and aching eyes prompted her to ask Little Cummins to bring her
breakfast to her bedroom.
It was touching to see that small person hovering over Robinette:
stirring the fire, sweeping the hearth, looping back the curtains,
tucking the slippers out of sight, and moving about the room like a
mother ministering to an ailing child. Finally she staggered in with
the heavy breakfast tray that she had carried through long halls and
up the stairs, and put it on the table by the bed.
"There's a new-laid egg, ma'am, that cook 'ad for the mistress, but I
thought you needed it more; an' I brewed the tea meself, to be sure,"
she cooed; "an' I've spread the loaf same as you like, an' cut the
bread thin, an' 'ere's one o' the roses you allers wears to breakfast;
an' wouldn't your erming coat be a comfort, ma'am?"
"Dear Little Cummins! How did you know I needed comfort? How did you
guess I was homesick?"
Robinette leaned her head against the housemaid's rough hand, always
stained with black spots that would give way to no scrubbing. From
morning to night she was in the coal scuttle or the grate or the
saucer of black lead, for she did nothing but lay fires, light fires,
feed fires, and tidy up after fires, for eight or nine months of the
year.
"You mustn't touch me, ma'am; I ain't fit; there's smut on me, an'
hashes, this time o' day," said Little Cummins.
"I don't care. I like you better with ashes than lots of people
without. You mustn't stay in the coal scuttle all your life, Little
Cummins; you must be my chambermaid some of these days when we can get
a good substitute for Mrs. de Tracy. Would you like that, if the
mistress will let you go?"
Little Cummins put her apron up to her eyes, and from its depths came
inarticulate bursts of gratitude and joy. Then peeping from it just
enough to see the way to the door, she ran out like a hare and
secluded herself in the empty linen-room until she was sufficiently
herself to join the other servants.
Robinette finished her breakfast and dressed. She had lacked courage
to meet the family party, although she longed for a talk with Mark
Lavendar. It was entirely normal, feminine, and according to all law,
human and divine, but it appealed also to her sense of humour, that
she should feel that this new man-friend could straighten out all the
difficulties in the path. She waited patiently at her window until she
saw him walk around the corner of the house, under the cedars, and up
the twisting path, his head bent and bare, his hands in his pockets.
Then she flung her blue cape over her shoulders and followed him.
"Mr. Lavendar," she called, as she caught up with his slow step, "you
said you would advise me a little. Let us sit on this bench a moment
and find out how we can untangle all the knots into which Aunt de
Tracy tied us yesterday. I am so afraid of her that I am sure I spoke
timidly and respectfully to her at first; but perhaps I showed more
feeling at the end than I should. I am willing to apologize to her for
any lack of courtesy, but I don't see how I can retract anything I
said."
"It is hard for you," Lavendar replied, "because you have a natural
affection for your mother's old nurse; and Mrs. de Tracy, I begin to
believe, is more than indifferent to her. She has some active dislike,
perhaps, the source of which is unknown to us."
"But she is so unjust!" cried Robinette. "I never heard of an Irish
landlord in a novel who would practice such a piece of eviction. If I
must stand by and see it done, then I shall assert my right to provide
for Nurse and move her into a new dwelling. After you left the drawing
room last night, I begged as tactfully as I could that Aunt de Tracy
would sell me some of the jewels, so that she need not part with the
land at Wittisham. She was very angry, and wouldn't hear of it. Then I
proposed buying the plum-tree cottage, that it might be kept in the
family, and she was furious at my audacity. Perhaps the Admiral's
niece is _not_ in the family."
"She cannot endure anything like patronage, or even an assumption of
equality," said Lavendar. "You must be careful there."
"Should I be likely to patronize?" asked Robinette reproachfully.
"No; but your acquaintance with your aunt is a very brief one, and she
is an extraordinary character; hard to understand. You may easily
stumble on a prejudice of hers at every step."
"I shouldn't like to understand her any better than I do now," and
Robinette pushed back her hair rebelliously.
"Will you be my client for about five minutes?" asked Lavendar.
"Yes, willingly enough, for I see nothing before me but to take Nurse
Prettyman and depart in the first steamer for America."
Mrs. Loring looked as if she were quite capable of this rather radical
proceeding, and very much, too, as if any growing love for Lavendar
that she might have, would easily give way under this new pressure of
circumstances.
"This is the situation in a nutshell," said Lavendar, filling his
pipe. "Mrs. de Tracy is entirely within her legal rights when she asks
Mrs. Prettyman to leave the cottage; legally right also when she
declines to give compensation for the plum tree that has been a source
of income; financially right moreover in selling cottage and land at a
fancy price to find money for needed improvements on the estate."
"None of this can be denied, I allow."
"All these legal rights could have been softened if Mrs. de Tracy had
been willing to soften them, but unfortunately she has been put on the
defensive. She did not like it when I opposed her in the first place.
She did not like it when my father advised her to make some small
settlement, as he did, several days ago. She resented Mrs. Prettyman's
assumption of owning the plum tree; she was outraged at your valiant
espousing of your nurse's cause."
"I see; we have simply made her more determined in her injustice."
"Now it is all very well for you to show your mettle," Lavendar went
on, "for you to endure your aunt's displeasure rather than give up a
cause you know to be just; but look where it lands us."
Robinette raised her troubled eyes to Lavendar's, giving a sigh to
show she realized that her landing-place would be wherever the lawyer
fixed it, not where she wished it.
"Go on," she sighed patiently.
"Your legal adviser regards it as impossible that you should come over
from America and quarrel with your mother's family;--your only family,
in point of fact. If this affair is fought to a finish you will feel
like leaving your aunt's house."
"I shouldn't have to wait for that feeling," said Robinette
irrepressibly. "Aunt de Tracy would have it first!"
"In such an event I could and would stand by you, naturally."
"_Would_ you?" cried Robinette glowing instantly like a jewel.
Lavendar looked at her in amazement. "Pray what do you take me for? On
whose side could I, should I be, my dear--my dear Mrs. Loring? But to
keep to business. In the event stated above, neither my father nor I
could very well continue to have charge of the estate. That is a small
matter, but increases the difficulties, owing to a long friendship
dating back to the Admiral's time. Then we have Carnaby. Carnaby, my
dear Mrs. Loring, belongs to you. Do you want to give him up? He
adores you and you will have an unbounded influence on him, if you
choose to exercise it."
"How can I influence Carnaby--in America?"
This was a blow, but Lavendar made no sign. "You may not always be in
America," he said. "Now why not let Mrs. de Tracy sell the land and
cottage and plum tree in the ordinary course of things? Oh, how I wish
_I_ could buy the blessed thing!" he exclaimed, parenthetically.
"Oh! how I wish _I_ could buy the plum tree, and keep it, always
blossoming, in my morning-room!" sighed Robinette.
"But unfortunately, Waller R. A. will buy the plum tree, confound him!
Now, just after Mrs. de Tracy has definitely sold the premises and all
their appurtenances, suppose you, in your prettiest and most docile
way (docility not being your strong point!) ask your aunt if she has
any objection to your taking care of Mrs. Prettyman during the few
years remaining to her. Meantime keep her from irritating Mrs. de
Tracy, and make the poor old dear happy with plans for her future. If
you are short on docility you are long on making people happy!"
"Never did I hear such an argument! It would make Macduff fall into
the arms of Macbeth; it would tranquillize the Kilkenny cats
themselves! I'll run in and apologize abjectly to my thrice guilty
aunt, then I'll reward myself by going over to Wittisham."
"If you'll take the ferry over, I'd like to come and fetch you if I
may. That shall be my reward."
"Reward for what?"
"For giving you advice very much against my personal inclinations.
Courses of action founded entirely on policy do not appeal to me very
strongly."
XX
THE NEW HOME
It was in rather a chastened spirit that Robinette set off to see Mrs.
Prettyman. "I've been foolish, I've been imprudent; oh! dear me! I've
still so much to learn!" she sighed to herself. "No good is ever done
by losing one's temper; it only puts everything wrong. I shall have to
try and take Mr. Lavendar's advice. I must be very prudent with Nurse
this morning--never show her that I think Aunt de Tracy is in the
wrong; just persuade her ever so gently to move to another home, and
arrange with her where it is to be."
It is always difficult for an impetuous nature like Robinette's to
hold back about anything. She would have liked to run straight into
Mrs. Prettyman's room, and, flinging her arms round the old woman's
neck, cry out to her that everything was settled. And instead she
must come to the point gently, prudently, wisely, "like other people"
as she said to herself.
The cottage seemed very still that afternoon, and Robinette knocked
twice before she heard the piping old voice cry out to her to come
in.
"Why, Nurse dear, where are you? Were you asleep?" Robinette said as
she entered, for Mrs. Prettyman was not sitting in the fine new chair.
Then she found that the voice answered from the little bedroom off the
kitchen, and that the old woman was in bed.
"I ain't ill, so to speak, dear, just weary in me bones," she
explained, as Robinette sat down beside her. "And Mrs. Darke, me
neighbour, she sez to me, 'You do take the day in bed, Mrs. Prettyman,
me dear, an' I'll do your bit of work for 'ee'--so 'ere I be, Missie,
right enough."
"I'm afraid you were worried yesterday," said Robinette; "worried
about leaving the house."
"I were, Missie, I were," she confessed.
"That's why I came to-day; you must stop worrying, for I've settled
all about it. I spoke to my aunt last night, and it's true that you
have to leave this house; but now I've come to make arrangements with
you about a new one."
The old woman covered her face with her hands and gave a little cry
that went straight to Robinette's heart.
"Lor' now, Miss, 'ow am I ever to leave this place where I've been all
these years? I thought yesterday as you said 'twas a mistake I'd
made."
"But alas, it wasn't altogether a mistake," Robinette had to confess
sadly, her eyes filling with tears as she realized how she had only
doubled her old friend's disappointment. Then she sat forward and took
Mrs. Prettyman's hand in hers.
"Nursie dear," she said, "I don't want you to grieve about leaving
the old home, for it isn't an awfully good one; the new one is going
to be ever so much better!"
"That's so, I'm sure, dearie, only 'tis _new_," faltered Mrs.
Prettyman. "If you're spared to my age, Missie, you'll find as new
things scare you."
"Ah, but not a new house, Nursie! Wait till I describe it! Everything
strong and firm about it, not shaking in the storms as this one
does; nice bright windows to let in all the sunshine; so no more
'rheumatics' and no more tears of pain in your dear old eyes!"
Robinette's voice failed suddenly, for it struck her all in a moment
that her glowing description of the new home seemed to have in it
something prophetic. That bent little figure beside her, these shaking
limbs and dim old eyes,--all this house of life, once so carefully
builded, was crumbling again into the dust, and its tenant indeed
wanted a new one, quite, quite different! A sob rose in Robinette's
throat, but she swallowed it down and went on gaily.
"I've settled about another thing, too; you're to have another plum
tree, or life wouldn't be the same thing to you. And you know they can
transplant quite big trees now-a-days and make them grow wonderfully.
Some one was telling me all about how it is done only a few days ago.
They dig them up ever so carefully, and when they put them into the
new hole, every tiny root is spread out and laid in the right
direction in the ground, and patted and coaxed in, and made firm, and
they just catch hold on the soil in the twinkle of an eye. Isn't it
marvellous? Well, I'll have a fine new tree planted for you so
cleverly that perhaps by next year you'll be having a few plums, who
knows? And the next year more plums! And the next year, jam!"
"'Twill be beautiful, sure enough," said the old woman, kindling at
last under the description of all these joys. "And do you think,
Missie, as the new cottage will really be curing of me rheumatics?"
"Why yes, Nurse. Whoever heard of rheumatism in a dry new house?"
"The house be new, but the rheumatics be old," said Mrs. Prettyman
sagely.
"Well, we can't make _you_ entirely new, but we'll do our best. I'm
going to enquire about a nice cottage not very far from here; there's
plenty of time before this one is sold. It shall be dry and warm and
cosy, and you will feel another person in it altogether."
"These new houses be terrible dear, bain't they?" the old woman said
anxiously.
"Not a bit; besides that's another matter I want to settle with you,
Nursie. I'm going to pay the rent always, and you're going to have a
nice little girl to help you with the work, and there will be
something paid to you each month, so that you won't have any
anxiety."
"Oh, Missie, Missie, whatever be you sayin'? _Me_ never to have no
anxiety again!"
"You never shall, if I can help it; old people should never have
worries; that's what young people are here for, to look after them and
keep them happy."
Mrs. Prettyman lay back on the pillow and gazed at Robinette
incredulously; it wasn't possible that such a solution had come to all
her troubles. For seventy odd years she had worked and struggled and
sometimes very nearly starved and here was some one assuring her that
these struggles were over forever, that she needn't work hard any
more, or ever worry again. Could it be true? And all to come from Miss
Cynthia's daughter!
Robinette bent down and kissed the wrinkled old face softly.
"Good-night, Nursie dear," she said. "I'm not going to stay any longer
with you to-day, because you're tired. Have a good sleep, and waken up
strong and bright."
"Good-night, Missie, good-night, dear," the old woman said. Her face
had taken on an expression of such peacefulness as it had never worn
before.
She turned over on her pillow and closed her eyes, scarcely waiting
for Robinette to leave the room.
"I've been allowed to do that, anyway," Robinette said to herself,
standing in the doorway to look back at the quiet sleeper, and then
looking forward to a little boat nearing the shore. The cottage
sheltered almost the only object that connected her with her past; the
boat, she felt, held all her future.
* * * * *
The river, when Lavendar rowed himself across it, was very quiet. "The
swelling of Jordan," as Robinette called the rising tide, was over;
now the glassy water reflected every leaf and twig from the trees that
hung above its banks and dipped into it here and there.
Mooring his boat at the landing, Mark sauntered up to Mrs. Prettyman's
cottage, and having tapped lightly at the door to let Mrs. Loring
know of his arrival, as they had agreed he should do, he went along
the flagged pathway into the garden, and sat down on the edge of the
low wall that divided it from the river. Just in front of him was the
little worn bench where he had first seen Robinette as she sat beside
her old nurse with the tiny shoe on her lap. It was scarcely a
fortnight ago; yet it seemed to him that he could hardly remember the
kind of man he had been that afternoon; a new self, full of a new
purpose, and at that moment of a new hope, had taken the place of the
objectless being he had been before.
Everything was very still; there was scarcely a sound from the village
or from the shipping farther down the river. Lavendar fancied he heard
Robinette's clear voice within the cottage; then he started suddenly
and the blood rushed to his heart as he listened to her light steps
coming along the paved footpath.
"Here you are!" she whispered. "Let us not speak too loud, for Nurse
was just dropping asleep when I left her. I've put a table-cover and
a blanket over 'Mrs. Mackenzie' to keep her from quacking. Mrs.
Prettyman has not been very well, poor dear, and is in bed. We've just
talked about the lovely new home she's going to have, and the
transplanted plum tree; small, but warranted to bear in a year or two
and give plums and jam like this one. I left her so happy!"
She stopped and looked up. "Oh! can any new tree be as beautiful as
this one? Was ever anything in the world more exquisite? It has
just come to its hour of perfection, Mr. Lavendar; it couldn't
last,--anything so lovely in a passing world."
She sat down on the low wall, and looked up at the tree. It stood and
shone there in its perfect hour. Another day, and the blossoms, too
fully blown, would begin to drift upon the ground with every little
shaking wind; now it was at its zenith, a miracle of such white beauty
that it caused the heart to stop and consider. Bees and butterflies
hummed and flew around it; it cast a delicate shadow on the grass, and
leaning across the wall it was imaged again in the river like a bride
in her looking-glass.
Robinette sat gazing at the tree, and Lavendar sat gazing at her. At
that moment he "feared his fate too much" to break the silence by any
question that might shatter his hope, as the first breeze would break
the picture that had taken shape in the glassy water beneath them.
"I feel in a better temper now," said Robinette. "Who could be angry,
and look at that beautiful thing? I've left dear old Nurse quite happy
again, and I haven't yet offended Aunt de Tracy irrevocably, and all
because you persuaded me not to be unreasonable. All the same I could
do it again in another minute if I let myself go. Doesn't injustice
ever make people angry in England?"
Lavendar laughed. "It often makes me feel angry, but I've never found
that throwing the reins on the horses' necks when they wanted to
bolt, made one go along the right road any faster in the end."
"I often think," said Robinette, "if we could see people really angry
and disagreeable before we--" She hesitated and added, "get to know
them well, we should be so much more careful."
"Yes," said Mark, bending down his head and speaking very deliberately,
"that's why I wish you could have seen me in all my worst moments.
I'd stand the shame of it, if you could only know, but, alas, one
can't show off one's worst moments to order; they must be hit upon
unexpectedly."
"I don't believe thirty years of life would teach one about some
people--they are so _crevicey_," said Robinette musingly. She had
risen and leaned against the plum tree for a moment, looking up
through the white branches.
Lavendar rose and stood beside her. "Thirty years--I shall be getting
on to seventy in thirty years."
A little gust of wind shook the tree; some petals came drifting down
upon them, like white moths, like flakes of summer snow, a warning
that the brief hour of perfection would soon be past ... and under it
human creatures were talking about thirty years!
XXI
CARNABY CUTS THE KNOT
That afternoon, Carnaby was having what he called "an absolutely
mouldy time," and since his leave was running out and his remaining
afternoons were few, he considered himself an injured individual.
Robinette and Lavendar seemed for ever preoccupied either with each
other or with some subject of discussion, the ins and outs of which
they had not confided to him.
"It's partly that blessed plum tree," he said to himself; "but of
course they're spooning too. Very likely they're engaged by this time.
Didn't I tell her she'd marry again? Well, if she must, it might as
well be old Lavendar as anyone else. He's a decent chap, or he was,
before he fell in love."
Carnaby sighed. This effort of generosity towards his rival made him
feel peculiarly disconsolate. He had fished and rowed on the river all
the morning; he had ferreted; he had fed Rupert with a private
preparation of rabbits which infallibly made him sick, the desired
result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even
success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to
work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither
Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's
peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for himself how
the land lay.
"Why is Waller R. A. so keen on the plum tree?" he had enquired.
"He wants to make a quartette of studies," answered Lavendar. "The
Plum Tree in spring, summer, autumn, and winter."
"What a rotten idea!" said Carnaby simply.
"Far from rotten, my young friend, I can assure you!" Lavendar
returned. "It will furnish coloured illustrations for countless
summer numbers of the _Graphic_ and _The Lady's Pictorial_, and fill
Waller R. A.'s pockets with gold, some of which will shortly filter in
advance into the Stoke Revel banking account, we hope."
"I'm not so sure about that!" said Carnaby; but he said it to himself,
while aloud he only asked with much apparent innocence, "Waller R. A.
wouldn't look at the cottage or the land without the plum tree, I
suppose?"
"Certainly not," Lavendar had answered. "The plum tree is safeguarded
in the agreement as I'm sure no plum tree ever was before. Waller R.
A.'s no fool!"
Digesting this information and much else that he had gleaned, Carnaby
now climbed to the top of a tree where he had a favourite perch, and
did some serious and simple thinking.
"It's a beastly shame," he said to himself, "to turn that old woman
out of her cottage. Cousin Robin thinks it's a beastly shame, and
what's more, Mark does, and he's a man, and a lawyer into the
bargain."
Carnaby thought remorsefully of a pot of jam which old Mrs. Prettyman
had given him once to take back to college. What good jam it had
been, and how large the pot! He had never given her anything--he had
never a penny to bless himself with; and now his grandmother was
taking away from the poor old creature all that she had. "It's
regular covetousness," he thought, "and that infernal plum tree's at
the bottom of it all. Naboth's vineyard is a joke in comparison, and
What's-his-name and the one ewe lamb simply aren't in it." He grew
hot with mortification. Then he reflected, "If the plum tree weren't
there, Waller R. A. wouldn't want the cottage, and old Mrs. Prettyman
could live in it till the end of the chapter." A slow grin dawned upon
his face, its most mischievous expression, the one which Rupert with
canine sagacity had learned to dread. He felt and pinched the
muscle of his arm fondly. (_Mussle_ he always spelled the word
himself, upon phonetic principles.)
"I may be a fool and a minor" (generally spelt _miner_ by him), he
said, as he climbed down from his perch, "but at least I can cut down
a tree!"
He became lost to view forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds
attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged,
furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search
for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant
cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour
with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. _Whirr_,
_whirr_, _whirr_, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly--"_this
is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that holds it_!"
"You be goin' to do a bit of forestry on your own, Master Carnaby,
eh?" suggested the grinning owner of the grindstone.
"I am; a very particular bit, Jones!" replied the young master,
lovingly feeling the edge of the tool, which was now nearly as fine as
that of a razor.