
turbulent by its storms, typified to Mrs. de Tracy only the
greatness of Stoke Revel. From its banks the de Tracys had sent out,
generation after generation, men who had commanded fleets, who
had upheld the national honour upon the farthest seas, very often at
the cost of life. There was no sacrifice of herself at which Mrs.
de Tracy would have hesitated in upholding this ideal, no sacrifice
of others, either. What was Lizzie Prettyman in comparison? A bag
of old bones, fit for nothing but the workhouse!
"A little faster, William," said the widow, sitting upright in the
stern, and William the footman bent to his oars, the beads of
perspiration standing on his brow. When Mrs. de Tracy stepped out upon
the pier, she had to be reminded where the Prettyman cottage was.
"You'll know it by the plum tree, ma'am," said William respectfully,
"everybody does."
It was not far off on the river side. The tide had ebbed and left a
stretch of muddy foreshore in front of it, where the rotting poles for
hanging the fishing nets out to dry stood gauntly up. Mrs. de Tracy
approached the steps, which merged into the flagged path before the
door, and paused to survey the property she intended to part with. She
had no eye for the picturesque. A few white petals from the blossoming
plum tree, scattered by the breeze, fell upon her black bonnet and
shoulders. A faint scent of honey came from it and the hum of bees,
for the day was warm. The tumble-down condition of the cottage engaged
Mrs. de Tracy's attention.
"And for this," she thought scornfully, "a man will give hundreds of
pounds! There's truth in the adage that a fool and his money are soon
parted!"
She mounted the steps that led up to the patch of garden, her keen,
cold eyes everywhere at once. "A cat can't sneeze without she 'ears
'im!" her villagers at Stoke Revel were wont to say, disappearing into
their houses as rabbits into their burrows at sight of a terrier.