"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 anaesthetic 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.

Old Elizabeth Prettyman stood at her door, and it took some time to make her realize who her august visitor was. She was getting blind; she had never been a favourite with Mrs. de Tracy, nor had she entered Stoke Revel Manor since her nursling disgraced it by marrying a Bean. She curtseyed humbly to the great lady.

"There now, ma'am," she said, "it's not often we have seen you across the river. Will you please to come inside and sit down, ma'am? 'T is very warm this afternoon, it is." She was a good deal fluttered in her welcome, for there was that in Mrs. de Tracy's air that seemed to bode misfortune.

"I shall sit down for a few minutes, Elizabeth," was the reply, "while I explain my visit to you."

Mrs. Prettyman stood aside respectfully, and Mrs. de Tracy swept past her into the cottage and seated herself there. It never occurred to her to ask the old woman to sit down in her own house; she expected her to stand throughout the interview. Without further preamble, then, Mrs. de Tracy came to the point:—

"Elizabeth," she said, "I have come to tell you that I am going to sell the land on which this cottage stands, and that you will have to find some other home."

The old woman did not understand for a minute. "You be going to sell the land, ma'am?" she repeated stupidly.

"Yes, I am. A gentleman from London wishes to buy it; you will need to go."

"A gentleman from London! Lor, ma'am, no gentleman from London wouldn't live 'ere!" Elizabeth cried, perfectly dazed by the statement.

Mrs. de Tracy repeated: "It is not your business, Elizabeth, what he intends to do with the place; all you have to do is to remove from the house."

The old woman sank down on the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands. She was so old and so tired that she had no heart to face life under new conditions, even should they be better than those she left. A younger woman would have snapped her fingers in Mrs. de Tracy's face, so to speak, and wished her joy of her old rattletrap of a house, but Elizabeth Prettyman, after a lifetime of struggles, had not vitality enough for such an action. She had never dreamed of leaving the cottage, and where was she to go? Her furrowed face wore an expression of absolute terror now when she looked up.

"But where be I to live, ma'am?" she cried.

"I do not know, Elizabeth; you must arrange that with your relations," said Mrs. de Tracy.

"I don't 'ave but only me niece—'er as married down Exeter way."

"Well, you should write to her then."

"She don't want to keep me, Nettie don't,—she's but a poor man's wife, and five chillen she 'as; it's not like as if she were me daughter, ma'am."

"You have some small sum of money of your own every year, have you not?" Mrs. de Tracy asked.

"Ten pound a year, ma'am; the same that me 'usband left me; two 'undred pounds 'e 'ad saved and 't is in an annuity; that's all I 'ave—that and me plum tree."

"The plum tree is not yours, either, Elizabeth; that belongs to the land," said Mrs. de Tracy curtly.

"'T was me 'usband planted it, ma'am, years ago. We watched 'en and pruned 'en and tended 'en like a child we did—an' now to be told 'er ain't mine!"

"You're forgetting yourself, Elizabeth, I think," said Mrs. de Tracy. It was simply impossible for her to see with the old woman's eyes; all she remembered was the legal fact that any tree planted in Stoke Revel ground belonged to the owner of the ground.

"But ma'am, 't is a big part of me living is the plum tree; only yesterday I says to the young lady—Miss Cynthia's young lady—I says, 'Dear knows how 't would be with me without I had the plum tree.'"

"I cannot help that, Elizabeth: the plum tree is not yours, it belongs to Stoke Revel."

"Then ma'am, you'll be 'lowing me something for it surely?"

"No," said Mrs. de Tracy obstinately, "you have no legal claim to compensation, Elizabeth. I cannot undertake to allow you anything for what is not yours. If I did it in your case you know quite well I should have to do it in many others."

There was a long and heavy silence. Elizabeth Prettyman was taking in her sentence of banishment from her old home; Mrs. de Tracy was merely wondering how long it would take her to walk down that nasty steep bit of path to the ferry. At last the old woman looked up.

"When must I be goin' then, ma'am?" she asked meekly.

Mrs. de Tracy considered. "The transfer of land from one person to another generally takes some time: you will have several weeks here still; I shall send you notice later which day to quit."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth simply, and added, "The plum tree blossoms 'ul be over by that time."

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mrs. de Tracy, in whose heart there was room for no sentiment.

"'T would have been 'arder leavin' it in blossom time," the old woman explained; but her hearer could not see the point. She rose slowly from her chair and looked around the cottage.

"I am glad to see that you keep your place clean and respectable, Elizabeth," she said. "I wish you good afternoon."

Elizabeth never rose from her chair to see her visitor to the door—(an omission which Mrs. de Tracy was not likely to overlook)—she just sat there gazing stupidly around the tiny kitchen and muttering a word or two now and then. At last she got up and tottered to the garden.

"I'll 'ave to leave it all—leave the old bench as me William did put for me with his own 'ands, and leave Duckie, Duckie can't never go to Exeter if I goes there,—and leave the plum tree." She limped across the little bit of sunny turf, and stood under the white canopy of the blossoming tree, leaning against its slender trunk. "Pity 't is we ain't rooted in the ground same as the trees are," she mused. "Then no one couldn't turn us out; only the Lord Almighty cut us down when our time came; Lord knows I'm about ready for that now—grave-ripe as you may say." She leaned her poor weary old head against the tree stem and wept, ready, ah! how ready, at that moment, to lay down the burden of her long and toilsome life.

"Good afternoon, Nursie dear!" a clear voice called out in her ear, and Elizabeth started to find that Robinette had tip-toed across the grass and was standing close beside her. She lifted her tear-stained face up to Robinette's as a child might have done.

"I've to quit, Missie," she sobbed, "to leave me 'ome and Duckie and the plum tree, an' I've no place to go to, and naught but my ten pounds to live on—and 't won't keep me without I've the plum tree, not when I've rent to pay from it; not if I don't eat nothing but tea an' bread never again!"

In a moment Robinette's arms were about her: her soft young cheeks pressed against the withered old face.

"What's this you're saying, Nurse?" she cried. "Leaving your cottage? Who said so?"

"It's true, dear, quite true; 'asn't the lady 'erself been here to tell me so?"

"Was that what Aunt de Tracy was here about? I met her on the road five minutes ago; she said she had been here on business! But tell me, Nurse, why does she want you to leave? Are you going to get a better cottage? Does she think this one isn't healthy for you?"

"No, no, dear, 't isn't that, she 've sold the cottage over me 'ead, that's what 't is, or she's going to sell it, to a gentleman from London—Lord knows what a gentleman from London wants wi' 'en—and I've to quit."

Robinette tried to be a peacemaker.

"Then you'll get a much more comfortable house, that's quite certain. You know, though this one is lovely on fine days like this, that the thatch is all coming off, and I'm sure it's damp inside! Just wait a bit, and see if you don't get some nice cosy little place, with a sound roof and quite dry, that will cure this rheumatism of yours."

But Mrs. Prettyman shook her head.

"No, no, there won't be no cosy place given to me; I'm no more worth than an old shoe now, Missie, and I'm to be turned out, the lady said so 'erself; said as I must go to Exeter to live with me niece Nettie, and 'er don't want us—Nettie don't—and whatever shall I do without I 'ave Duckie and the plum tree?"

"Oh, but"—Robinette began, quite incredulously, and the old woman took up her lament again.

"And I asked the lady, wouldn't I 'ave something allowed me for the plum tree—that 'ave about clothed me for years back? And 'No,' she says, ''t ain't your plum tree, Elizabeth, 't is mine; I can't 'low nothing on me own plum tree.'"

Robinette still refused to believe the story.

"Nurse, dear," she said, "you're a tiny bit deaf now, you know, and perhaps you misunderstood about leaving. Suppose you keep your dear old heart easy for to-night, and I'll come down bright and early to-morrow and tell you what it really is! If you have to leave the plum tree you'll get a fine price put on it that may last you for years; it's such a splendid tree, anyone can see it's worth a good deal."

"That it be, Missie, the finest tree in Wittisham," the old woman said, drying her eyes, a little comforted by the assurance in Robinette's voice and manner.

"There now, we won't have any more tears: I've brought a new canister of tea I sent for to London. I'm just dying to taste if it's good; we'll brew it together, Nursie; I shall carry out the little table from the kitchen and we'll drink our tea under the plum tree," Robinette cried.

She was carrying a great parcel under her arm, and when Mrs. Prettyman opened it, she could scarcely believe that this lovely red tin canister, filled with pounds of fragrant tea, could really be hers! The sight of such riches almost drove away her former fears. Robinette whisked into the kitchen and came out carrying the little round table which she set down under the white canopy of the plum tree. Then together they brought out the rest of the tea things, and what a merry meal they had!

"It's just nonsense and a bit of deafness on your part, Nurse, so we won't remember anything about leaving the house, we are only going to think of enjoyment," Robinette announced. Then the old woman was comforted, as old people are wont to be by the brave assurances of those younger and stronger than themselves, forgot the spectre that seemed to have risen suddenly across her path, and laughed and talked as she sipped the fragrant London tea.



XVIII

THE STOKE REVEL JEWELS

"Hullo! Cousin Robin, hurry up, you'll need all your time!" It was Carnaby of course who saluted Robinette thus, as she came towards the house on her return from Wittisham.

"I'm not late, am I?" she said, consulting her watch.

"I thought you'd be making a tremendous toilette; one of your killing ones to-night," Carnaby said. "Do! I love to see you all dressed up till old Smeardon's eyes look as if they would drop out when you come into the room."

"I'll wear my black dress, and her eyes may remain in her head," Robinette laughed.

"And what about Mark's eyes? Wouldn't you like them to drop out?" the boy asked mischievously. "He's come back by the afternoon train while you were away at Wittisham."

"Oh, has he?" Robinette said, and Carnaby stared so hard at her, that to her intense annoyance she blushed hotly.

"Horrid lynx-eyed boy," she said to herself as she ran upstairs, "He's growing up far too quickly. He needs to be snubbed." She dashed to the wardrobe, pulled out the black garment, and gave it a vindictive shake. "Old, dowdy, unbecoming, deaconess-district-visitor-bible-woman, great-grand-auntly thing!" she cried.

Then her eye lighted on a cherished lavender satin. She stood for a moment deliberating, the black dress over her arm, her eyes fixed upon the lavender one that hung in the wardrobe.

"I don't care," she cried suddenly: "I'll wear the lavender, so here goes! Men are all colour blind, so he'll merely notice that I look nice. I must conceal from myself and everybody else how depressed I am over the interview with Nurse, and how I dread discussing the cottage with Aunt de Tracy. That must be done the first thing after dinner, or I shall lose what little courage I have."

Lavendar thought he had never seen her look so lovely as when he met her in the drawing room a quarter of an hour later. There was nothing extraordinary about the dress but its exquisite tint and the sheen of the soft satin. The suggestion that lay in the colour was entirely lost upon him, however: if asked to name it he would doubtless have said "purplish." How he wished that he might have escorted her into the dining room, but Mrs. de Tracy was his portion as usual, and Robinette was waiting for Carnaby, who seemed unaccountably slow.

"Your arm, Middy, when you are quite ready," she said to him at last. Carnaby's extraordinary unreadiness seemed to arise from his trying to smuggle some object up his sleeve. This proved, a few moments later, to be a bundle of lavender sticks tied with violet ribbon that he had discovered in his bureau drawer. He laid it by Robinette's plate with a whispered "My compliments."

"What does your cousin want that bunch of lavender for, at the table?" Mrs. de Tracy enquired.

"She likes lavender anywhere, ma'am," Carnaby said with a wink on the side not visible by his grandmother. "It's a favourite of hers."

Robinette could only be thankful that Lavendar was occupied in a sotto voce discussion of wine with Bates, and she was able to conceal the bundle of herbs before his eyes met hers, for the fury she felt against her precious young kinsman at that moment she could have expressed only by blows.

Dinner seemed interminably long. Robinette, for more reasons than one, was preoccupied; Lavendar made few remarks, and Carnaby was possessed by a spirit of perfectly fiendish mischief, saying and doing everything that could most exasperate his grandmother, put her guests to the blush, and shock Miss Smeardon.

But at last Mrs. de Tracy rose from the table, and the ladies followed her from the room, leaving Lavendar to cope alone with Carnaby.

"My fair American cousin is more than usually lovely to-night, eh, Mr. Lavendar?" the boy said, with his laughable assumption of a man of the world.

"There, my young friend; that will do! you're talking altogether too much," said Lavendar, as he poured himself out a glass of wine and sat down by the open window to drink it. Carnaby, perhaps not unreasonably offended, lounged out of the room, and left the older man to his own meditations.

Robinette in the meantime went into the drawing room with her aunt, and they sat down together in the dim light while Miss Smeardon went upstairs to write a letter.

"Aunt de Tracy," Robinette began, "I was calling on Mrs. Prettyman just after you had been with her this afternoon, and do you know the dear old soul had taken the strangest idea into her head! She says you are going to ask her to leave the cottage."

"The land on which her cottage stands is about to be sold," said Mrs. de Tracy. "It is necessary that she should move."

"Yes, she quite understood that; but she thinks she is not going to get another house; that was what was distressing her, naturally. Of course she hates to leave the old place, but I believe if she gets another nicer cottage, that will quite console her," said Robinette quickly.

"I have no vacant cottage on the estate just now," said Mrs. de Tracy quietly.

"Then what is she to do? Isn't it impossible that she should move until another place is made ready for her?" Robinette rose and stood beside the table, leaning the tips of her fingers on it in an attitude of intense earnestness. She was trying to conceal the anger and dismay she felt at her aunt's reply.

"Mrs. Prettyman has relatives at Exeter," said Mrs. de Tracy without the quiver of an eyelid.

"Yes; but they are poor. They aren't very near relations, and they don't want her. O Aunt de Tracy, is it necessary to make her leave? She depends upon the plum tree so! She makes twenty-five dollars a year from the jam!"

"Dollars have no significance for me," said Mrs. de Tracy with an icy smile.

"Well, pounds then: five pounds she makes. How is she ever going to live without that, unless you give her the equivalent? It's half her livelihood! I promised you would consider it? Was I wrong?"

Old bitternesses rose in Mrs. de Tracy's heart, the prejudices and the grudges of a lifetime. Everything connected with Robinette's mother had been wrong in her eyes, and now everything connected with Robinette was wrong too, and becoming more so with startling rapidity.

"You had no right whatsoever to make any promises on my behalf," she now said harshly. "You have acted foolishly and officiously. This is no business of yours."

"I'll gladly make it my business if you'll let me, Aunt de Tracy!" pleaded Robinette. "If you don't feel inclined to provide for Mrs. Prettyman, mayn't I? She is my mother's old nurse and she shan't want for anything as long as I have a penny to call my own!" Robinette's eyes filled with tears, but Mrs. de Tracy was not a whit moved by this show of emotion, which appeared to her unnecessary and theatrical.

"You are forgetting yourself a good deal in your way of speaking to me on this subject," she said coldly. "When I behaved unbecomingly in my youth, my mother always recommended me to go upstairs, shut myself up alone in my room, and collect my thoughts. The process had invariably a calming effect. I advise you to try it."

Robinette did not need to be proffered the hint twice. She rushed out of the room like a whirlwind, not looking where she went. In the hall, she came face to face with Lavendar, who had just left the dining room.

"Mr. Lavendar!" she cried. "Do go into the drawing room and speak to my aunt. Preach to her! Argue with her! Convince her that she can't and mustn't act in this way; can't go and turn Mrs. Prettyman out, and rob her of the plum tree, and leave her with hardly a penny in the world or a roof over her head!"

"It's not a very pretty or a very pleasant business, Mrs. Loring, I admit," said Lavendar quietly.

"Is it English law?" cried Robinette with indignation. "If it is, I call it mean and unjust!"

"Sometimes the laws seem very hard," said Lavendar. "I'd like to discuss this affair with you quietly another time."

As he spoke, Carnaby appeared and wanted to be told what the matter was, but Robinette discovered that it is not very easy to criticise a grandmother to her youthful grandson, more especially when the lady in question is your hostess.

"Aunt de Tracy and I have had a little difference of opinion about Mrs. Prettyman and her cottage, and the plum tree," she said to the boy quietly, and Lavendar nodded approval.

"Prettyman's got the sack, hasn't she?" Carnaby enquired with a boy's carelessness.

Robinette looked very grave. "My dear old nurse is to leave her cottage," she said with a quiver in her voice. "She's to lose her plum tree—"

"But of course she'll get compensation," cried Carnaby.

"No, Middy; she's to get no compensation," said Robinette in a low voice.

"Well, I call that jolly hard! It's a beastly shame," said Carnaby, evidently pricking up his ears and with a sudden frown that changed his face. "I say, Mark—" But Lavendar did not think the moment suitable for a discussion of Mrs. Prettyman's wrongs. Besides, he did not wish Robinette to be banished from the drawing room for a whole interminable evening. He contrived to silence Carnaby for the time being.

"Let's bury the hatchet for a little while," he suggested. "Have you forgotten, Mrs. Loring, that I made Mrs. de Tracy promise to show off the Stoke Revel jewels for your benefit this very night?"

"O! but now I'm in disgrace, she won't!" said Robinette.

"Yes, she will!" said Carnaby. "Nothing puts the old lady in such a heavenly temper as showing off the jewels. Don't you miss it, Cousin Robin! It's like the Tower of London and Madam Tussaud's rolled into one, this show, I can assure you. Come on! Come back into the drawing room. Needn't be afraid when Mark's there!"

Robinette found that a black look or two was all that she had to fear from Mrs. de Tracy at present, and even these became less severe under the alchemy of Lavendar's tact. A reminder that an exhibition of the jewelry had been promised was graciously received. Bates and Benson were summoned, and armed with innumerable keys, they descended to subterranean regions where safes were unlocked and jewel-boxes solemnly brought into the drawing room. Mrs. de Tracy wore an air almost devotional, as she unlocked the final receptacles with keys never allowed to leave her own hands.

"If the proceedings had begun with prayer and ended with a hymn, it wouldn't have surprised me in the least!" Robinette said to herself, looking silently on. Her silence, luckily for her, was taken for the speechlessness of awe, and did a good deal to make up, in the eyes of her august relative, for her late indiscretions. As a matter of fact, her irreverent thoughts were mostly to the effect that all but the historical pieces of the Stoke Revel corbeille would be the better of re-setting by Tiffany or Cartier.

Mrs. de Tracy opened an old shagreen case and the firelight flickered on the diamonds of a small tiara.

"This is a part of the famous Montmorency set," she announced proudly, with the tone of a Keeper of Regalia. Then she took out a rope of pearls ending in tassels. "These belonged to Marie Antoinette," she said.

An emerald set was next produced, and the emeralds, it was explained, had once adorned a crown. Deep green they were, encrusted in their diamond setting; costly, unique; but they left Robinette cold, though like most American women, she loved precious stones as an adornment. One of those emeralds, she was thinking, was worth fifty times more than old Lizzie Prettyman's cottage: the sale of one of them would have averted that other sale which was to cause so much distress to a poor harmless old woman.

"When do you wear your jewels, Aunt de Tracy?" she asked gravely.

"I have not worn them since the Admiral's death," was the virtuous reply, "and I have never called or considered them mine, Robinetta. They are the de Tracy jewels. When Carnaby takes his place as the head of the house, they will be his. He will see that his wife wears them on the proper occasions."

"Carnaby's wife!" thought Robinette. "Why! she mayn't be born! He may never have a wife! And to think of all those precious stones hiding their brightness in these boxes like prisoners in a dungeon for years and years, only to be let out now and then by Bates and Benson, jingling their keys like jailers! And this house is a prison too!" she said to herself; "a prison for souls!" and the thought of its hoarded wealth made her indignant; all this hidden treasure in a house where there was never enough to eat, where guests shivered in fireless bedrooms, where servants would not stay because they were starved! And Carnaby, too, whose youth was being embittered by unnecessary economies: Carnaby, who had so little pocket-money that he was a laughing-stock among his fellows—it was for Carnaby these sacrifices were being made! Strange traditions! Fetiches of family pride almost as grotesque to her thinking as those of any savages under the sun.

"My poor dear Middy!" she thought. "What chance has he, brought up in an atmosphere like this?" But she happened to raise her eyes at the moment, and to see the actual Carnaby of the moment, not the Carnaby her gloomy imagination was evoking from the future with the "petty hoard of maxims preaching down" his heart. He had contrived to get hold of the Marie Antoinette pearls without his grandmother's knowledge and to hang them around his neck; he had poised the Montmorency tiara on his own sleek head; he had forced a heavy bracelet by way of collar round Rupert's throat, and now with that choking and goggling unfortunate held partner-wise in his arms, he was waltzing on tiptoe about the farther drawing room behind the unconscious backs of Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon.

"He's only a careless boy," thought Robinette, "a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care, hare-brained youngster. They can't have poisoned his nature yet, and I'm sure he has a good heart. If he were at the head of affairs at Stoke Revel instead of his grandmother, I wonder what would be done in the matter of my poor old nurse?" Robinette stood in the doorway for a moment before going up to her room. Her whole attitude spoke depression as Carnaby stole up behind her.

"See here, Cousin Robin, I can't bear to have you go on like this. Don't take Prettyman's trouble so to heart. We'll do something! I'll do something myself! I have a happy thought."



XIX

LAWYER AND CLIENT

Robinette had a bad night after the jewel exhibition, and a heavy head 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.

"You be careful, sir, as you don't chop off one of your own toes with that there axe," said the man. "It be full heavy for one o' your age. But there! you zailor-men be that handy! 'Tis your trade, so to speak!"

"Quite right, Jones, it is!" replied Carnaby. "Good-afternoon and thank you for the use of the grindstone." He was already planning where he would hide the axe, for he had precise ideas about everything and left nothing to chance.

Carnaby went to bed that night at his usual hour. His profession had already accustomed him to awaking at odd intervals, and he had more than the ordinary boy's knowledge of moon and tide, night and dawn. When he slipped out of bed after a few hours of sound sleep, he put on a flannel shirt and trousers and a broad belt, and then, carrying his boots in his hand, crept out of his room and through the sleeping house. He would much rather have climbed out of the window, in a manner more worthy of such an adventure, but his return in that fashion might offer dangers in daylight. So he was content with an unfrequented garden door which he could leave on the latch.

The moon, which had been young when she lighted the lovers in the mud-bank adventure, was now a more experienced orb and shed a useful light. Carnaby intended to cross the river in a small tub which was propelled by a single oar worked at the stern, the rower standing. This craft was intended for pottering about the shore; to cross the river in it was the dangerous feat of a skilled waterman, but Carnaby had a knack of his own with every floating thing. As he balanced himself in the rocking tub, bare-headed, bare-necked, bare-armed, paddling with the grace and ease of strength and training, he looked a man, but a man young with the youth of the gods. The moon shone in his keen grey eyes and made them sparkle. A cold sea-wind blew up the river, but he did not feel its chill, for blood hot with adventure raced in his veins.

Wittisham was in profound darkness when he landed, and the moon having gone behind a bank of cloud, he had to grope his way to Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, shouldering the axe. The isolated position of the house alone made the adventure possible, he reflected; he could not have cut down a tree in the hearing of neighbours, and as to old Elizabeth herself, he hoped she was deaf. Most old women were, he reflected, except unfortunately his grandmother!

Soon he was entering the little garden and sniffing the scent of blossom, which was very strong in the night air. He could see the dim outline of the plum tree, and just as he wanted light, the moon came out and shone upon its whiteness, giving a sort of spiritual beauty to the flowering thing that was very exquisite.

"What price, Waller R. A. now?" thought Carnaby impishly. "The plum tree in moonlight! eh? Wouldn't he give his eyes to see it! But he won't! Not if I know it!" The boy was as blind to the tree's beauty as his grandmother had been, but he had scientific ideas how to cut it down, for he had watched the felling of many a tree.

First, standing on a lower branch, you lopped off all the side shoots as high as you could reach. This made the trunk easy to deal with, and its fall less heavy, and Carnaby set to work.

"She goes through them all as slick as butter!" he said to himself in high satisfaction. The axe had assumed a personality to him and was "she," not "it." "She makes no more noise than a pair of scissors cutting flowers; not half so much!" he said proudly. Branch after branch fell down and lay about the tree like the discarded garments of a bathing nymph. The petals fell upon Carnaby's face, upon his hair and shoulders; he was a white figure as he toiled. Frightened birds and bats flew about, but he did not notice them. His only care was the cottage itself and its inmate. If she should awake! But the little habitation, shrouded in thatch and deep in shadow, was dark and silent as the grave.

"She must be sound asleep and deaf," thought the boy. "Yes, very deaf." He paused. The first stage in his task was accomplished. Shivering and naked, one absurd tuft of blossom and leaves at the tip—the murdered tree now stood in the moonlight, imploring the coup de grace which should end its shame.

"Jolly well done," said the murderer complacently. He stretched his arms, looked at the palms of his hands to see if they had blistered, and addressed himself to the second part of his business. Thud! thud! went the axe on the trunk of the tree, and the sweat broke out all over Carnaby's skin, not with exertion but with nervous terror.

"If that doesn't wake the dead!" he thought—but there was no awaking in the cottage. Its tiny window blinked in the moonlight, and Carnaby thought he heard the drowsy quack of a duck in an out-house. But the danger passed. Thud! went the axe again. The slim severed shaft of the tree was poised a moment, motionless, erect before it fell. Then it subsided gently among its broken and trodden boughs, and Carnaby's task was done.



XXII

CONSEQUENCES

Early that morning before the sun had risen, when the light was still grey in the coming dawn, Robinette was awakened by a bird that called out from a tree close to her open window, every note like the striking of a golden bell. She jumped up and looked out, but the little singer, silenced, had flown away. Instead, she caught sight of a figure stealing across the lawn towards the side door which opened from the library. Even in the dim light she could distinguish that it was Carnaby, Carnaby with something in his hand. What he carried she could not quite make out, but the sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up above his elbows in a fatally business-like way, and he walked with an air of stealth.

"What mischief can that boy have been up to at this time of day?" thought Robinette as she lay down again, but she was too sleepy to wonder long.

She forgot all about it until she saw Carnaby at the breakfast table some hours later. Sometimes the gloom of that meal—never a favorite or convivial one in the English household, and most certainly neither at Stoke Revel—would be enlivened by some of the boy's pranks. He would pass over to the sideboard, pepper-pot slyly in hand, and Rupert, whose meal at this hour consisted of grape-nuts and cream, would unaccountably sneeze and snuffle over his plate.

"Bless it, Bobs!" his tormentor would exclaim tenderly. "Is it catching cold? Poor old Kitchener! Hi! Kitch! Kitch!" (like a violent sneeze) and the outraged Rupert would forget grape-nuts and pepper alike in a fit of impotent fury. But this morning the dog fed in peace and Carnaby never glanced at him or his basin. Robinette, looking at the boy and remembering where she had seen him last, noticed that he was rather silent, that his cheeks were redder than common, and that under his eyes were lines of fatigue not usually there.

"What were you doing on the lawn at four o'clock this morning?" she began, but checked herself, suddenly thinking that if Carnaby had been up to mischief she must not allude to it before his grandmother.

No one had heard her. The meal dragged on. Robinette and Lavendar talked little. Miss Smeardon was preoccupied with the sufferings and the moods of Rupert. Mrs. de Tracy alone seemed in better spirits than usual; she was talkative and even balmy.

"The work at the spinney begins to-day," she observed complacently, addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an old copse and the planting of a new one—an improvement she had long planned, though hitherto in vain. "The young trees have arrived."

"But where is the money to come from?" enquired Carnaby suddenly, in a sepulchral tone. (His voice was at the disagreeable breaking stage, an agony and a shame to himself and always a surprise to others.) His grandmother stared: the others, too, looked in astonishment at the boy's red face.

"I thought it had all been explained to you, Carnaby," said Mrs. de Tracy, "but you take so little interest in the estate that I suppose what you have been told went in at one ear and out at the other, as usual! It is the sale of land at Wittisham which makes these improvements possible, advantages drawn from a painful necessity," and the iron woman almost sighed.

"There won't be any sale of land at Wittisham,—at least, not of Mrs. Prettyman's cottage," said Carnaby abruptly.

"It is practically settled. The transfers only remain to be signed; you know that, Carnaby," said Lavendar curtly. He did not wish the vexed question to be raised again at a meal.

"It was practically settled—but it's all off now," said the boy, looking hard at his grandmother. "Waller R. A. won't want the place any more. The bloomin' plum tree's gone—cut down. The bargain's off, and old Mrs. Prettyman can stay on in her cottage as long as she likes!"

There was a freezing silence, broken only by the stertorous breathing of Rupert on Miss Smeardon's lap.

"Repeat, please, what you have just said, Carnaby," said his grandmother with dangerous calmness, "and speak distinctly."

"I said that the cottage at Wittisham won't be sold because the plum tree's gone," repeated Carnaby doggedly. "It's been cut down."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen it." Carnaby raised his eyes. "I cut it down myself," he added, "this morning before daylight."

"Who put such a thing into your head?" Mrs. de Tracy's words were ice: her glance of suspicion at Robinette, like the cold thrust of steel. "Who told you to cut the plum tree down?"

"My conscience!" was Carnaby's unexpected reply. He was as red as fire, but his glance did not falter. Mrs. de Tracy rose. Not a muscle of her face had moved.

"Whatever your action has been, Carnaby," she said with dignity—"whether foolish and disgraceful, or criminal and dangerous, it cannot be discussed here. You will follow me at once to the library, and presently I may send for Mark. A lawyer's advice will probably be necessary," she added grimly.

Carnaby said not a word. He opened the door for his grandmother and followed her out; but as he passed Robinette, he looked at her earnestly, half expecting her applause; for one of the motives in his boyish mind had certainly been to please her—to shine in her eyes as the doer of bold deeds and to avenge her nurse's wrongs. And all that he had managed was to make her cry!

For Robinette had put her elbows on the table and had covered her eyes with her hands. As he left the room, Carnaby could hear her exclamation:—

"To cut down that tree! That beautiful, beautiful, fruitful thing! O! how could anyone do it?"

So this was justice; this was all he got for his pains! How unaccountable women were!

Lavendar awaited some time his summons to join Mrs. de Tracy and her grandson in what seemed to him must be a portentous interview enough, trying meanwhile somewhat unsuccessfully to console Mrs. Loring for the destruction of the plum tree, and exchanging with her somewhat awe-struck comments on the scene they had both just witnessed. No summons came, however; but half an hour later, he came across Carnaby alone, and an interview promptly ensued. He wanted to plumb the depth of the boy-mind and to learn exactly what motives had prompted Carnaby to this sudden and startling action in the matter of the plum tree.

"Had you a bad quarter of an hour with your grandmother?" was his first question. Carnaby, he thought, looked subdued, and not much wonder.

The boy hesitated.

"Not so bad as I expected," was his answer. "The old lady was wonderfully decent, for her. She gave me a talking to, of course."

"I should hope so!" interpolated Lavendar drily.

"She jawed away about our poverty," continued Carnaby. "She's got that on the brain, as you know. She said that this loss of the money—Waller R. A.'s money, she means, of course—is an awful blow. She said it was, but it seemed to me—" Carnaby paused, looking extremely puzzled.

"It seemed to you—?" prompted Lavendar encouragingly.

"That she wasn't so awfully cut up, after all," said Carnaby. "She seemed putting it on, if you know what I mean." Lavendar pricked up his ears. Mrs. de Tracy's intense reluctance to sell the land recurred to him in a flash. To get her consent had been like drawing a tooth, like taking her life-blood drop by drop. Could it be that she was not very sorry after all that the scheme had fallen through, secretly glad, indeed? It was conceivable that this was Mrs. de Tracy's view, but her grandson's motive was still obscure.

"Why did you do it, Carnaby?" Lavendar asked with kindness and gravity both in his voice. "You have committed a very mischievous action, you know, one that would have borne a harsher name had the transfers been signed and had the plum tree changed hands."

"But then I shouldn't have done it—you—you juggins, Mark!" cried the boy. "I've no earthly grudge against Waller R. A. If he'd actually bought the tree, it would have been too late, and his beastly money—"

"You need the money, you know," remarked Lavendar. "Remember that, my young friend!"

"It would have been dirty money!" said Carnaby, with a sudden flash that lit up his rather heavy face with a new expression. "You and Cousin Robin have been jolly polite when you thought I was listening, but I know what you really thought, and the kind of things you were saying to one another about this business! You thought it beastly mean to take the cottage away from old Lizzie in the way it was being done, and sheer robbery to deprive her of the plum tree without paying her for it. I quite agreed with you there, and if I felt like that, do you think I could sit still and let the money come in to Stoke Revel—money that had been got in such a way? What do you take me for?" Lavendar was silent, looking at the boy in surprise. "Oh," continued Carnaby, "how I wish I were of age! Then I could show Cousin Robin, perhaps, what an English landlord can be! I mean that he can be a friend to his tenants, and kind and generous as well as just. As it is, Cousin Robin will go back to America and tell her friends what selfish brutes we are over here, and how jolly glad she was to get away!"

"Mrs. Loring will carry no tales, I am sure," said Lavendar. "But tell me, my dear fellow, did you imagine that Mrs. Prettyman would be a gainer by your action?"

"Well, why not?" answered the boy. "Didn't you tell me yourself that Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage without the tree? What's to prevent the old woman living on where she is? Do you think there'll be a rush of new tenants for that precious old hovel? Go on! You know better than that!"

"But the tree, Carnaby, the plum tree!" cried Lavendar. "My young Goth, hadn't you a moment's compunction? That beautiful, flowering thing, as your cousin called it; could you destroy it without a pang?"

"The tree?" echoed Carnaby with unmeasured scorn. "What's a tree? It's just a tree, isn't it?"

"A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more!"

quoted Mark, despairingly.

"Well; and what more did he expect of a primrose, whoever the Johnny was?" asked the contemptuous Carnaby.

"At any rate," commented Lavendar, "it isn't necessary to search as far as Peter Bell for an analogy for your character, my young friend! You are your grandmother's grandson after all!"

"In some ways I suppose I can't help being," answered Carnaby soberly, "but not in all," he added, and suddenly turning red he fumbled in his pocket and produced a coin which he held out to Lavendar. "It's only ten bob," he said apologetically, "and I wish it was a jolly sight more! But please give it to old Mrs. Prettyman to make up a bit for the loss of her plums. Daresay I'll manage some more by and by. Anyway, I'll make it up to her when I come of age.—I'm nearly sixteen already, you know. Be sure you tell her that!"

But Lavendar refused to take the money.

"Mrs. Prettyman is provided for, my boy," he said. "She has become your cousin's especial care. You need have no fear about that. The poor old woman is very happy and will have a cottage more suited for her rheumatism and her general feebleness than the present one. But I think your cousin will understand your motives and believe that you meant well by old Lizzie in your little piece of midnight madness."

"Though I was a bit rough on the plum tree!" said Carnaby, with a broad smile.

"You think it's a laughing matter?" Lavendar asked indignantly. "I wish you had my father to deal with, and Waller R. A.! It's all very well for you."

But Carnaby only laughed. The blood was still hot in his veins, and the joy of his night's adventure. Mark told him that he and Mrs. Loring were crossing the river at once to see for themselves the extent of his mischief and what effect it had had upon old Mrs. Prettyman. Carnaby observed with diabolical meaning that as he had not been invited to join the party, he would make himself scarce. Gooseberries, he said, were very good fruit, but he wasn't fond of them; so he lounged off with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly he turned. "See here, old Mark! You'll speak a word for me with Cousin Robin, won't you? It's hard on me to have her hate me when I was trying to do my best to please her."

"She won't hate you; she couldn't hate anybody," said Lavendar absently, watching first the door and then the window.

"You say that because you're in love with her! I've a couple of eyes in my head, stupid as you all think me. You can deny it all you like, but you won't convince me!"