The Warren
Mavis and Merle went to Miss Crompton's class on Friday afternoon in
their dainty best dresses, silk stockings, and dancing sandals. Their
appearance was certainly very different from what it had been last week
in their brown jerseys and school shoes. They noticed Gwen Williams look
them up and down, but she did not speak to them or give them any sign of
recognition. Beyond an occasional word with Opal, Iva, or the Careys,
she would not be expansive with any of the girls at The Moorings,
holding aloof in a rather obtrusive fashion, and giving them to
understand that though she might attend their French and dancing classes
she must not be regarded as a member of the school. Babbie, who was of a
much more sociable disposition, would often try to linger to talk with
companions of her own age, but Gwen invariably interfered, and would put
a stop to the incipient friendships, giving her younger sister glances
of very plain reproof.
"Why are those Williams girls so dreadfully conceited?" Merle asked her
partner, as they practised a two-step. "I can't see that they're
different from other people, but Gwen behaves as if she were a princess,
and it was hardly etiquette for the rest of us to speak to her. It's
perfectly absurd!"
"Well, you see, the Glyn Williamses think themselves 'county' and won't
visit with anybody else. They've a beautiful place at Chagmouth, The
Warren."
"I know. I've seen it. But does it really belong to them? I somehow
thought it didn't."
"Well, you're right, and I believe it's rather a sore point. The Glyn
Williams only rent The Warren. They've plenty of money and they'd like
to buy it, but General Talland, to whom it belongs, won't sell it at any
price. It has been in his family for hundreds of years."
"Why doesn't he live at it himself, then?"
"He hasn't been home for years and years. He's governor of a place
called San Benito in the West Indies. He left England after his only son
died, and he has never been back since. I should think Chagmouth people
have almost forgotten him. The Glyn Williams are everything there now,
or think they are at any rate."
"That I can very easily believe," said Merle, with a glance at Gwen,
who, apportioned by Miss Crompton to dance with Aubrey, was circling
round without deigning to bestow a single word upon her unwelcome
partner.
To Mavis and Merle, Chagmouth, where so far they had only spent a
single day, had become the very hub of the universe. They wanted to see
its quaint streets again, and to revisit the beach and to explore the
woods. More than anything they wished to renew their brief acquaintance
with Bevis. His personality had attracted them, and his romantic story
appealed to their imaginations. They ventured to say something about him
to Uncle David.
"Bevis? Oh, he's a fine lad!" replied Dr. Tremayne. "He's rather out of
his element on the farm, but there seems nothing else open to him at
present. I wish I could see him doing something better. He'd make a
splendid doctor. The way he has picked up dispensing is simply
wonderful. I can trust him to make up prescriptions now, and it's the
greatest help. He loves pottering about the surgery. It's far more in
his line than hedging or ploughing. But he doesn't spare himself on the
land; I'll say that for the lad. By the by, are you two coming with me
to Chagmouth to-morrow? I believe the sea air did Mavis good. She's
losing that transparent look, and getting a tinge of colour in her
cheeks."
"I haven't had a cold since I came to Durracombe," boasted Mavis.
"Touch wood or you'll be catching one to-morrow," put in Merle hastily.
"Uncle David, we'd go to Chagmouth every day if you'd take us."
"Oh, I dare say! And what would happen to your lessons, Miss Lazybones?"
twinkled the doctor. "One holiday a week is quite enough for you."
The girls were growing to love Uncle David. He was so kind, and genial,
and pleasant, and had always some little joke or funny story for them.
Half of the pleasure of the day at Chagmouth would be the drive there
and back in his company. There was a broad restfulness about him that
was like a mental tonic. It was as if he had learnt the secret of
outliving all unnecessary cares and worries, and could radiate his
peaceful atmosphere into the auras of others. Perhaps it was this
quality of unconscious healing that gave him such skill and favour as a
physician. Certainly patients would begin to brighten up when he merely
stepped into the sickroom. "The dear old doctor", as he was generally
called, was a figure in the country-side, and a source of moral as well
as physical good in his practice.
It was with absolutely beaming faces that the girls set out with him in
the little yellow Deemster car the following Saturday morning. They
started earlier than the week before, for there were several visits to
be paid at farms or cottages on the way, all of which took considerable
time, but by exceeding the speed limit on level stretches of road the
doctor reached Chagmouth at noon, to find the usual crowd of patients
waiting at his rooms. Judging that he would be boxed up in the surgery
for more than an hour, and that they would therefore have ample leisure
for a stroll before lunch, the Ramsays decided to explore some of the
fields that lay round Grimbal's Farm, and selected a path that seemed to
lead in the direction of the cliffs and the sea. They looked about for
Bevis in the stackyard, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably he was
working on the land, or possibly he might even be at sea, for Mr.
Penruddock was part owner of a trawler, and as much fisherman as farmer.
They walked across two meadows, went through a little spinney where
hazel catkins were opening fast, and actually a few primroses were
peeping through the carpet of dead leaves; then came to a stile which
led down into a deep lane. Mavis went first, and was in the very act of
stepping cautiously over, when suddenly through a hole in the opposite
hedge dashed a fox terrier and seized her by the skirt. It was just
enough to destroy her balance, and she fell forward on to her hands and
knees. Merle, hurrying after her, attacked the dog with a stick she was
carrying, and for about three moments there was a wild scrimmage, Mavis
shrieking with fright, the fox terrier yapping and yelping, and Merle
laying on blows. They had imagined themselves alone, but the
country-side is more full of ears than we generally know, and at the
same instant two people came running from opposite directions, one from
the lane and the other from the fields. The first, a tall boy carrying a
gun, was evidently the owner of the dog, for he called it angrily away,
and after a final snarl it ran towards him, helped in its progress by a
hearty kick from Bevis, who had jumped over the opposite hedge. Mavis
picked herself up, and the four young people stood together in the deep
lane. It was Merle, of course, who spoke first.
"Look what your brute's done!" she said indignantly, turning to the
dog's owner, and pointing to a rent in Mavis's skirt. "You ought to be
ashamed of yourself to let him attack people like this. Why don't you
muzzle him?"
The boy regarded Mavis and the damage to her apparel rather coolly.
"You must have done something to make him fly at you," he replied. "Of
course he'll go for people if they throw stones at him."
"I didn't throw stones." Mavis's voice quivered with injured annoyance.
"Well, you're not much hurt anyway! If you'd keep to the roads instead
of wandering about people's fields you wouldn't get into trouble."
"She's a perfect right in our fields," broke in Bevis hotly. "If she
wants to go there why shouldn't she? It's no business of yours."
The boy lifted his eyebrows as if amazed at the outburst.
"Oh, certainly not! None at all!" he replied in supercilious tones.
"Have anybody you like in your own fields. It doesn't concern me. What a
fuss about nothing."
And, shouldering his gun, he turned back up the lane with the fox
terrier at his heels.
"You might at least apologize," Merle shouted after him, but he took not
the slightest notice and did not look behind. In another moment the
hedge had hidden him from their view.
"What an absolute bounder!" fumed Merle. "He ought to have said he was
sorry instead of walking off like that. Who is he?"
Bevis was standing staring up the lane with a frown on his dark face.
"It's young Williams from The Warren," he replied. "He thinks himself
cock-of-the-walk in Chagmouth, but he'd better not try on any of his
airs with me. He might own the place by the way he behaves. If I catch
him with that gun rabbitting in any of our fields I'll let him know."
"Does he go into your fields?"
"He goes anywhere he likes about Chagmouth, and I've heard many people
grumble. He may take his own advice and keep to his own property.
They've all the shooting on the moors above, and that ought to be enough
for him! I've no patience with young sparks like he is."
Mavis was not really hurt by her adventure, but she had been frightened,
and was still feeling upset and disinclined to continue their walk. With
Bevis for protection the girls turned back towards the farm, where Mrs.
Penruddock, who was loud in her indignation and sympathy, took out her
thread-basket and hastily caught together the rent in Mavis's skirt.
"That'll keep for this afternoon, and Jessop can darn it properly when
you get home," she declared. "Folks ought to pay for the damage their
dogs do. And clothes at such a price now! It was a mercy you weren't
bitten I'm sure. I'd have had something to say to young Williams if I'd
been there. I wouldn't have let him walk away as if it was nothing!
He'll have to be taught a lesson some day, if I'm not mistaken. And
serve him right too, with all his airs and his impudence."
In the short interval that remained before lunch the girls made a tour
of the stackyard and farm buildings. They wanted to see the waterwheel
again, and it was fun to climb up ladders and peep into lofts, to
explore the dim recesses of barns, or inspect the poultry runs, where
fussy hens, shut up inside coops, were clucking to adventurous little
families of downy chicks or ducklings. But the crowning place of all was
the shed where Bevis kept his carpenter's bench. The boy was very natty
and clever at joinering, wood-carving, and mechanics. He had several
model boats and a toy engine, which he had constructed himself, to show
them, and he volunteered to make them a little grindstone upon which
they could sharpen their penknives.
"How topping! We'll come and watch you while you do it," declared Merle.
"If you don't mind our looking on," added Mavis.
But alack! shortly after lunch a most untoward thing happened. Dr.
Tremayne had brought the car round from the yard into the road opposite
the front door of the farm, preparatory to paying his usual weekly visit
to the Sanatorium. He was pottering about inspecting various valves and
nuts, in the manner of motorists, and Mavis and Merle, who had
constituted themselves assistant chauffeurs, were armed with dusters and
were trying to clean the splashboards, which had been much spattered
with mud on the journey from Durracombe that morning. Uncle David prided
himself upon a spick-and-span car, and liked to turn up at the
Sanatorium with the little Deemster looking its best. Both girls were
working away energetically, when round the corner from the village there
suddenly appeared the whole of the Glyn Williams family, heading
straight up the road towards Grimbal's Farm. Merle spied them first. She
was on the side of the car nearest the house, and, with a presence of
mind that amounted almost to instinct, she bolted inside the door like a
rabbit into its burrow. Mavis, whose back was towards the village, was
quite unaware that anyone was near till she heard Dr. Tremayne's
greeting, and, turning round, found herself face to face with Gwen,
Babbie, their mother, their brother, and the fox terrier. If she could,
with any decency, have fled after Merle she would have done so, but
there was no possibility of escape. She was already in their midst, and
Uncle David--dear, tiresome man--was saying: "You know my niece?"
Mrs. Glyn Williams, a portly, rosy-faced lady, with a kind but rather
patronizing manner, held out a white-gloved hand.
"Of course! You go to school at The Moorings, don't you? How nice for
you to motor over to Chagmouth with your uncle on Saturdays. Are you
going with him to the Sanatorium? What is it, Babbie, dear?" (for her
younger daughter was whispering eagerly in her ear) "Oh yes, my
precious! Doctor, won't you leave your niece on your way, and we'll show
her round The Warren and keep her for tea? You can pick her up as you
drive back."
There are some invitations which it is utterly impossible to refuse.
Mrs. Glyn Williams had, to use a sporting term, "caught her bird
sitting". Mavis glanced at Uncle David with mute appeal in her blue
eyes, but he quite mistook her dismay, and instantly accepted on her
behalf.
"We're going straight home now, through the woods, so come as soon as
you can," urged Babbie, following the family as they turned up the road.
Could anything have been more utterly and entirely aggravating?
"Oh, Uncle David! How _could_ you?" exclaimed Mavis reproachfully. "I'm
not dressed to go to tea at The Warren. I only came in my school skirt
and jersey. We meant to scramble about the farm this afternoon."
Dr. Tremayne focused his eyeglasses on his niece's attire. Such an
aspect of the visit had never occurred to his innocent masculine mind.
"Bless my life! You look very nice, both of you," he decided.
"Both of us? _I'm_ not asked, thank goodness," declared Merle, who had
overheard the interview and emerged from the sanctuary of the doorway
now the coast was clear.
"It wouldn't matter, child. I'm sure Mrs. Glyn Williams would be
pleased to see you. It was stupid of me not to mention you were here
too."
"I'm so _thankful_ you didn't."
"Am _I_ to be the solitary victim?" asked Mavis's plaintive voice in its
most injured tone.
"Go with your sister, Merle," urged Dr. Tremayne, who felt rather in a
quandary.
"No, Uncle David, dear," replied Merle firmly. "If I wasn't invited I
wasn't, and it wouldn't be manners to turn up. I'll go with you to the
Sanatorium if you'll take me," and she added privately to Mavis:
"If one of us had to be asked to tea at The Warren I'm glad it's you.
Gwen can't bear me, and it was I who said the nasty things to that boy
in the lane. What's his name? Tudor! He deserved them, of course, but it
would make me shy to meet him again. You always get on much more
pleasantly with people than I do."
"We shall have to tell Bevis we're off in the car," said Mavis
disconsolately.
They found Bevis already at his bench in the tool-shed and evidently
expecting them. His face fell at their news, and, though they both did
their very best to explain the situation, he remained glum, and seemed
to think they wished to avoid his company.
"Oh, it's quite all right!" he remarked, and that was all they could
get out of him. He took up his mallet, and commenced to hammer so
vigorously that they fled from the noise.
"He says it doesn't matter, but he's fearfully huffy and offended,"
whispered Merle.
"Well, we can't help it. Everything has gone wrong to-day," sighed
Mavis.
There was no time to put things right with Bevis, for Dr. Tremayne was
hooting for them to start at once. He set Mavis down at the great gate
of The Warren, and took Merle on with him to the Sanatorium. Mavis
walked very solemnly up the laurel-bordered drive. She seldom went
anywhere without her sister, and hated paying this stately visit alone.
She rang the bell, feeling shy and frightened, and painfully conscious
of the conspicuously darned rent in her skirt. She wondered if Tudor
would have explained its origin.
The butler admitted her into a lovely conservatory, then through a large
hall into the drawing-room. Certainly it was a beautiful house, and
Mavis might have enjoyed herself if only Merle had been with her. Her
greeting by the young people was far pleasanter than she had
anticipated. Babbie was frankly cordial, Gwen unwontedly courteous, and
Tudor went so far as to accompany his sisters when they took their guest
for a stroll round the grounds. He walked a little behind, and made no
attempt at conversation, but she could see him eyeing the darn in her
skirt. Later on, while Gwen and Babbie were speaking to a gardener, and
for the moment he was alone with Mavis, he mentioned their meeting in
the lane.
"I say, you know," he began, "I'd no idea you were Dr. Tremayne's niece
when I saw you this morning. Did Jim scare you? He's rather a young
dog!"
It was exactly the same excuse that Gwen had urged in defence of the
rude reception she had given them in the garden. Mavis wondered
privately whether the Williamses only kept their good manners for their
friends, and meted out less civil treatment to strangers. But aloud she
answered:
"He did rather frighten me, but I wasn't hurt."
"He bolted out of the hedge before I'd time to stop him. I say, you
know, I'm sorry if he scared you. He's only a young dog and means no
harm."
His tardy apology was evidently mainly due to the fact that she was Dr.
Tremayne's niece, but Mavis had the grace to accept it politely, after
which the atmosphere seemed to thaw, and Tudor exerted himself to
entertain the visitor, offering to take her to the stables and show her
the horses. Gwen expanded at this, being very proud of her own little
cob, Taffy, and delighted to exhibit him to anybody who would appreciate
him.
"Do you hunt?" she asked airily. "I'd live on horseback if I could. Cars
are all very well in their way, and get you over the ground, but
motoring's nothing to riding. Taffy nips over fences like a bird. I'd
ride him to Durracombe when I come for the French class if it weren't
for Babbie. It's too far for her pony, so we have to go in the car."
Gentle Mavis invariably made friends, and before her visit at The
Warren was over she was on quite pleasant terms with Tudor, Gwen, and
Babbie.
"You must come again sometime," said Gwen graciously, accompanying her
to the door, when Dr Tremayne called for her with the car.
Merle, who had been temporarily left at the bottom of the drive, was
waiting for them, and took her place for the homeward journey.
"Well?" she asked eloquently.
"Better than I expected. Babbie's really rather sweet. Gwen showed me
her horse, and Tudor actually apologized. I don't dislike him _quite_ as
much as I did this morning. He goes to Eton, but he's at home this term
because he has been ill. He taught me to play bagatelle after tea, and
was wonderfully decent--but, oh no! of course not _nearly_ so nice as
Bevis."
"And Bevis, to judge from the way he banged with that mallet, is in a
thoroughly bad temper."
"Oh, surely he's got over it by this time?"
"I don't know. I'm afraid he thought us a couple of utter sneaks,"
grunted Merle.