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Title: Jock's inheritance
Author: Amy Le Feuvre
Release date: October 3, 2025 [eBook #76969]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1927
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOCK'S INHERITANCE ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: "Calamity seems to be her portion," said the man coolly.
_Jock's Inheritance]_ _[Frontispiece_]
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
PUBLISHED BY WARD, LOCK & CO., LTD.
ADRIENNE
A GIRL AND HER WAYS
HER KINGDOM
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS
A STRANGE COURTSHIP
UNDER A CLOUD
NOEL'S CHRISTMAS TREE
JOCK'S
INHERITANCE
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
Author of "My Heart's in the Highlands,"
"A Girl and Her Ways," "Noel's Christmas Tree," etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
MADE IN ENGLAND
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I A VENTURE
II THE OLD HOUSE
III WHAT A CUPBOARD CONTAINED
IV LILAC FARM
V A HARD BLOW
VI IN NEW QUARTERS
VII VENETIA DISAPPEARS
VIII DISASTER
IX JOCK'S CONFESSION
X ORRIS'S LETTER
XI IN RETREAT
XII NEW QUARTERS AGAIN
XIII JOCK'S ARRIVAL
XIV A VISIT TO VEDDON WEAL
XV WED
XVI JOCK'S INHERITANCE
JOCK'S INHERITANCE
CHAPTER I
A VENTURE
IT was four o'clock in the afternoon in the beginning of January. The
room was cosy and comfortable. Outside, there was a bitter north-east
wind; the grey dusk hid the opposite row of houses, but the noise of
the traffic in the next street was ceaseless, and the girl sitting
before the blazing fire, her hands clasped loosely round her knees,
was continually raising her head in a listening attitude. Then she
heard the electric bell of her flat ring, and she rose to her feet
expectantly.
The door opened, and a man was ushered in by a very trim maid.
The girl uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"'You,' Dugald!"
"Yes, it's myself," said the newcomer in brisk tones; "don't look so
'dour,' as we Scotch say."
The girl smiled. She was tall and slender, but she was not beautiful;
only a pair of merry brown eyes and a humorously twisted mouth redeemed
her from plainness, but she carried her inches with dignity, and she
had an attractive personality.
"Sit down. I'm expecting my sister-in-law and my small niece to stay
with me. It is all rather sudden. Here's her letter. What do you think
of it?" She took a letter off her mantelpiece and handed it to him.
"MY DEAR ORRIS,—
"Calamity has overtaken me. I told you I was going to marry Captain
Arteris. My wedding day was fixed for the tenth of next month, and we
were to have been married in Cannes. I must tell you, about four months
ago, he persuaded me to invest all my capital in an oil well of his; he
said it would give me twelve per cent. right away. The oil has failed,
and the company, which I rather gather is Frank himself, is insolvent.
He came to me perfectly abject, saying he couldn't afford to marry, and
is now on his way to try new fields of fortune in California. So that's
off. The shock of it was too much for me, and I have been very ill. How
are Pippa and I to live upon my small pension? I must come and talk
over things with you, and I'm writing this just before leaving by the
night express.
"Your affectionate sister,
"VENETIA."
"Calamity seems to be her portion," said the man coolly; "but I fail
to see why you should be brought into it again. You set her up in a
millinery venture, did you not?"
Orris nodded.
"She has neither the health nor capacity to earn," she said.
"Take my advice and don't offer her a home."
"I think," she remarked, "that you had better not stay. I hear a taxi,
and you and she never hit it off."
"Hang her!" muttered the man under his breath. But he got up from his
chair. "I came to suggest a dinner at the Carlton to-night. Marie is up
in town, and wants to see you."
"I'm sorry."
She waved a rather impatient hand to him, and he left the room with a
heavy frown.
"Venetia is a born parasite," he said to himself, "and Orris is a
perfect fool in her hands."
Then, in a moment or two, the door opened, and Orris's sister-in-law
appeared.
She shed her fur coat before she embraced. "Oh, what weather! And we've
had such a rough crossing! I'm perished with cold!"
"Where's the child?" demanded Orris.
"Downstairs, chattering her head off to Dugald, who tumbled into us.
Does he still live in your pockets, Orris?"
Orris flushed, then she laughed.
"You never will realize that our cousinship is a thing by itself. Ah,
here comes Pippa!"
Venetia had taken off her hat and was standing over the fire; she had
a pale golden bobbed head and a very short dress. She looked about
seventeen in the firelight. The child who danced into the room and up
to Orris was dark-eyed, with a mop of very curly fair hair. She had
small features and a beautiful skin.
"Aunt Ollie—Aunt Ollie!" she cried, throwing her arms round her aunt.
"Aren't you very glad to see me? I've grown yards, and mummy's shoes
almost fit me if I stuff paper into the toes! And I walked all round
the ship with the captain, and do you know I have a darling dove in a
cage? And Cousin Dugald was saying a wicked word when he met us on the
stairs, so I put my hand in his pocket quick like a thief, and picked
his cigarette-case; and then he and me had a scrimmage, but he says
there's a new bear at the Zoo wants to see me, and we think we'll go
to-morrow."
She paused for breath. Her mother turned her head.
"Go and fetch me my handbag, Pippa. I left it in the cab, and Anita has
got it."
The child instantly obeyed.
"You can put us up, Orris?"
"Of course. I have a big spare room."
"You're very comfortable in this flat. I suppose you realize that we're
penniless. Pippa and I have both been in the doctor's hands. He advised
a good healthy out-of-door life for us both. So ridiculous! But I
couldn't stay on in Cannes."
"Pippa looks thin and white."
"She's never still; she tires me to death. I never ought to have been a
mother. I haven't the health for it. Children are a never-ending care
and responsibility. You'll have to take her off my hands for a bit.
Have you still got your job at the club?"
"Yes, I'm still manageress."
"I should like a similar job if I could get it. You have a very good
time and a good salary."
"It's good enough for one," said Orris, laughing, and her laugh was
clear and ringing, "but it won't be very good for three. I'll do the
best I can for you, Vennie dear. We must talk over this idea of a
country life."
"Don't make me an item in it. But Pippa has a cough which ought to be
cured. If I had the money, I would send her down to a country farmhouse
with Anita, my maid. I suppose you can put her up too? I forgot to say
I was bringing her over with us. She's half Italian, half French, and
adores Pippa, and knows how to manage her."
"I think she can share my one maid's room," said Orris.
Pippa was back.
"I wiss I was a organ-man, mummy! There's one with a monkey in the
street. May I go and be friends with him?"
"No," said her mother sharply; "you may not. Oh, dear! How tired I am!
Orris, I'll go straight to bed. Anita will wait on me—I only want a cup
of tea."
Orris took her to her spare room without a word. She saw that she had
every comfort there, and then returned to her little niece, whom she
found in front of the fire with two dolls and a Teddy bear.
"It's my family, Aunt Ollie—Beauty and the Beast and their little baby.
I'm really fondest of the Beast; he's so soft and squeezy."
Then a fit of coughing stopped further talking. And as Orris watched
the child's flushed, strained face and beating heart, sudden anxiety
seized her.
"Pippa, my darling, you're nothing but a bag of bones with a little
skin over them!"
She took her on her lap as she spoke, and, exhausted by her coughing,
the child rested her head on her shoulder and sighed.
"Mummy hates fat people. There was a fat lady on the boat. She could
hardly walk. I can run faster than anybody can catch me."
Tea was being brought in. Orris was distressed at her niece's small
appetite. When it was over, she found her hands full helping the
travellers to unpack and settle them comfortably for the night. But
later on, she came back to the fireside and sat very still in her
chair, as she reviewed the situation.
"This will make a big change in my life," she said to herself. "I
cannot support Vennie in the luxury she demands, if we live on in
town. And the child will die here. For Jim's sake, I must look after
them. Well, it is good to have belongings; I was getting selfish and
self-centred—and a few days will do wonders, I expect. I must get a
doctor's opinion, and arrive at Vennie's mind. Light will come—it
always does."
As she sat there, she looked back to her girlhood's days. Her first
real trouble was when she was a happy careless schoolgirl of fifteen.
She was recalled from her boarding-school to her young mother's
death-bed. She had caught a severe chill which turned to pneumonia, and
after a few days' illness passed away, whispering in a breathless way
to her little daughter: "Take care of daddy."
Orris had had eight years of sheltered life with her father, who was
a dreamy scholar, and lived in a world of books and manuscripts. He
was twenty years older than her mother, and died leaving his daughter
almost penniless.
Her one brother was a Civil Servant in India. He came home on leave at
his father's death with his wife and child, and wanted Orris to go back
to India and make his house her home. This she refused to do. Venetia
and she had little in common. And she knew she would not be a welcome
visitor to her sister-in-law.
Through an old school friend she obtained a post as assistant
manageress of a woman's club in London, and proved so capable and
dependable that, on the retirement of her friend, she was elected the
manageress, and had been there ever since.
Trouble came again. Her brother was carried off suddenly by virulent
typhus, and his widow and child came home, where Orris did her best
to obtain some employment for her sister-in-law. But Venetia was
not a worker; she threw up everything after a few weeks' trial, and
eventually went out to the Riviera as travelling companion to a rich
young widow. She had drifted about on the Continent for two years. And
as Orris realized now that her small income had entirely disappeared,
it needed all her courage and buoyancy to face the future.
"I think," she murmured to herself, with a smile breaking over her
face, "that my role is to be one of the world's caretakers. Better that
than stagnating in a lonely pool! And if Venetia may prove a difficult
problem, Pippa will be my greatest joy."
And with this conclusion she went to bed. She had learnt already how to
grapple with difficulties and yet maintain a cheerful contented spirit.
A week later she walked into her flat with a radiant face.
It was nine o'clock in the evening. For a wonder Venetia was at home.
She was crouched over the fire reading a novel, and looked up at her
sister-in-law with discontented eyes.
"What a time you've been! I've had a rotten day. I'm getting fed-up
with this cold fog and rain."
"So sorry, dear! I was kept later than usual, for a Mrs. Calthrop
wanted to talk to me, and our talk was so engrossing that I did not
notice how the time was going. Such good news, Vennie! An open door, I
call it."
Orris slipped off her fur coat and drew an easy-chair up to the fire.
Venetia looked at her with a half-scornful curl of the lip.
"You're easily pleased," she said.
"Yes, I hope I am, but even you must acknowledge that this is what we
have been wanting. I had been telling one or two of the members that I
feared I would have to give up my post as I wanted to try for something
in the country, and Mrs. Calthrop had heard of it. I don't know if
you've heard me speak of her. She's a very energetic busy woman with an
only son—rather delicate. He has lately come into an old property quite
unexpectedly. He was secretary for some years to the owners of it. An
old man and his wife. Their name was Muir. The husband died about three
years ago, and the wife the end of last year. Young Calthrop had made
himself very useful to them both. And to everyone's astonishment, the
whole of the property has been left to him."
"Do come to the point," said Venetia languidly. "I'm not interested in
these people."
"Yes, but you must be, because of what follows. Mrs. Calthrop is
anxious for her son to sell the whole of the library in the old house.
It is a very valuable one, but is in a state of hopeless confusion. The
death duties and taxes have rather crippled them this year, and she
wants to go to Algiers with him and travel a bit. Neither of them are
book lovers, but she knows I am. She knew my father many years ago, and
briefly her proposition is this: that I should go down and catalogue
and put the library into perfect order before it is put into the market
for sale. She wants a good price for it, and will get it, I expect. I
can't understand her being willing—or her son either—to part with such
a possession. But there it is! She offers me board and house room, says
I can take friends or relations with me, and offers me three pounds
a week. I think it will be a year's task. She means to be abroad for
about that time with her son, and says she would like me to take up my
quarters there till they return."
"Does she boss the show? What is this son like? Not married, is he? I
should like to meet him."
Venetia's interest was awakened. She lit a cigarette, and lay back in
her chair, thinking hard.
"I think she is boss, if you ask me. I have only seen her son once, and
then he struck me as a good-looking effeminate creature. I believe one
of his lungs is affected. No, he is not married, I'm glad to think.
He's not your sort, Venetia."
"My sort," said Venetia, taking her cigarette out of her mouth, and
watching the spiral of smoke ascend from her lips, "is anyone with
decent manners, and a good balance at his bank."
"I don't fancy he has too big a balance at present, but I daresay later
on, he'll be all right. The house is charming, I believe, but rather in
the wilds. It is on the borders of Hampshire, on high ground, and is in
the pine district. Very healthy, she says. I was thinking what a chance
for Pippa!"
"And what about me?"
Orris looked at her sister-in-law with a good-humoured tolerance.
"You must come with us and make the best of it. The salary, of course,
isn't much, but we can make it do, with board and lodging thrown in. In
two years' time Pippa will, we'll hope, be strong and robust. I believe
there are three or four good old servants left with the house, so we
shall be comfortable."
"I conclude you have accepted the post?"
"Not until I have talked it over with you. But we should be fools to
throw such a chance away. I am to let Mrs. Calthrop have my decision
to-morrow morning."
There was silence. Orris knew her sister-in-law well enough not to urge
her consent.
And at last, Venetia spoke.
"We can but try it. It will be good for the child. I think that I'll
let you take her down and settle in first. I've promised to pay the
Lucas-Seymours a visit the beginning of next month."
"All right. I rather think I can get Mary Watson to come back to the
club for a bit. She resigned, you know, because her brother lost his
wife, and wanted her to look after his children, but the eldest is home
from school now, and she's not wanted in the same way. There will be a
lot to see to, but I shall try to sub-let this flat. I don't want to
store my bits of furniture."
A busy time for Orris followed. Once having made a decision, she never
looked back. Her friends and a few relations objected to her leaving
town. Her cousin, Dugald McTavert, was one of these.
"It's the height of folly turning yourself into a book grubber for such
a paltry screw, and burying yourself in a mouldy rat-eaten ruin for the
sake of a child who could be boarded out quite cheaply in any lodgings
or farm."
"Well, now," said Orris, facing him gravely, "I always tell you that I
am led into pleasant pastures. I'm longing myself, after three years of
London turmoil, to breathe pure country air and live a quiet life. It
has come to me so easily and quickly that I simply look up, and give
thanks for it."
"As you gave thanks for your job in town," said Dugald.
"Yes, I did; and I've enjoyed all of it. I love my fellow-creatures,
and I've had some experience in dealing with them. And I won't say
that my brain hasn't benefited by my town life, and all the lectures
and music that I have enjoyed. But there's another side of me that I
have not cultivated. I've never had time to think—I won't use that
old-fashioned word, meditate—but I shall have time to browse amongst my
books, and have Nature around me."
"Deadly dull, you'll become!"
"Not I, with a child like Pippa to keep me young. She's alive to her
finger tips, and she's worth keeping in this world, Dugald. To let her
pine and die for lack of the right atmosphere would be pure murder!"
"And Madame la Mère?"
"Well, we must wait and see. She's willing to make the experiment, and
she will put in some visits when she's bored."
"I'm a relation, so I'll look you up one weekend," Dugald announced.
"My mouldy ruin won't interest you. I wish you could see the photo of
the house which Mrs. Calthrop showed me. It isn't anything near a ruin.
And the garden is a dream. But, of course, you can come and see us, if
you can tear yourself away from town."
"You'll hail my advent with joy. You aren't made to live alone,
Orris, as you'll find to your cost. Your life has been pretty full of
acquaintances and friends these last few years, and it will be a big
drop down to one small child and a few country yokels! As for Madam
Parasite, she'll flee back to town after two days of it. Why, Calthrop
himself won't live there!"
"It's his health," Orris said; "he was there for some years as
secretary."
"Yes, he was preparing his habitation. Do you know that there's a
nephew of the old Muirs somewhere? Rather hard lines on him! A rolling
stone, I believe, couldn't stay at home, and they took offence, and
cut him out of the will. But people say Mrs. Calthrop is a powerful
personality; she was a cousin of the Muirs, was she not? She stayed a
good bit with them. The rotten part of it all is that the old people
left her son the property as he appreciated their library so. That is
mentioned in their will, and the first thing he does is to sell the
blooming concern!"
"It isn't sold yet. How did you hear all this gossip?"
"I looked up the will at Somerset House, and I've known Calthrop. He
belongs to my club. He's a nincompoop, and entirely under his mother's
thumb."
"Well, they've been very good in giving me the job, and I'm not hearing
anything against them."
"You and Pippa in a lone empty country house—ghosts perhaps! My dear
girl, you're taking a false step. Back out of it!"
But Orris laughed at him and pursued her own way. And at last, her
affairs were settled, and one grey day towards the end of March, she
and Pippa and the Italian maid started from Waterloo for their new home.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD HOUSE
"NOW, my Pippa, wake up! We are going to get out."
The child had been wildly excited for the first half of the journey.
Her tongue and limbs were in perpetual motion. Climbing up and down
on the seat to see out of the window, putting her head out of it when
she had a chance, peeping out in the corridor and addressing every one
she saw out there, planting her Teddy bear in all sorts of impossible
positions, and chatting ceaselessly to Anita and her aunt. Orris was
very thankful when, after a substantial lunch had been eaten, Pippa
grew quieter, pillowed her head against her aunt's shoulder, and
finally dropped into a sound sleep, which lasted till they arrived at
their destination. Orris had started on her journey early in the day,
as she wanted to arrive before dark; and now, as they gathered up their
belongings and followed the porter out into the road, bright golden
sunshine greeted them. A shabby old private omnibus was waiting for
them.
The Muirs had been far too old-fashioned to start a car. Their carriage
and horses had been sold. The 'bus was the only vehicle that occupied
the roomy coach-house and the old cob started off now at a pace
somewhere between a walk and a trot. Orris sat back and regarded the
country road with some interest. Pippa had hardly recovered from her
sleep, so was silent. Steadily they wound round, up-hill all the way.
The air got keener and fresher.
Then they reached the busy little market town of Spenbury on the
top of the hill; they jogged along the cobbled streets, past an old
square-towered church, a covered market-place and a long row of shops,
and then long rows of pines appeared on either side of them. The sun
was setting now, and sank like a red ball of fire through the slender
stems of the pines. Pippa caught a glance of it and was roused at once.
"How does the sun know to the very right minute when he has to go
to bed, Aunt Ollie? I wish he'd forget to-night and not go quite so
punctil. I don't like roads when they're dark, do you?"
"We shall be home before dark, darling. I think we are only three miles
out of the town which we have passed already. Can you smell the pines,
Pippa? I think they are my favourite trees."
Pippa did a good deal of sniffing, and then announced—
"I smell kittens in the straw."
Orris laughed.
"You mean you smell straw. I think the 'bus has a stable smell, musty
and fusty—but not kittens."
"Our kittens in Cannes were 'always' in straw," said Pippa firmly.
They were climbing another hill now, and then crossed a wild bit of
heath. At last some big iron gates appeared, and a high wall on either
side of them. There was a little lodge inside, and the gates were
opened by a woman. Pippa kissed her hand to her in her friendly little
way. The drive was bordered with thick masses of evergreen, but in a
very few minutes they came upon a square substantial old stone house,
with a low wing on each side of it covered with ivy.
"Look, look! There are candles in the windows!" cried Pippa.
But it was only the reflection of the red shining sun, and Orris smiled
at her small niece.
"It's just kissing the house good-night before it goes to sleep, Pippa.
We are here at last. Isn't it a dear old house?"
"It's 'rather' like a castle," said the child.
They ascended some broad stone steps and the door was opened promptly
by an awkward-looking youth. A wide hall confronted them. At the
farther end, there was a wide fireplace with a blazing log fire. An
old oak staircase rose from the middle of the hall. There were no
stair carpets or rugs, and Orris shivered a little as she stood on
the black-and-white flagged floor. Then, with a little bustle and
importance, an elderly servant came forward to greet them.
"Good evening, ma'am. Mrs. Calthrop will doubtless have told you that
I am cook-housekeeper here. Mrs. Snow is my name. Twenty-seven years
I've lived here. She's asked me to make you comfortable whilst you are
here. I've prepared the old nurseries for the little lady; they're in
the west wing over the library, and, thinking she might be lonely, I've
given you the big bedroom close to her. But you can take your choice
to-morrow. I thought you'd like to be over the library, but I'll have
you moved into one of the south rooms, if you prefer it. Now, Dan, what
are you staring at? Get the luggage in 'at once!'"
From a very gentle suave voice, Mrs. Snow turned into a perfect virago
as she glared at the unfortunate youth. Then she added in an aside to
Orris:
"These country boys are impossible to train. I remember the time when
a butler and three footmen were in our service. Now I am running the
house with a tweeny and a housemaid and this lout who is supposed to
do the parlour work. Of course, I have been by myself for a couple of
months now. Mrs. Calthrop finds it dull, but I'm hoping she'll settle
in before long. When they've travelled a bit she tells me they mean to
come home."
Orris smiled pleasantly at the talkative woman.
"I expect the nursery wing will suit us perfectly. Shall we follow you?"
Up the broad shallow oak stairs, then along a corridor, through a green
baize door, and then they were ushered into a big square room which
faced the setting sun. Pippa scampered about immediately, peeping into
everything. It was plainly but comfortably furnished—a stout oak table
in the middle of the room, a couple of easy-chairs, an oak chest, a big
cupboard in the wall, and a bookcase with some very shabby books on the
shelves. A few chairs, an old roomy couch, and a faded Turkey carpet
completed the furnishing. Some coloured prints were on the walls, one
descriptive of the Battle of Waterloo, the others chiefly ships. A
bright fire was blazing in the grate.
"It isn't damp," said Mrs. Snow; "I've had fires for the past week in
all the rooms. It's a long time since they've been used, but I pride
myself on keeping the house free from damp. There are two big bedrooms
beyond this—one leads out of it."
Orris found all quite satisfactory. She arranged that Pippa, with
Anita, should sleep in the night nursery, and she took the other
bedroom farther down the passage. The outlook of all the rooms was over
a big lawn, with a cedar tree in the middle of it. Beyond were slopes
of wild moor and pine woods.
Later on, when Orris and her small niece sat down to a comfortable
well-served supper, in what Mrs. Snow called the morning-room
downstairs, Orris said to the child:
"Well, Pippa, we've fallen on our feet. I think, if you and I can't
make ourselves happy here, we shall deserve to be hung and quartered!"
Pippa laughed merrily.
"I think it's a fairy-palace, Aunt Ollie. I shall play hide-and-seek
all over it. Why, I can run my hoop along the passages, they're so
never-ending!"
In a few days, they had settled down. The big dining-room and
drawing-room remained shut up, as also was the smoking-room. Orris made
the small morning-room her sitting-room, and had her meals there. Pippa
shared breakfast and lunch with her, but she had her tea and supper in
the nursery. Anita, a wonderfully adaptable, good-tempered girl, seemed
perfectly content with her surroundings, and Orris started work at once
in the old library.
It was the room she loved best in the house. It was in the west wing of
the house and was fifty feet long with six great windows all reaching
to the floor. Every available inch of wall was packed with shelves and
books, most of them with glass doors to preserve them.
Her favourite position was at the big writing-table drawn up between
the two centre windows. She looked out over a wide stretch of country,
with blue hills in the distance, and sometimes she would drop her
catalogue and MSS., and, leaning her elbows on the table and cupping
her chin in her hands, would gaze out dreamily over the fields and pine
woods and wide expanse of sky. She had the inherited scholarly love
for ancient books, but she had also a poet's and an artist's soul. And
sometimes she would spring up from her chair and dash out of one of the
half-open windows to join her small niece in her play upon the lawn.
Pippa was a very busy little person, and everything that came to hand
was thoroughly investigated. Before she had been there a week, she
knew the family histories of the servants indoors and out. The cows
and pigs and fowls were all individuals to her with characteristics of
their own. The trees and shrubs were objects of her interest. She never
rested till she knew the names of all, and Randall, the old gardener,
would push up his hat and scratch his head, as he was questioned by the
eager child.
"Ay, dearie me! 'Tis the Lord A'mighty Himself ye must question when it
comes to why one tree beareth fruit, and another nought. But they all
bear seed to carry on. And that's the business they were given to do."
"Yes, but I'm quite certain God doesn't want you to be cutting the
darling daisies and the dandelions when they come up," she retorted,
shaking her curly head disapprovingly; "and that's what you say you do
always."
"The A'mighty teached the first gardener, missy. And everythink I do is
right; you just think on that."
Pippa was quenched. She stared at the old man with her far-seeing eyes.
"And how many gardeners afore you?" she demanded.
Randall trundled his barrow away out of her reach, muttering, as he did
so:
"'Tis the tongue of a female, sure enough, small though she be!"
To Pippa the garden was fairyland. There were winding walks through
shrubberies, and a sunk water-garden with a fountain in the middle
playing over the Cupids. Pippa called them angels. There was a
summer-house at the end of a broad terrace walk, which was under a
pergola of beautiful creepers, and there was an old walled fruit and
vegetable garden, with mossy paths and box borders. But she would
cheerfully leave all these attractions for a walk with her aunt through
the pine woods.
Orris loved taking her into the woods. She and Pippa would make a
little fire of cones and needles, and sit by it, watching the blue
smoke rise into the sky, and inhaling the sweet aromatic fragrance of
the pines.
There was no village near them, only a small hamlet of houses. The
church and village of Veddon Weal was a mile away; their nearest
neighbours were the labourers' families who worked on the farm
adjoining the house. The postman, who was the local carpenter, occupied
the biggest cottage, and the schoolmaster and organist lived in an old
toll-house on the high road.
Orris began to feel that Venetia would not stand the isolation of the
place, but she enjoyed it; and Pippa's cheeks grew round and rosy, and
her appetite increased in a marvellous fashion.
Mrs. Snow soon enlightened Orris as regards her neighbours.
"We've got a pleasant Rector, but his wife gives herself airs, and only
visits the county. The Rector has a sister who's little more than a
drudge in the house. She's rather a poor hand at visiting, seems too
shy to get out her words. The only big house near this is the manor,
and belongs to a writer. They say he has a big name in London, but his
books are too clever for most of us. He lives in it quite alone, and
goes abroad every winter. He's away now. Then there's the two Misses
Dashwood. They live next the rectory in a cottage belonging to the
Rector. But I don't think you will be troubled with visitors."
"I don't want them," said Orris, with her happy laugh. "I haven't
come here to enjoy society, but just to do my job, and enjoy this
exhilarating air. I've never lived eight hundred feet above sea-level
in my life before. It makes me feel quite skittish!"
She had a feeling that Mrs. Snow did not approve of her light-hearted
ways. The good woman seemed to have no humour, and would listen to
Pippa's astounding assertions with a solid expressionless face.
"Do you like being tickled, Mrs. Snow?" Pippa asked her one day,
when she met her on the stairs. "I'm very fond of tickling persons,
'specially cats.
"We had a cat who always lay on her back and held up her arms to be
tickled, she loved it so," Pippa continued.
"I'm sorry I can't be a cat to oblige you," was Mrs. Snow's stiff
response. And then she passed on.
And Pippa gazed after her wistfully. She felt sorry for people who did
not want to talk to her.
She was more successful with John Tinker, the postman.
She very often ran down the drive to meet him, for he did not arrive
till after she had had her breakfast.
"You're my favrit person outside the house," she informed him. "I'm
always expectin' letters from my mummy. You're like a everyday Father
Chris'mas. You bring us surprises, and we never are quite sure what."
"Ay, missy, I be a pretty powerful sort o' person," responded John.
"I often thinks much the same meself. There's nobody, not the king
hisself, that holds so many messages o' life and death in his hands. I
brings joy and wealth to some folks, and mourning and woe to others."
It was not long before Pippa visited him in his cottage, where he
introduced her to his old mother, a comfortable smiling dame of seventy
years. Here Pippa made herself completely at home; she helped Mrs.
Tinker to iron, to bake cakes, to weed her small garden, and when not
with her, she was to be found with John in his workshop watching him
work with the greatest interest, collecting his wood shavings—or curls
as she called them—and very often coming home with a bunch on each side
of her small head, tumbling over her ears.
She also collected a good deal of local gossip. Orris sometimes
reproved her for repeating things.
"But I'm so 'normously interested, Aunt Ollie; I like to know every
bit about everybody. If John could only get a proper car, he'd take me
round with his letters, but his cycle will only hold him and his bags.
And there's one house he goes to that has a myst'ry."
"Nonsense, childie."
"It isn't nonsense, Aunt Ollie. Listen! It's a very very old house
called Ivy Towers. You can see nothing but ivy, and just bits of
windows, and some windows are covered right over, and always, always,
always, something happens in that house, and nobody ever lives there
over three years."
Orris laughed.
"Things happen, as you call it, to us all, darling. John is an old
gossip."
But Pippa was too much in earnest to feel snubbed.
"They die, and they have naxidents, and they lose their money. And it's
been empty for a very long time, and now peoples are coming into it,
and John says they'll have bad luck."
Orris laughed again. She was not much interested in her neighbours. The
library was beginning to engross her life and thoughts. Orris was a
true scholar's daughter. She inherited her father's love for books and
she dipped into old philosophers' treatises with as much zest as a girl
shows over her first novel.
One afternoon she walked over to the village to interview the village
laundress. On the way she met two ladies. One of them was vainly trying
to reach a bit of flowering palm in the hedge. Being a good head taller
than she, Orris came to her help. She was cordially thanked for her
services.
"How very kind of you! My sister and I are always bringing home spoils
from the hedges. Now I wonder if I may ask if you are at Pinestones?
And if so, would you—may I call?"
"I shall be delighted," said Orris, smiling. "It is a lonely life after
London, but I am too busy to be dull. I expect you are the Misses
Dashwood. Mrs. Snow has mentioned your names."
She glanced at the sisters as she spoke. The eldest and most active was
rather a striking looking woman—grey-haired, with dark vivacious eyes
and bright colouring. She was very upright and quick in her movements.
The younger one was fair and pale and fretful-looking.
"Yes, we are the Misses Dashwood—I am Louisa, and my sister is Grace.
It is a quiet life here, as you say. I lived in London for thirty years
before I came here. We have been in our little cottage over seven years
now, and are very happy there."
They turned back with her towards the village, and before they reached
it, Orris felt that she had made a friend. Miss Louisa Dashwood was a
clever cultured woman, had been principal of a ladies' college for some
years, and had taken part in many philanthropic objects after she had
retired. Orris wondered how she could have come to the country. But she
gathered that it was for her sister's sake. Miss Grace said little, and
when she spoke her voice was plaintive and complaining.
"There is no Society, and no Squire since Mr. Muir died, and the Rector
is absorbed in botany and in his parish. We just vegetate, and talk
about the butcher's wife and her delicacy, and the cobbler's truant
son, and the uppishness of our servant-maids."
"I think we are happy in having neighbours to talk about," said Miss
Louisa cheerily.
Then, coming to their cottage, a little grey stone building covered
with creepers, they parted with Orris, Miss Louisa promising to come
and see her in a very few days.
This she did. Her sister did not accompany her. As they sat in the
pleasant library together, their talk became rather intimate.
"Do you ever look back and think how wonderful your life has been?"
Miss Louisa asked. "Of course, you are young, but even you have had
your environment changed once or twice, I expect."
"Yes," assented Orris. "I have had rather a full life up to now. I
think it has always been my lot to have others to think about, and that
is a blessing, is it not?"
Miss Louisa's eyes sparkled.
"Yes, but it has its dangers. I have had luxury and hard work, and now
I have comparative ease, combined with poverty. I felt leaving my work
in London, but I've been put into another class, I tell myself. You
know 'doing' is sometimes an easier thing than 'being.' Do you follow
me? We are too busy sometimes with what we call good works and charity
to remember the charity of our Bible."
"How?" asked Orris.
"The perfecting of our personal character. Workers are apt to be very
slipshod over virtues. They're easily puffed up, easily provoked, very
overbearing and intolerant, too sure of their own powers, too severe
on others' failings. They don't shine in their home life. I have been
made to see this. I've worked and tried to form character in others;
now I find hard work in moulding my own according to the pattern on the
Mount! What a prosy person you must think me."
Orris did not think her so. She was intensely interested. And when Mrs.
Snow gave her a few more details about the sisters, she was still more
so.
"The eldest Miss Dashwood is a proper saint. Her sister, Miss Grace,
has fits of epilepsy, and at best she's a discontented soul. Miss
Louisa gave up all her work in London, and came to live with her sister
when their mother died. I know all about them, for my niece has lived
with them these four years or so. Miss Grace fair bullies her sister.
She's her willing slave. If she goes out in the afternoon to anything
sociable like, and Miss Grace is too ailing to go, Miss Grace cries
like a child all the time she's away, and tells her sister when she
comes back that she neglects her and doesn't love her, and goes on at
her terrible. And Miss Louisa is always bright and cheerful; my niece
says 'tis a pleasure to be near her."
"Do they ever come here?" Orris asked. "Does Mrs. Calthrop know them?"
"They're on visiting terms." Then Mrs. Snow slightly changed her tone.
"Of course, they'll not be visiting here now. Not till the mistress
returns."
Orris laughed her merry laugh. Mrs. Snow's snubs did not affect her in
the least.
"You want to keep me in my place, don't you? I assure you I'm much
too busy to want visitors. But I have already made Miss Dashwood's
acquaintance, and we may see more of each other."
"I'm sure," murmured Mrs. Snow, "I meant nothing slighting." And then
she hastily made herself scarce, and Orris laughed again.
"Poor old thing! I suppose she has a supreme contempt for any lady who
earns her living. She's a thorough Early Victorian old retainer."
CHAPTER III
WHAT A CUPBOARD CONTAINED
THE day had been wet and cheerless. Orris had hardly moved from her
chair in the library, except to go to and fro between her big table and
the bookcase. She had seen Pippa at mealtimes, but the child was much
engrossed in turning a big wooden box into a dolls' house. Anita was
helping her, and with her clever fingers was making a very good job of
it.
The Rector appeared at tea-time. It was his first call, and Orris found
him a very pleasant visitor.
When he departed, she accompanied him to the hall door, and for a
moment looked over the wide vista of dusky fields and pine woods, and
above them a pale lemon sky. The rain had stopped. The sun was having
his innings for a few brief moments before he finally disappeared.
Orris stood with parted lips breathing in the fresh pure air, and
enjoying it as she did so. Then she suddenly bethought herself of
Pippa, who usually came to her at this hour. Leisurely she mounted the
broad oak steps, calling "Pippa! Pippa, come along, my sweet!"
There was no sudden rush of flying footsteps; no response to her call.
She hastened her steps. Pippa very quiet, meant Pippa in mischief, and
when she found the nursery door locked, she shook her head.
"Oh, Pippa," she cried, "you must never lock me out. Open the door at
once."
There was a fumbling of the lock, and Pippa appeared, with big
mysterious eyes.
"What is the matter, darling? Why are you locked in alone?"
Pippa retreated to the hearthrug, where she stood dancing up and down
on her toes with clasped hands and big open eyes and mouth.
"Nita is at her tea. I've been enjoying myself 'normously."
"I'm so glad. What's up, you monkey? You had better confess."
Pippa smiled tremulously, then pursed her lips primly together.
"It's a secret, Aunt Ollie."
Orris stood still and waited. Pippa's secrets were never of long
duration. It was a question of patience.
Then suddenly the child darted to the big hanging cupboard at the end
of the room.
"I've got a man here," she cried triumphantly; and then she flung open
the door. "And he isn't a buggler!" she added.
Orris had occasion to be startled when a tall figure appeared
from behind Pippa's dressing-gown and coats and confronted her.
He was dressed in a rough tweed shooting suit, had a lean, rather
pleasant-looking face, very broad shoulders, and was unmistakably a
gentleman.
"You little traitor!" he said, turning to Pippa. "A nice keeper of
secrets you are!"
"I couldn't! It just bursted right through me," said Pippa contritely.
The man looked so crestfallen, and the child so proudly elate, that
Orris, after gazing helplessly at them both, surprised herself and them
by a mellow peal of laughter.
"I can't help it," she gasped. "They say laughter is caused by sudden
surprise. Will you give me some explanation of this extraordinary
proceeding on your part?" She turned to the stranger as she spoke.
He did not look in the least uncomfortable, but drew forward an easy
chair for her near the fire, and got hold of another for himself.
"Let us all sit down and be comfortable," he said; "there's no reason
why we should not be. And then I'll tell you all, and anything you
would like to know. It begins and ends with Snuffy, the person you
call Mrs. Snow. I've always called her Snuffy, because as a small kid,
she was perpetually saying to me, 'That's enough—that's enough, Master
Jock.' It soon becomes 'snuff' if you say it fast enough!"
He was turning to Pippa now, who was regarding him with admiring eyes.
"The first question I would like to ask is, how did you get here?" said
Orris gravely.
She resented his light gay manner, though light was dawning upon her as
to his identity.
"Snuffy refused me admittance this morning. And that put my back up."
"Oh, let me tell her," interrupted Pippa. "It was so 'lovely,' Aunt
Ollie! He came climbing up my wall, and looked in at the window, like
the prince in my fairy-book does to the lovely princess shut up in her
tower. And I opened the window a teeny bit and said:
"'Are you a prince?' And he said, 'I see you're a princess.' So then
o' course he came in, and he sat down on the floor and told me a story
about a alligator and him on the other side of the world. And then we
heard you calling, and he said he must be hid, or he would shock you,
so I hid him."
The man laughed.
"That's that!" he said. "Just in a nutshell. I spent the first half
of my life here, and I was furious when Snuffy kept up her old grudge
against me, and shut me out. I wasn't aware that the old nursery was
inhabited till I climbed up and saw the light. I meant to go downstairs
decorously, and confront Snuffy again on the inside of the door, and
insist upon being presented to the lady in possession."
"That is hardly my role," said Orris quietly. "Pippa and I are birds of
passage. You must be old Miss Muir's nephew, who went abroad."
"The scamp and blackguard and ne'er-do-weel. Don't I look it? Isn't
scrambling up the old ivy roots and frightening an innocent babe just
what is expected of such a character?"
"But I wasn't frightened. You couldn't frighten me," said Pippa,
darting forward and perching herself on his knee. "I knewed you weren't
a buggler; you told me so."
"I'm a bad hat," the stranger said, but his hand caressed the curly
head.
And Orris, looking at him calmly and critically, liked him on the spot.
He had humorous, kindly grey eyes, and his face, though tanned and
weather-worn, had no signs of dissipation; he looked as if he had lived
out-of-doors by night and day. His lips and chin were determined, and
he had, for a man, a peculiarly sweet smile.
"Cousin Letitia," he went on; "or Mrs. Calthrop, as you know her, left
orders with Snuffy that in her absence I was not to be admitted to the
house. She guessed I would come racing over the ocean when my poor aunt
departed this life, but why she should grudge me a sight of the old
place I don't know. I hear her son has been left everything—so virtue
is rewarded. How he stuck to the old library! And oh, how he hated it!"
Orris looked up questioningly.
"Did he attempt my job?"
"My dear Miss Bright Eyes—I don't know your name, so have coined one
for you—my uncle and aunt were simply demented over their library.
Personally they did not care for books, but a neighbour, a Mr.
Dunscombe, on one unfortunate occasion told them that they possessed
an untold mine of wealth in their books. He is a writer himself, and
wanted to avail himself of several books of reference.
"About two hundred years ago, the Muirs came from Scotland and settled
here, and they bought the old library with the house. It had belonged
to some Charter-houses for many generations, but the family had died
out. The books were in hopeless confusion. I suppose you see that. So
my uncle began to make a catalogue. He had no gift for languages, and
when he saw Persian, Chinese, Italian, and ancient Egyptian scripts, he
gave it up in despair.
"Then I was called into the breach. I had been to Oxford, and had
slipped through my term there fairly creditably, so of course I was
the one to do it. I was set down in that dry and dusty library, and
expected to work seven or eight hours a day. A perfect catalogue must
be made and I was to do it. I stuck it for seven months, and then I
struck. There was a row! I decamped for a time, and wandered over the
Continent for a few years, till my uncle died.
"Then I came home and was received by my aunt with open arms, but
Cousin Letitia and son had come to share her loneliness, and dear
Edmund had accepted the post as librarian. I did not somehow fit in.
I discovered Edmund making away with some valuable old MSS. He parted
with them to a Jewish bookseller in town—a man I happened to have had
some dealings with, when I was home before. I promptly exposed him—very
impulsive and rash! Cousin Letitia never forgave me. My aunt was
slipping under her powerful and persuasive personality. Snuffy likewise
succumbed to it. She and I never could hit it off. From a boy I had
teased her, and she cannot understand or take a joke. I expect you've
found that out, haven't you?
"Well, there was nothing for me to do. I wanted to take over the home
farm, that would have been a job after my own heart! But my aunt would
not hear of it. It was a divided camp—secretly my aunt favoured me, but
she was timid, and had not the courage of her convictions. And a man
has no chance against a clever woman's tongue. I don't know to this day
how it was my aunt was poisoned against me, but I saw, though the house
had been my home since I was three years old, it was to be my home no
longer.
"So, to cut a long story short, I said good-bye to them all, and went
off to New Zealand. For ten years I have been farming there, and now
I come back to find her gone, and my cousin in possession. No, I am
wrong; it is you and this wee elf in possession. Let me warn you
against expending your health and strength among those books. It will
be the work of a life-time to get them in proper order. And if they
mean to sell the whole, just sort the books into lots—according to the
language—" He paused for breath.
"Oh, do talk to me now," pleaded Pippa. "Will you take me down to the
stream to-morrow, where you used to catch the little frogs?"
"What does your aunt say? Is she going to be friendly with me?" His
eyes met Orris's grave scrutiny with great composure. "I really have
no black deeds on my conscience. I have just been a hard-working
farmer. You can't be a villain if you love the earth as I do. It is
men and cities who make criminals. And I am staying with Dunscombe.
He and I came back in the same boat part of the way. I only landed at
Southampton three days ago. And Burton, my aunt's lawyer, was the one
who has given me the news."
"Were you expecting to come into this property yourself?"
He smiled.
"It wasn't a shock to me to find the cousins first. I believe my aunt
thought I had gone to the bad. I used to write occasionally, but I
never had a line from her."
"Oh, Aunt Ollie, I think he's a 'dear' man," cried Pippa, not
understanding all the conversation, but gathering from Orris's face
that she was rather doubtful of the stranger. "Do have his bed made up
in one of the big empty rooms. Mummy would love to see him, and she's
coming very soon."
Orris could not help laughing, and Jock Muir joined her.
"That's right," he said. "Now we're all friends, and we'll just go
down and confront Snuffy, and then I'll get back to my host. She must
understand that your friends are not to be shut out."
"I don't see what right she has to keep 'you' out," said Orris.
And then there was a slight cough outside the door, and the person
under discussion appeared.
To say she was startled is too mild a way of putting it. She was
dumbfounded.
"I thought it might be the Rector," she explained. "I heard a man's
voice, and I could not understand how he had come upstairs."
"And you little thought to see me, Snuffy! But here I am, completely
at home, as you see, and very interested in the present inmates of
Pinestones."
Orris pitied Mrs. Snow's confusion.
"I know all about Mr. Muir," she said to her; "and I really do not
think Mrs. Calthrop would wish you to shut the door in his face. As
he is staying in the neighbourhood, it is only natural that he should
give you a call. Mrs. Calthrop told me I should be free to receive any
visitors, so I am sure you will admit him next time he comes."
"I won't run away with any of the plate, Snuffy, I assure you. But I
think I can claim my two cricket cups on the dining-room sideboard, and
there's that trunk of mine in the attic. I shall have to overhaul that."
Mrs. Snow drew herself up to her full height as she replied:
"I am responsible to Mrs. Calthrop now, Master Jock. I am in her
service, and, difficult as it may be, I try to carry out her orders.
I will have your belongings sent to your present address, sir, if you
will give it to me."
"I'm staying at the Manor," said Jock good-humouredly. "I won't be
hard on you, Snuffy, for it's good for you that you can transfer your
allegiance so thoroughly. I am here because I determined to be here,
and when it comes to a pitched battle between us, I generally come off
victor. But I shan't trouble you much—not at present. After all, it may
be the house that you care most for. The inhabitants are regarded by
you as useful in helping you to stay on."
Then he stood up and held out his hand to Orris, whilst Mrs. Snow beat
a retreat without another word.
"Good-bye. We shall meet again. I seem to have taken up all the time in
pouring out my life's history to you. Can't think why I did it. I'm not
generally so communicative."
"I've been very interested, and I am entirely sympathetic," said Orris,
wincing at the strength in his grip.
"Oh," cried Pippa, "will you climb up into my nursery another day?"
He shook his head.
"My legs are not so agile as they were. I thought nothing of it as a
boy, but we shall see a lot of each other, little elf. And we won't let
Snuffy get the better of us."
He strode out of the room, and down the stairs. Pippa ran after him,
and kissed her hand to him from the corridor above.
"I wiss you would stay and go to bed here," she cried. "But you're my
friend now for evermore, and I'll tell God in my prayers to-night that
if Mrs. Snuffy locks you out-of-doors again, He had better send His
Angel to open it without a key, like He did for Peter."
Then she came back to her aunt and stood in front of her, looking up
into her face with her mischievous eyes.
"Auntie Ollie, he is a 'darling' man! Nobody has ever climbed up into a
window where I was before. Wasn't it quite a 'venture?"
"It was, most assuredly, Pippa. But I wouldn't advise you to welcome
and harbour 'any' strange man who climbs in at a window."
"No, I wouldn't," said Pippa thoughtfully; "not if he had a red nose
and was dirty. When do you think he'll come and see us again?"
"We won't think any more about him. Now, won't you let me have a look
at this wonderful dolls' house?"
Pippa danced back to her nursery. For a time her thoughts were turned
into another channel, until her prayer-time came.
Her aunt, who always came to her for that occasion, was sitting in the
low chair by the nursery fire, and Pippa in her blue dressing-gown was
kneeling by her and with bent head and clasped hands was murmuring her
usual formula in the most angelic voice. She very often made startling
postscripts to her prayers, so Orris was not surprised at her sudden
energetic appeal.
"And oh, please, God, bless my dear man, and make Aunt Ollie love him
as much as I do, and ask him to a tea-party very soon. And never, never
let Mrs. Snuffy get the better of us." Then she jumped up. "He said she
shouldn't, you know, Aunt Ollie, but I think God had better help us,
hadn't He? Because she thinks the house belongs to her more than to us."
"And I think she is right, for it is her home, and we are here only for
a time. But, my darling, you mustn't call her Mrs. Snuffy; she would be
very angry if she heard you. And I don't like angry people. I want to
live in peace."
"I won't to her face," said Pippa earnestly. Then she scrambled into
bed. "He's rather like a grown-up Peter Pan, isn't he?"
"Go to sleep and forget him," said Orris, kissing the little upturned
face.
But she herself found her mind full of Jock Muir. She wondered that
there had been so little bitterness in his tone when telling her how,
quietly and thoroughly he had been defrauded of his home.
"He is either the most clever dissembler or the most angelic of men. I
wonder which he is," she mused. "And why should he torture himself by
staying in the neighbourhood, and subjecting himself to the ignominy
of being shut out of his rightful property by a housekeeper? I can't
understand it. Well, it is none of my business. I must occupy myself
with books and not men."
She worked with extra vigour for the next few days, and though sunshine
streamed in upon her, and birds trilled out their love-songs outside
the library window and Pippa more than once danced in upon her with
coaxing requests to come out to play, Orris shook her head and fingered
her old leather books in a determined way.
"I'm here to work, and work I must. The history of this old house, and
the different members of the family have nothing to do with me, except
that I am in Mrs. Calthrop's pay, and am bound to work for her."
And then one morning, when she entered the room, prepared to begin her
work, she was startled to see a tall figure sitting lazily on the low
broad window-sill close to her desk. The window was open, and Jock Muir
was coolly smoking his pipe, one leg inside the window, the other out.
When he saw her come in, he took out his pipe, slipped one leg over,
and stood outside on the grass, giving her a little courteous bow, and
a flush of amused recognition in his grey eyes.
"Good morning. I've been waiting for you. How are you getting on?"
"Slowly. I long for more knowledge—especially about Persian and Indian
books. I wish I knew some scholar who could help me."
"Dunscombe could. He's been ransacking Persia for copy quite lately."
He had resumed his seat on the window-sill, and Orris sank into
her chair with a helpless feeling that she could not prevent this
interruption.
"Is he the friend you are staying with? The author?"
"Yes. I'll bring him over—or—we won't offend Snuffy's extreme
conscientiousness—suppose you come to tea with us to-morrow afternoon?
Four o'clock, and bring the elf."
"You are startlingly unconventional. Can I walk into a stranger's house
an uninvited guest?"
"I thought I had given you an invitation. Hang it all, Miss Bright
Eyes, Dunscombe and I have knocked about in the world too much to stand
on ceremony. If you want help, he's the man to help you."
"My name, Mr. Muir, is Orris Coventry."
He smiled at her.
"Thank you. I'm a very independent person, eh? What do you think of the
house? Rather mouldy, isn't it?"
"I really have not been over it. My small niece has been into all the
rooms that she dares. Mrs. Snow has a good many locked up, and she does
not consider that we should take liberties, or explore farther than our
own wing, and the rooms apportioned to us there."
"Oh, she's a Tartar. Don't let her bully you. I must come and show the
elf the powder-room. She will love it. Do you approve of these huge old
houses being kept up for the sole benefit of one or two people?"
"They are many of them historic," said Orris. "I personally love old
places. The atmosphere is perfectly different to a newly built house."
"One of the Georges stayed here once. I think that's the only bit of
history Pinestones has. When I was a boy, I had many wild dreams of
what I would do here when I grew up. You see they always told me I
should inherit it. I was going to turn the east wing into an almshouse
for all the old servants and workpeople, and the west wing into a
cottage hospital for the sick children—that's the nursery wing where
you are, and then I was going to live in the middle part of it myself,
and rule them all, old and young, with a rod of iron."
"What a nice boy you must have been!"
"I was imbued with the idea that I had been put into the world to do
my fellow-creatures a good turn. I had a tutor who talked to me in
that style. And what a boy learns when he is seven or eight, he never
forgets! But," he added with his flashing smile, "I did not grow up a
prig, strange to say! It was the other way about. And for a long time
now I've just lived for myself. I have nobody else to live for, or
consider."
Orris looked at him thoughtfully, but did not speak.
He went on:
"But I must be doing. Stagnation is too boring for words. I've had a
pretty strenuous life on the other side of the ocean. I'd rather break
stones on the road than sit in an armchair with a pipe and book all
day!"
"I suppose you will return to your work, then?" Orris asked.
"Not a bit of it. Have sold my land and cattle. No. I'm in the
mother-country for good or ill."
"I'm afraid you must have sold thinking yourself the heir to this?"
He nodded.
"I meant to come back and have a busy time farming my own land.
Out-of-door work is the life for me. I love the earth and all that it
contains! You know the Home Farm here is going to pot! My old aunt
ought to have replaced Nat Thane when he died, instead of letting his
lazy son step into his shoes. If I were master here, I would buy up the
adjoining farm, which is getting too much for old Preston—he's between
eighty and ninety—and work the two together.
"Have you been over to Preston's farm? The house is my idea of a home.
You talk of atmosphere. For a cheery happy one, give me Lilac Farm. As
a small boy, I was always made welcome to any meal, and I've never had
such teas since. I was there yesterday in the jolly old kitchen, and
Preston and I had a confab together. This is my last free day. I am
going to work for him for a bit. He wants help badly."
"You're an enigma to me," said Orris, smiling; "if I were in your
circumstances, I would keep as far-away as I could from the ones who
had disinherited me."
He smiled back at her.
"Ah!" he said. "That's not my idea. Not at all."
Silence fell on them for a few moments. Then Orris broke it.
"The world of books," she said, "rather absorbs me. It is a strange
life living amongst clever brains still speaking, though long extinct.
I find I must dip into one and another as I take them in my hand,
and it always is a marvel to me how sound the advice of the old
philosophers is and how applicable to the present day. Human nature
never alters. Of course, the one Book above all is the Bible. We can in
these most modern days still go to it for all we need. It never fails
one. I have been reading bits from Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, and
Fénelon. Of course, Fénelon is the most enlightened, but nothing that
they say touches one's soul as the Bible does."
"I knew you had a soul, directly I caught sight of you," said
Jock lightly; "and a pretty big one for your size. Now mine is an
infinitesimal atom. It was bigger when I was a boy, but has gone on
shrinking so rapidly that at times I wonder if I possess any at all. By
soul I mean the spirit—that's what you mean, isn't it? Let's discuss
it? I love an argument."
But Orris suddenly retreated into herself; for she did not know whether
he was speaking in earnest or in mockery. And then the library door
burst open, and Pippa came dancing in.
"Aunt Ollie! You must come out in the garden. There's a lovely daff
come out under the nursery window. It did it in the night. It was only
a green stalk yesterday."
Then she saw Jock and made a dash for the window.
He immediately made a feint of alarm, and crashed into the shrubbery
near. Pippa hurled herself out of the low window and flew after him.
Her joyous cries and shouts, as she chased the elusive Jock, resounded
over the old garden.
Orris smiled, then resumed her work. By and by Pippa came in rosy and
breathless.
"He's gone, but I catched him at last; and he says he'll wait for us
to-morrow at four o'clock outside the big gate, and will show us the
way to the Manor. We're going there to tea. Won't it be fun?"
"But, my darling, we haven't been asked to tea."
"Oh, yes; he says Mr. Dunscombe will 'love' us to come. Dan told me
he's a very nice genpleum. He used to come and dine here with the old
lady, and he used to give Dan half-crowns."
Orris laughed.
"Mr. Jock Muir goes too fast for me. Run away, my pet! I mustn't be
disturbed till luncheon."
Pippa disappeared, and Orris had no more interruptions.
CHAPTER IV
LILAC FARM
IN spite of Orris's reluctance, Pippa had won the day. And at four
o'clock the next day, she and her aunt were standing outside the gate.
They were not kept waiting, for Jock Muir was punctual. He took off his
cap with a flourish when he saw them.
"I never meant to come," said Orris smiling, "but pertinacity and
importunity have been too much for me."
"Of course we've comed," cried Pippa joyously; "we simply love going
out to tea. And when I telled Snuffy, she said—"
"Pippa, what did I tell you? 'Mrs. Snow.'"
"Oh, Aunt Ollie, when I'm with Master Jock, I talk like he does. But
she said she was s'prised at our goings on. And Master Jock was a
'never do well.'"
"So he is," laughed Jock, "but he's going to be good to-day. No
climbing in at windows! We're going in at the front door."
Pippa danced along the lanes in the highest spirits.
Jock enlightened Orris as to the different landlords in the place.
He talked away, and Orris was the listener; she began to wonder soon
whether there was not something solid under his apparent superficiality.
His passion seemed to be farming; the earth to him was a precious
inheritance. He knew every field by name; he discoursed to her on the
rotation of crops, the breeding of cattle, and the different species of
seed and grain. Then he laughed at his enthusiasm.
"You're a topping listener, but I'm boring you stiff. I know I am. My
hobby is farming, yours is books. Now you talk to me and cultivate my
agricultural mind."
"No, I can't do that. We're in the open, and I love the country. I
never knew how much, till I was in it again. I have lived in town for
so long, that I forgot the joys of spring, and the scent of the earth
and buds."
It was a delicious spring day, and when they turned in at a green
wooden gate from the lane, and walked up a drive bordered by green
banks covered with sheets of golden daffodils, Orris stood still to
enjoy it.
"I think freshness is the most beautiful thing in the world," she said;
"young new life is so fascinating. And it is so unconscious of its
charms. The flowers, the lambs, children, I adore them all!"
Pippa danced on in front, singing as she went:
"Daffy-down-dilly
Came up in the cold
Through the brown mould."
"So little by little
She brought her leaves out,
All clustered about;
And then her bright flowers
Began to unfold,
Till Daffy stood robed
In her spring green and gold."
And then, as the drive gave a twist, and an old weather-worn stone
house with mullion windows came in view, she stood still and regarded
it with breathless interest. Pippa had a wonderful way of investing
inanimate things with life, and houses of all sorts held her entranced.
"Now, Aunt Ollie, what is this house thinking about?" she asked,
turning round to the two grown-ups following her. "One of its little
top windows seems winking at me, but it's a grave old thing, isn't it?"
"But it's better than it looks," said Jock quickly. "It has been a kind
old house to me. I never have to climb up into a window. The door loves
to be open. There! It's open now."
And so it was, and the afternoon sunshine streamed in upon a black oak
floor, with some rather shabby rugs and a tiger skin spread upon it.
Jock led them gaily along this hall, and threw open a door into the
study without ceremony.
"Hullo, Dunscombe—you there? Here am I with my newly-created family.
They belong to my old home, 'ergo' they belong to me! This is Miss
Coventry, who is tearing her hair over Persian books and manuscripts.
You'll be able to help her."
A tall slenderly-built man with stooping shoulders, and a finely cut
artist's face, got up from his chair behind a big writing-table. He had
dark deeply-sunken eyes, and very bushy eyebrows.
"It is kind of you to waive ceremony and come to see me," he said.
"Jock told me of your labours in the Muirs' Library—you are brave to
tackle it, but I've always heard it's a very rare and valuable one. It
seems a pity to sell it, but it will enrich many book lovers."
He drew a chair for her up to a big open fireplace, in which blazing
logs of wood were crackling merrily. Orris felt at ease at once, and in
a few minutes, she and he were talking about books with the greatest
zest and animation. She discovered that she had read one of his first
books long ago. It was a collection of essays—one of which had made a
great impression upon her.
"I don't write essays now," he said, with a slight deprecating shrug of
his shoulders. "They're always the work of an egoist, you know; and I'm
not so sure of myself and my opinions as I used to be."
Orris thought this over.
"What do you write about now?"
"Chiefly tribal life in distant lands. It's immensely interesting to
me to trace connection between apparently very distant races. I have
been travelling for the last five years, and ran across Jock on my last
voyage home."
Orris looked across at Jock. He was entirely absorbed with Pippa, and
was showing her the contents of a drawer full of curios.
"It's very hard lines on him," she said in a low voice.
Mr. Dunscombe looked at her with some amusement in his dark eyes.
"How much do you know, I wonder!" he said.
Orris looked questioningly at him, but he would not pursue the subject.
"There's sterling worth in Jock," he said, "and his aunt was a fool
not to find it out. But you'll never make a bookworm of Jock. He
takes after his first parent, and, up to now, he's been a good farmer
spoiled. Do you think Mrs. Calthrop would object to my walking over
one day and having a look at the library? It would be to her advantage
if she wishes to sell it, for I mean to be at the sale. And I think I
might help you over the Persian and Indian section."
"I am sure she would not mind, and I should be delighted. Do you know
her well?"
"No, but I have met her. I knew old Mr. Muir best, but he was funny
over his books. Would never let any guest browse amongst them. I think
I must have met your father once when I was a youngster. Didn't he live
in Surrey?"
"Yes; he would never move very far from London, because he loved the
British Museum so. He was always going up to it."
"It was there I first met him, and he insisted that I should go down
and dine with him. I remember that we got into his library, and got so
keen over his books, that we ignored the summons to dinner, and were a
good hour late in taking our places at the table. He was alone then,
with a housekeeper."
"That was after my mother's death, I expect."
They talked away till a big gong sounded in the hall for tea. And then
they all went into the dining-room where a round table had been placed
in a deep window recess. The window faced a wide expanse of wooded
country.
Pippa's eyes were on the table. There were enough cakes and hot scones
to satisfy her. Then she turned suddenly to her host:
"I'm so glad to know you," she said, "because you've got our Mary's
cousin with you. I think he's what you call a handyman. What's the
difference between a handman and a footman? But he got a glass eye in
the war, and I'm simply 'longing' to see it!"
"That must be Peter. You shall see him after tea."
Mr. Dunscombe took her seriously, and when grown-up people did that,
Pippa's head was raised several inches higher.
There was no lack of conversation during tea, and afterwards Jock
insisted upon walking Orris off to Lilac Farm.
"It's only three fields away. Peter with his glass eye will occupy
Pippa till we come back. Come with us, Dunscombe?"
Their host shook his head.
"I must have a couple of hours' writing before dinner."
Orris demurred at leaving Pippa in a strange house, but she was already
in the kitchen garden busy hoeing up a plot of ground with Peter.
So, after bidding her be very good and not leave the garden till she
returned, Orris walked across the fields with Jock.
"You'll find Dunscombe an awfully good fellow," said Jock. "Most
writers have a bit of swank about them. He has none. And his work is
brilliant. I'm quoting the English 'Review' and 'Spectator.'"
"Has he always lived alone?" asked Orris.
"Ever since I've known him. He did have a love affair once, I believe,
but the girl wanted him to throw over his writing and go on the Stock
Exchange. And he quietly chucked her, and has had nothing to do with
women since. Won't have a lady housekeeper; his fat cook runs the
house, and does it uncommonly well. And I can't tell you what a lot
of good he does on the quiet. Anyone in trouble has only to write to
him, and he either promptly helps them, or hands them over to some one
who is better able to do it than himself. He wants me to take up my
quarters in his house, but Preston has offered me a room at the farm;
and as I shall be an agricultural labourer, farm quarters will suit me
best. There now, lean over this hedge, and be ready to fall on your
knees and worship a typical country farm."
Orris looked over the hedge, and lost her heart at once to Lilac Farm.
It was bordered on one side by a snowy apple orchard; on the other
by groups of trees, chiefly lilacs and laburnums. The house had a
long thatched roof with gables, rather large casement windows, and an
old-fashioned creeper-covered porch. Great chimneys rose above it. In
front were box-edged beds of spring flowers and curious birds cut out
of yew. Towards the back of it were substantial farm buildings. Sloping
green hills partly covered with pines, and rich meadows now full of
sheep and cattle surrounded it.
"The outside is topping," said Jock, "but nothing compared to the
inside. Now come along."
When Orris, along with Jock, reached the porch door, they found a tall
grey-haired man leaning against it smoking his pipe. His eyes were lit
up with a welcome when he saw Jock.
"I've brought a lady to see you. Is Mrs. Preston busy?"
"Never too busy to see you, my lad. Wife, ye're wanted. Come in and sit
down, ma'am."
He led the way into a charming hall furnished simply but in very good
taste. Oak-panelled walls and dark oak floor and stairs were brightened
by coloured sporting prints, and comfortable rugs under foot. On
a round table were newspapers and books. A fire was burning in a
wide-open hearth. Orris sat down on an old oak settle, and then Mrs.
Preston appeared. She was stout and smiling, and genuinely pleased to
see Orris.
"Of course we've heard about you," she said. "And if I may repeat it, I
did say that I thought it was a lonesome life for any young lady to be
shut up with books only as company. Now will you come this way with me,
and we'll leave Tom and Mr. Muir to smoke together?"
She opened a door at the farther end of the hall, and Orris found
herself in a most comfortable sitting-room. The deep window-sills were
full of pink and white hyacinths in bloom. There was a big table with
a red cloth on which reposed Mrs. Preston's work-basket. Her armchair
was drawn up to it. Oil portraits of the family's ancestors graced
the walls, and there were two big glass bookcases. Orris saw at once
that the Prestons were one of the good old yeomen families, who had
always loved and tilled the soil. She was put into an easy-chair by the
blazing fire, and very soon she and Mrs. Preston were talking away like
old friends.
"'Tis no wonder," the good woman said, "my husband likes a talk with
Jock. We've known him since he was a little lad of five years old, and
having no son or daughter of our own, we always made him welcome. I
can't understand the rights of this will business. I can't believe Mrs.
Muir would cut off her favourite nephew, so to speak, with a shilling.
Why should he lose his inheritance for a far-away cousin? Between
ourselves, miss, I doubt if they've got hold of the right will. I saw
Miss Muir a week before she died, and she said to me: 'If Jock isn't
back before I go, Mrs. Preston, tell him he was in my thoughts to the
last.' And she smiled quite sweetly and easily as she spoke. Now, would
she have done that if she had cut him out of her will?"
Orris shook her head.
"I'm a stranger," she said, "so I can offer no opinion, but it doesn't
seem kind of her, or natural."
Then, not wishing to discuss Jock Muir's affairs, Orris began admiring
the old room with its oak beams across the ceiling.
"Yes, this is our sitting-room," Mrs. Preston replied. "I'm
old-fashioned, and like one room free of smoke. Tom's friends sit and
smoke in the hall, and I join them sometimes. We've no drawing-room; I
don't see the use of a room for show. I'd like to show you my kitchen."
She got up, and led the way through a small lobby into the big kitchen.
The copper pans shone in the firelight. Great hams hung from the
rafters, and the old dresser, which extended nearly one side of the
room, was filled with real valuable old china.
Baking was going on. Mrs. Preston introduced her old servant, Mary
Bush, to Orris.
"Mary has been with me seventeen years. She and I are always busy
together in the mornings. I don't know what I should do without her."
Mary, a smiling dark-haired woman, looked up at Orris.
"You'll be in Master Jock's house, miss? Does Mrs. Snow make you
comfortable?"
"Oh, yes—quite."
Mary gave a little sniff of disapproval.
"She's a sour-tempered soul. Many's the time Master Jock as a boy would
creep into the kitchen on my baking days. 'Mary,' he'd say, 'give me
one of your buns. I'm always hungry; and Snuffy never makes buns for
me, because she and auntie haven't any sweet tooth between them.' Dear
soul! I can hear his little voice now!"
"Ah, well," said Mrs. Preston, "he'll get plenty of buns now, Mary, for
his room is ready for him, and he'll be in the house with us next week."
Then they went back to the sitting-room.
"It's a great joy to us," said Mrs. Preston on the way, "having Jock
take hold here to help on the farm. Tom isn't what he was. I don't say
this to everybody, Miss Coventry, but he has had heart attacks, and our
doctor has warned me he may go off suddenly. We're living on the edge
of eternity, Tom and me. I always pray I mayn't be kept here long after
him. But I keep cheerful. 'Twould be bad for him to see me anxious. I
often tell him I may go first."
Orris did not wonder at Jock's liking for this worthy couple. There was
something essentially homely in the atmosphere. She felt she would like
to stay with them herself.
"Well," questioned Jock, looking up at her with his sunny smile, "have
you been stealing Mrs. Preston's heart, or has she been stealing yours?"
Orris laughed.
"I shan't have any qualms about you now," she said. "I did feel a kind
of pity for your homeless condition, but then I had not been introduced
to Lilac Farm."
She sat down and talked to Mr. Preston for a little time longer, and
then she and Jock took their leave. But before she had left, she had
been invited to bring Pippa to tea in the following week.
"I congratulate you on your friends," she said to Jock, as they walked
across the fields together.
"Yes, they're worth knowing. Now here's somebody coming whom I do not
like. It's our Rector's wife."
They could not elude her, as she was coming across the fieldpath
towards them. Just before she met them, she paused and put up a
lorgnette to her eyes. Then she advanced with a rather stiff smile.
Jock took off his hat with a little flourish.
"Then it is you," the lady said, addressing him; "I heard you were in
the neighbourhood, and wondered—" She hesitated.
Jock smiled frankly at her.
"Yes, all the neighbourhood is wondering, I dare say, but it is really
myself in the flesh; and, moreover, I mean to stay. May I introduce
Miss Coventry—but perhaps you have already called upon her?"
"Mrs. Snow assures me," said Orris, with her dimpling smile, "that I am
not in a position to be called upon."
Mrs. Villars looked at her with grave aloofness.
"My husband calls on all his parishioners," she said; "I expect he has
already done so on you."
"Yes; he was most kind. But I do not need calls in a social way. I am
too busy for that." Then feeling that this was slightly inconsistent
with her afternoon's dissipation, Orris added, "I have been taking time
off this afternoon, for Mr. Muir has insisted upon making me acquainted
with some of his friends. We have just been over to Lilac Farm."
Mrs. Villars seemed about to say something, but stopped herself. She
looked worried, then in another moment she blurted out:
"I want lodgings at once. I am on my way to ask Mrs. Preston to take
two ladies in—very distressful circumstances."
"I doubt if she'll be able to do that," said Jock, "for I'm about to
occupy her only spare room."
"Oh, but she must! I really know of no other person who could make
Lady Violet Archer comfortable. It is most unfortunate. She and her
daughter—old friends of mine—have just come to live at Ivy Towers, and
foolish village gossip has driven away all the servants she brought
with her. They have not a soul in the house. We unfortunately are full
up, friends from town who will not be leaving us till next week. Lady
Violet is not strong, and this has upset her. Her nerves have always
been shaky."
"Then," said Jock, and, to Orris's surprise, his voice sounded quite
stern, "why on earth did you let them come to the Towers? You know its
reputation."
"I am above such superstition, and so is my husband." Mrs. Villars gave
them a stiff little bow and passed on.
Orris looked after her with interest.
"A handsome woman, but she showed in her face her disapproval of me.
Now, Mr. Muir, what is the story about this unfortunate house? Even
Pippa has regaled me with gossip about it. Is it haunted?"
Jock nodded rather shortly.
"You'll laugh at us in these enlightened times. It is not haunted with
visible ghosts, but misfortune seems to descend on all tenants who try
to live there. I must say I wonder at Mrs. Villars recommending her
friends to take it."
"I believe they're old friends. I expect she wanted them over here. She
doesn't think much of any of us."
They had come to the Manor. Orris called for her small niece, and
returned home with her. Her thoughts dwelt upon the Towers. She felt
sorry for the servantless lady and daughter there, but she had little
idea of how soon and how much they would affect her.
CHAPTER V
A HARD BLOW
TWO or three days after the visit to the Manor, Pippa came to her aunt
in the afternoon with an air of delighted mystery upon her small face.
"Aunt Ollie, I've had a real letter without a stamp broughted by the
butcher's boy. Now, who 'do' you think it's from?"
Orris looked up from her books.
"Do you want me to read it for you?"
"Please. It's from a grown-up person, because they can't write plain."
Orris took the note from the child's hand. It ran as follows—
"If the Little Elf would like to have a surprise and unearth buried
treasure, let her go into the big bedroom at the top of the staircase,
and press a little knob in the wall under a picture of a curly-haired
dog.
"N.B.*—Lie low, and beware of Snuffy."
* N.B.—nota bene
"Oh, it's my dear Master Jock!" exclaimed Pippa excitedly, beginning
to dance up and down on her toes. "I'll go immechately. It's a secret
room, Aunt Ollie."
"I think I'd better come with you."
"I think no. I'd like to aventure it myself."
"Well, run along, and if you're too long away, I shall come after you."
Orris was feeling a little worried that day. Pippa's mother was
arriving in two days' time, and she felt that she would be rather a
discordant element in the house. Mrs. Snow was not very obliging, and
though the food was good and they were comfortably lodged, yet the
attendance was not what it ought to have been, and Venetia was a most
exacting and inconsiderate person. When Orris told Mrs. Snow that she
would be arriving, she seemed very discomposed.
"I've had a call from Mrs. Villars this morning; there is letters
passing between her and Mrs. Calthrop. I shall be very glad when people
who belong here are in their own again. It is altogether too much for
me. Such plans and changes are most upsetting."
"What is upsetting you?" asked Orris good-humouredly.
"The least said soonest mended," said Mrs. Snow darkly; "you'll hear
soon enough; and maybe this new lady belonging to you had best not
hurry to get here."
Orris could get nothing more out of her. But she felt uneasy and
anxious. And when Pippa had left her, she leant her elbows on her
writing-table and, forgetting her books, gave herself up to meditation.
She was not long left in peace. Peals of childish laughter and flying
feet spoke of the coming of Pippa. She dashed in at the door like a
whirlwind.
"Oh, Aunt Ollie! I'm laughing right through me; my heart is laughing
even—I hear it bump. I found the knob, and it's the lovely, lovely
powder-room; and it has china pictures all round it and above to the
ceiling, and they all come out of the Bible, and the people are quite
ridic'lous, they make me 'roar' with laughing and when I opened the
door there was a hijeous old woman with a tall black hat and kind of
hairy and beardy all over her face, and she was sitting at a table with
a big heap of chocs in front of her to sell. And she winked at me,
and said, 'Two chocs for a kiss!' And I thought she might be a fairy
witch, so I gave her a tiny kiss on the tip of her chin, and I got two
chocs. And then she said, 'Two more if you come and sit on my lap!' And
I thought about it, and then I saw a ring on her finger, and it was
Master Jock's, so I knowed; and I jumped on his knee, and he squeezed
and tickled me; and we screamed, and then we heard somebody coming,
and Master Jock put me outside the door quick, and said, 'Don't tell
Snuffy'; and there she was, and so I ran away. But isn't he a darling
to give me such surprises?"
"I think Mr. Muir is foolish to come here so much," said Orris, with a
frown. "Where is he now?"
"In the powder-room. Come and see it, Aunt Ollie."
Orris was tugged to her feet, but she went willingly enough to the
powder-room, of which she had heard but not seen. She found Jock there
rolling up his disguise. He laughed when he saw her.
"The Elf and I like a bit of fun," he said apologetically. "I promised
to show her this room one day, and I had an hour to spare. Do you see
these old Dutch tiles? Aren't they quaint? I used to spend part of
my Sundays here when I was a youngster. It was considered part of my
scriptural education, but did you ever see such comic illustrations?
The artist must have had a high sense of humour."
Orris looked at the tiles with interest and admiration. The walls were
lined with them from floor to ceiling, but her thoughts took a turn
away from them.
"Tea will be in directly," she said; "come downstairs and have some
before you go. I want to know about Lady Violet Archer and her
daughter."
"They're at Lilac Farm. Came two days ago, but only till they find
other quarters."
"They could find lodgings here," said Orris; "there are so many unused
bedrooms. How I wish the house was mine! But Mrs. Snow is the drawback.
Pippa, darling, run to the nursery. It is your tea-time."
"I'll tell Anita all about this beautiful little room," said Pippa,
dancing away.
Then, as they descended the stairs together, Orris said:
"My sister-in-law is joining me here. I am afraid Mrs. Snow does not
like it, but Mrs. Calthrop gave me leave to have her."
Jock looked at her queerly.
"I rather wish your sister-in-law would keep away. I like you best
alone."
"Mr. Muir!"
"Don't, I beseech you; don't do the 'aughty to me, as Snuffy used to
say. Here she is! Oh, dash her! She always catches me."
"Mr. Muir is going to have tea with me, Mrs. Snow," said Orris, with
great dignity of manner.
Mrs. Snow stood before them in the hall with folded arms.
"I never let Mr. Muir in this afternoon," she said with icy coldness.
"No, Snuffy: but you can't keep me out of my old home. I'm part and
parcel of it, and whoever is here will be haunted by me, so I give you
fair warning."
"I shall have to write to Mrs. Calthrop and tell her I can't do my duty
to her," said Mrs. Snow, and she retreated.
Orris felt no compunction in giving Jock a cup of tea.
"I can write to Mrs. Calthrop too," she said. "I know she will not
object to my asking friends to tea. She said I was to look upon it as a
temporary home."
Jock stood on the hearthrug looking round the library with rather
dreamy eyes.
"I wish I were a book-lover," he said, "but I learn all my lessons from
Nature."
"I think I learn a good deal from books," said Orris gravely, "but I
hope I shan't imbibe too much philosophy from some of these dear old
men. I don't want to get stony and unimpressed by my surroundings, and,
personally, my heart warms to an unconventional impulsive person. That
is why Pippa charms me."
"And do include me. I am told that I'm too unconventional for society."
Orris laughed.
"I think you are very audacious to steal in and out of this house as
you do. I don't wonder that Mrs. Snow disapproves. How did you get in
this afternoon?"
"Through one of the open windows. I am not audacious. I have a right
here."
He snapped his lips together like steel. Orris was startled to see
the hardness and determination in his face. Then he looked at her and
smiled.
"If they shut you and the Elf up in jail, I should get to you," he said.
"We were strangers a week or two ago," Orris remarked quietly.
"We're fast, firm friends now," he said, with a little laugh; "and when
once I make friends, I keep them."
Silence fell upon them for a moment.
Jock suddenly broke it.
"Let's pretend, like the children. This is your house and mine. I have
come in rather tired after an afternoon's work in the fields. And
you're waiting to give me my tea."
"How could we share a house?" said Orris, laughing. "What nonsense you
talk!"
"How? By walking into church one day, and coming out man and wife.
Nothing easier."
"Oh, Mr. Muir!"
Orris was reduced to speechlessness.
Jock looked at her with a funny shy repentant look.
"There now! See how you precipitate me into speech! But that will
happen to us one day, you know. Only, of course, I never do take the
proper course, and go slowly. And—don't speak! You'll say we haven't
known each other long enough, and a lot of stuff like that! You bowled
me over that day when you stood looking at me with a mixture of shocked
disapproval and amusement. And you're simply adorable, as you sit there
with the sunlight in your hair and your dimples, which will appear in
spite of your stern resolve to keep them under."
"I shall go away and leave you if you go on talking like this." Orris
spoke very gravely. Her head was raised rather haughtily.
"I'm sorry. Forget my rash speech. I'm desperately in love with you,
and if I can't marry you, I shall be a bachelor for the rest of my
days. There! That's off my chest. Now we'll talk of other things. I'm
not even going to ask you your opinion of me, for fear of hearing
something nasty! I've a message from Dunscombe for you. He would like
to come up to-morrow morning and give you some help over your Persian
MSS."
"I shall be very glad to see him."
Conversation rather languished, but Jock soon took his leave.
"Am I forgiven?" he asked as he took her hand in his.
"Oh, yes," said Orris. "I can see you are not like anyone else. Your
time in the Colonies has made you very un-English."
She felt perturbed and breathless, and longed to be alone. When he had
gone, she drew her chair to the open window. As a girl in the secluded
life with her scholar father she had met very few young men of her own
age. Her father's friends were hers. They were all scholars, and had
very little interest in women. After his death, her cousin Dugald had
come into her life. But beyond a friendly liking for him, she could
not go. He proposed to her at various intervals, and after repeated
refusals, he had to be content with her cousinly friendship. She had
met other men, but none had appealed to her; she had come to think
that she was destined for a single life. Sometimes she wondered if her
ideals were too high, or her opinion of herself and her requirements
too great. She almost laughed now at the thought of this gay,
light-hearted, irresponsible young stranger daring to lay siege to her
heart.
"Preposterous and absurd!" she muttered to herself. "He was making
game of me. I hope he did not think that I took it seriously. But I do
dislike his bringing such a subject forward. He could not have been in
earnest. I must not see so much of him, and I must keep Pippa away from
him. Really, I am rather thankful that Venetia is coming to-morrow.
Now, if he were to take a fancy to her, what a charming stepfather he
would make to my darling Pippa! I am afraid Venetia would not look at
him: farming would be abhorrent to her."
The next afternoon Venetia arrived. She seemed a little distrait and
cross, but made a great fuss over Pippa. The child was an affectionate
little soul, but was not very demonstrative, and Orris listened rather
impatiently to her sister-in-law's talk.
"Haven't you missed me, my pet? Have you forgotten your mummy? Your
poor mummy, who has nobody left to love her except her little girl.
Come and kiss me again! Tell me you love me. If I thought that Auntie
Ollie was stealing your heart from me, I would take you right away!"
"Oh, Venetia, how can you talk so!" Orris said.
"I mean every word. People are unkind, cruel to those who have no
money, and are down in their luck. I've been proving the truth of that,
visiting round. No one is anxious to receive an impecunious widow,
especially if she is at all good-looking. Who have we near us here in
the shape of neighbours?"
Orris tried to tell her. Venetia was interested at once in Jock, and
told Pippa that she must take her to see him. Then she said:
"Come upstairs, my darling, and I will show you what a sweet silk frock
I've bought you. White silk with little roses round neck and sleeves."
"Oh, Venetia! She has so many frocks," expostulated Orris.
Venetia nodded at her, laughing as she left the room with her child.
Putting her head in at the door, she said:
"And the bill is coming in to you, Orris. I got it at Gorringe's."
Venetia brought a different atmosphere into the old house at once. She
made her presence felt, and she and Mrs. Snow had a good many passages
of arms together before many days passed.
A small trap and pony were discovered in the village, and with some
little persuasion, Orris had it placed at her sister-in-law's disposal.
Dan drove her about in it, and Pippa accompanied her. They were soon
friendly with both Jock and Mr. Dunscombe.
The latter came over and gave Orris a good deal of help with her
catalogue. Jock did not come to the house so much. He was working on
the farm, and it was at his work that Pippa introduced her mother to
him. Orris was relieved that he stayed away.
And then, about ten days after Venetia arrived, the thunderbolt fell.
The postman brought a letter to Orris from Mrs. Calthrop.
She read it at breakfast, and she read and re-read it, and did some
deep thinking before she spoke to Venetia about it.
It was a lovely sunny morning. Pippa was sitting up, with eager
anticipation in her shining face.
"Let's talk plans, mummy. I've thoughted of a lovely one. We'll take
the trap and make the pony take us to the sea somewhere, and we'll take
our dinner with us. Sangwiches and eggs and sponge cakes, with 'plenty'
of jam in the middle. 'And' gingybeer, 'and' mushrooms and cheese!"
Her mother laughed.
"To be taken, and then well shaken, Pips! And then the sea! You
ridiculous child, we're nowhere near the sea."
"No, but we can get there, mummy. We've only to go far enough. Because,
you know, England is an island, and the sea comes all round it. Did you
know that, mummy? Anita told me yesterday."
"Ask your auntie what she's looking so dismal about?" said Venetia
languidly.
Orris gave a start and looked up from her letter.
"Have you finished breakfast, Pippa? Could you run out into the garden
and pick some flowers for my vase in the library? You were going to do
it yesterday, were you not? But it rained."
"So I will," said Pippa cheerfully and unsuspectingly. She danced out
of the room, and Orris drew a long breath.
"I want to speak to you, Venetia. I know you haven't been very
satisfied with this old house, nor with the attendance you get in it,
so perhaps you will not mind. But—we shall have to flit."
"What on earth do you mean?"
Venetia sat up, all attention at once.
"There's a long rigmarole from Mrs. Calthrop saying how heavy her
expenses are abroad, and that Mrs. Villars, our Rector's wife, has
asked her if she could possibly let the house to some old friends of
hers, who will pay very handsomely for it. They are the people I told
you about who are now lodging at Lilac Farm. They took a house with an
unfortunate history could get no servants to stay with them."
"Oh, I remember. Lady Violet Archer is the woman's name. I met her once
in town. Mrs. Calthrop can't turn us out."
"I'm afraid she can. She has offered, of course, to add to my salary in
lieu of board and lodging. She says Mrs. Snow could not manage for all
of us, and I quite see that she could not. They want to come at once,
for Lady Violet is not in good health, and there is not room at the
farm for her maid."
"I never heard of such proceedings," said Venetia angrily. "We can't
be turned out into the street like dogs. You had better throw up your
work and come back to town, Orris. Pippa has recovered her health in
a wonderful way. She is fat and rosy, and perfectly untiring in her
energy! And I honestly tell you this country will bore me to death. We
have no neighbours. Mr. Muir is amusing, but he's a farmer, or wants to
make himself into one. And Mr. Dunscombe is a dull bookworm. But Mrs.
Calthrop has broken her contract with you. I should make her pay for
doing it. You 'must!'"
Orris was silent; she was conning over in her mind the different houses
in the village. It would be comparatively easy to find lodgings for
herself and Pippa, but Venetia was a different matter. Mrs. Calthrop
had suggested lodgings in a farm or cottage, so that she could come to
her work daily. Orris felt that this easy happy life of hers had very
soon taken wings and flown away.
But she had not much time for thinking, for breakfast was hardly over
before Mrs. Snow came in announcing that a lady was in the drawing-room
and wished to see her.
"Who is it?" Orris asked.
"Miss Archer," said Mrs. Snow shortly.
In another moment, Orris was shaking hands with a very young pretty
girl. She was dressed in rough Harris tweed, with a grey felt hat
pulled over her soft brown hair, but everything about her was dainty
and fresh, and her complexion like that of a blush rose.
"I have come on 'such' a disagreeable errand," she said; "and I feel
you will dislike us very much when you know that Mrs. Calthrop has let
this house to mother for some months. But, believe me, it was only this
morning that we realized that you were going to be turned out for us.
And mother said that I had better come round and explain that it was
not our doing. Mrs. Villars has arranged everything with Mrs. Calthrop,
and we knew nothing about you until yesterday evening, and then we were
talking with Mrs. Preston and she told us."
"My dear Miss Archer, please don't feel uncomfortable about it. This is
only a temporary job, and I did not expect to settle down here for good
and all. I have felt very sorry for you. I heard about your troubles."
"I wish that we had never come to this part," said the girl ruefully.
"It was such a surprising and uncomfortable experience at the Towers.
Are you superstitious? Of course, Mrs. Villars laughs at it all, but I
wish she would sleep there a few nights, as we did."
"Tell me about it," said Orris sympathetically.
Reyne Archer responded instantly to her interest. She did not seem to
have much definite complaint of the Towers beyond queer noises, but she
declared the whole atmosphere of the house was eerie and melancholy.
And from the unfortunate house, she went on impulsively to confide
in Orris a good many of her difficulties in her home life. Orris had
a way of inspiring confidence with total strangers. She learnt that
Reyne had been dragged about in attendance on an invalid mother from
the time she had been fifteen. Lady Violet always spent her winters on
the Riviera, and divided her time at home between London and Brighton,
and occasional visits to Scotland. Reyne had never been to school; she
had a haphazard, desultory education, attending classes at intervals,
and having governesses and masters for a few months at a time, and for
the last four years had been going out with her mother to the different
social functions that came in their way.
"I am so tired of it all," she said, heaving a sigh; "and now the
doctors say mother must have rest and quiet in the country. It is so
unfortunate that our first venture should prove so disastrous. I don't
believe she will be here very long, but she has promised her doctor she
will stay quiet in the country all this summer."
"What are your hobbies?" Orris asked. "You must have some."
"Oh," said the girl, with heightened colour, "I want to be of some use
in the world. It's all so empty and unsatisfying, going to dances and
theatres and at-homes; always seeing the same people, and talking the
same kind of talk. I've had it since I was quite a little girl. Mother
always took me with her everywhere. I had no proper childhood. And two
years ago, in the town, I heard a sermon, and it has altered my whole
life. May I tell you about it? You won't laugh?"
"No," said Orris softly; "I shall like to hear."
"It was an unknown preacher in an unknown church. At least, it wasn't a
church where many of our sort go—I drifted into it one wet evening. And
the text was: 'Where art thou?' He told us of places where we might be,
and asked us to catalogue ourselves in one of them. I don't remember
all the places. 'In the far country,' was one, 'lost on the mountain,'
'hiding behind fig leaves,' 'standing idle in the market-place,' and
then he suggested a change of life and scene to 'in the fold,' 'on the
highway of holiness,' and 'in the Lord's hand.'
"I can't tell you how eloquent he was. I came away and went to my room
and hunted about till I found a little old Bible that I had given me
as a child, and then I prayed, and, oh, I can't explain, but though my
outward circumstances haven't altered, my heart has."
She paused, then added hurriedly:
"You will think me quite mad, talking to you like this the first time
I see you. I don't know what has made me do it. But you're leading a
useful life and your face tells me you understand these things. May
I—will you be friendly with me and let me pour out to you sometimes?"
"Certainly I will," said Orris with warmth that surprised herself. She
was about to say more, but they were interrupted by Mrs. Snow in the
usual way. And after discussing business with that worthy person, Reyne
Archer took a hurried leave. But as she was going, she said to Orris:
"May I suggest that if you do want comfortable rooms that you
should come to Lilac Farm? Mrs. Preston is such a dear, and she has
half-suggested it herself."
"There's nothing I should like better," said Orris, "but we're too
large a party. Four in number. She hasn't the rooms. Besides, Mr. Muir
is going to occupy her spare room."
"Well, come over and talk to her about it. Do, and I shall see you
again."
CHAPTER VI
IN NEW QUARTERS
ORRIS did not delay in making her plans. She started at once for the
village, but on the way she met Jock Muir striding along as if he were
in a walking race.
"Ah!" he cried, when he saw her. "Good morning. I'm coming to make a
rumpus. What is this about your turning out of Pinestones? You shan't
do it. I won't have it."
Orris laughed.
"You really are a most amusing man," she said. "I am not being turned
out of my job. That is the only thing that I should mind; and I don't
think you must try to arrange our affairs for us. I shall be quite
happy if I can get rooms somewhere. Mrs. Snow is difficult, and we
shall all be relieved if we get away from her."
"Where are you going? To the village? I will walk with you. Now tell me
all about it."
Orris complied in her easy happy way. He grew calmer after a bit, and
when she mentioned Lilac Farm, his face brightened.
"I believe Mrs. Preston will take you in if anyone will. If she sees
the Elf, she'll do it. She adores children. She has several empty
attics, you know. We won't go to the village. Come straight off to her."
"I would rather not, just now," said Orris slowly. "We shall be turning
you out."
"Oh, that's nothing at all. Dunscombe wants to put me up; and I shall
be in and out of the farm all day. I have my midday meal there. We'll
all be such a happy family; and you'll be able to look out of your
window in the early morning and see me working in the fields!"
Orris laughed, and he joined her.
"It's a first-rate plan," he said eagerly. "You'll be well rid of
Snuffy, and it's quite a short walk across the fields. The places join
each other. I insist upon your coming to Lilac Farm at once."
"I must speak to my sister-in-law first. Yes, I mean it. You mustn't
try to manage me."
"But don't you see that Mrs. Preston may not be able to take you in,
and then you would be going on a wrong tack? I won't try to manage
you—I don't believe I ever could—but I will try to persuade you. Just
come along and talk it over with her. Don't be unreasonable—it's so
narrow; and if you're anything, you're open to reason and common sense."
Of course, in the end he got his way, and Orris was led off to Lilac
Farm instead of to the village. When Jock had seen her in close
confabulation with Mrs. Preston, he tactfully slipped away to his work.
And Mrs. Preston was more accommodating than Orris had dared to hope.
"If Mrs. Coventry and the little girl would share the big spare
bedroom, I have a smaller one that I could give you. I know I could
make it comfortable for you, and I could get an attic ready for the
maid. It's the attendance I'm doubtful about, but if she would wait
upon you, I could do it easily. I'm always busy in the kitchen every
morning, so my sitting-room would be at Mrs. Coventry's disposal. She
could have it to herself."
"Oh," said Orris, with a sigh of relief, "that would do beautifully.
My sister-in-law always retires to her bedroom between lunch and tea,
if she is not out-of-doors. I shall be all day at work, and my little
niece is happy anywhere."
They went on talking. Mrs. Preston suggested them coming into the
kitchen for the dinner in the middle of the day, but having their
breakfast and tea in her sitting-room, and joining them at supper
again. To Orris, this was perfectly satisfactory, but she knew that the
real difficulty would be with Venetia. And she returned home as quickly
as she could to talk it over with her.
At first, as she feared, Venetia declared that she could not and would
not live in a farmhouse. Then, when the alternative seemed to be
cottage rooms in the village, she hesitated. Finally she said, with a
very ill grace, that they could give it a trial. And Orris settled the
matter as soon as possible before she had time to change her mind.
In three days' time, Lady Violet had taken over Pinestones, and Orris
and her small family were established at Lilac Farm.
She saw Reyne Archer several times, but neither of them got an
opportunity of any quiet talk together. They were both very busy. Pippa
was enchanted with the move, though she told Jock that she was very
sorry to leave the "darling little secret powder-room," as she called
it.
"But I'll climb in at the windows like you did," she said gleefully,
"and hide when I hear Snuffy coming."
"No, no!" said Orris, overhearing this remark. "Once away, you must
keep away."
"But, Aunt Ollie, I may come and see you sometimes, just in at the
window. I can climb over ever so easy!"
Orris shook her head.
"You'll have such delightful things to see and do at the farm that you
won't want to leave it," she prophesied; "and when I am at work, I
don't want to be disturbed."
"You wait till haymaking comes," said Jock; "you'll have the time of
your life then."
Pippa insisted upon being told all details of haymaking; and Orris had
little fear that she would venture far-away from the farm.
For herself, the atmosphere of the farm was very peaceful and happy.
The only lurking doubt in her heart was the close proximity of Jock. He
was always there to early dinner, and was in and out of the farm all
day. But she had little time or opportunity of speaking to him alone.
Venetia entirely monopolized him at meal times. She told Orris that he
was the only person of their own class for her to speak to.
"And though he's a rough diamond," she said, "and nearly penniless,
there's something rather attractive about him. He can make you laugh,
which is something in this dismal desolate country."
One day Orris took an afternoon off.
Reyne Archer begged her to come a drive with her. Her mother had
just had her car down from town, but was laid up with an attack of
neuralgia, and so Reyne was free to use it.
"I want you to myself," Reyne informed her, "but I've promised to go to
tea with the Misses Dashwood, and I'm going to take you. They said they
wanted to see more of you. Don't you like the eldest one? I do."
"Yes; I think she's delightful. But I haven't time to pay many visits,
and since my sister-in-law has arrived, I feel that my spare time ought
to be devoted to her."
"Well, I want you this afternoon. Don't disappoint me."
Orris yielded. The weather was getting warmer; spring was turning into
early summer; and sometimes the many hours in the old library tired and
depressed her. She felt that a change and rest would do her good. When
she told Venetia of the invitation, she did not meet with much sympathy.
"Oh, I suppose I must accustom myself to do without you. When you're
not working, you're amusing yourself; it's quite natural, but rather
dull for me."
"What did you want to do this afternoon?" Orris asked.
They were standing in the porch after the early dinner at the farm,
Venetia with the inevitable cigarette in her mouth. Pippa had had a
swing put up in the orchard, and Jock Muir was tossing her through the
air before he went off to his work again.
Venetia shrugged her shoulders.
"We might have driven into the town. It's simply deadly, living here
day after day."
"Shall we go in after tea? I can be back at half-past five."
"Oh, I don't know, but I want some books. I shall go and rest now."
She disappeared up the stairs.
Orris gazed rather wistfully after her. She felt it was dull for
Venetia, but did not know how to remedy matters.
And then Jock came up to get his hat, and seeing the expression on her
face, stopped short.
"What's worrying you?"
Orris laughed.
"Nothing. I'm sorry for my sister-in-law."
Jock screwed up his lips rather enigmatically.
"I shouldn't be. She's going to have a visitor this afternoon."
"Who? What do you mean?"
"I came across a man at the 'Golden Bells' this morning. I had to take
one of the horses to be shod next door—that's a parenthesis to let you
know I wasn't tippling—and he asked the way to Lilac Farm. One of these
Bond Street chaps, I should say, from the cut of his clothes. I was
quite nervous lest he should have come down to see you, but it was Mrs.
Coventry, not Miss Coventry, whom he wanted, so my mind is relieved.
And he's coming over here after his lunch is over. He was surprised
that he couldn't have fried sole and spaghetti at the inn. On my honour
he was!"
"I know nobody of that description," said Orris. "I am expecting a
cousin down this week or next, but it is not he."
She beat a rapid retreat up the stairs, resenting Jock's interest in
her visitors.
"That will show him that I am not going to shut myself up entirely to
his society," said Orris to herself.
A short time after, she and Reyne Archer were gliding smoothly along
the roads in the open car.
"I want to take you to the top of Churt's Hill," Reyne said. "Have you
been there?"
"No; it is beyond my walking powers. How much ease and enjoyment you
have, if you own a car!"
"Yes, but, like everything else, you don't value it when you are
accustomed to it. I'm afraid I'm a discontented soul at present."
"Are you? I wonder why?" said Orris cheerfully. "Don't spoil a pleasant
bit of life by hankering after the impossible. If you're tired of town,
surely this must refresh you?"
"Oh," said Reyne impulsively, "isn't it a waste of life? There's so
much to be done, so few doing anything but just getting through life as
comfortably as they can."
"Isn't your mother rather delicate? If you are her only daughter, you
could not leave her."
"No," said Reyne, a little bitterly; "she has already told me that.
If I leave her, she stops my allowance. She is determined to keep me
entirely dependent on her. And penniless workers are at a disadvantage.
I have asked about various hostels, and you must contribute something
towards your keep, naturally. Of course, I could join communities where
they would take me for nothing, but my pride stands in the way."
"I wouldn't be in a hurry about leaving your mother," said Orris
gently. "I was tempted sorely, some years ago, to leave my father. I
did not seem to be of much use to him; he was a scholar and absorbed in
his books. Yet before he died, he thanked me for sticking to him, and I
have always been glad I did.'
"But you weren't in the treadmill of smart society," said Reyne.
"No, not in your set. But I thought I was stagnating, burying my
talents in the earth. And now, looking back, I see that it was all
training."
"For what you are doing now?"
"Partly. I'm able to support myself and my belongings by the knowledge
that I got with my father, but I did not mean that side. Miss Dashwood
will tell you what I mean. She, after all, is only going through the
same phase as yourself, looking after, and keeping happy, her nearest
and dearest. It makes for character, calls forth the best of one's
powers, when we're in the smallest corners."
Orris spoke gravely, but ended her sentence with her happy smile, and
Reyne took hold of her hand caressingly.
"Talk away. I love being preached to. Nobody does it. Tell me charity
begins at home, that instead of going abroad to tell the heathen what
has been done for them, I ought to be influencing my mother! But you
know that's quite an impossibility. It ought to be the other way
about—a daughter can't influence a mother, especially such a mother as
I have—a mother with a masterful spirit and an iron will."
Orris was silent.
"Love and prayer will work miracles," she said at last. "You know the
early Christian women were told to be 'keepers at home.' Of course,
people laugh at that in these days, but don't be in a hurry to rush
ahead before the door is opened. Don't make up your mind as to what you
must, or must not, do. Let God do it for you."
"It is so difficult to stay still knowing that my best years are being
given over to what is really condemned in the Bible. You must say it
is. 'Lovers of pleasures more than of God,' isn't that rightly quoted?"
"Yes," said Orris, "but the beginning of that quotation is:
'Disobedient to parents, unthankful, without natural affection.'"
Reyne sighed.
"Why don't you help a little in the parish?" Orris suggested. "I am
told that Miss Villars is overburdened with it. Mrs. Villars leaves it
all to her, and this is a big parish, they say. Couldn't you take a
Sunday class whilst you are here? I should personally love to do it. I
had one always in London, but I feel here that Pippa needs me on Sunday
afternoons. She and I always have a class together."
"I might do that," said Reyne, visibly brightening. "You don't know how
good it is to talk with anyone who cares and understands."
They reached Churt's Hill, and got out from the car, walking to the
summit, where a few stunted pines were grouped together. But the view
was a magnificent one overlooking several counties, rivers like threads
of silver wound up and down the valleys, wooded slopes, rich verdant
meadows lay before them, little villages nestling close to their
churches, and in the far distance a line of blue sea. Orris gazed with
a full heart, and Reyne drew a long breath.
"Isn't it inspiring!" she said. "We might be on the top of the
Delectable Mountains. We're so far removed up here from petty troubles
and vexations. I'm sure space and freedom are necessary to our
well-being. Nobody ought to have nerves who lives in such surroundings
as these."
"No," said Orris thoughtfully, "but I suppose every one needs a
different environment. If Venetia were here with us, she would not
enjoy it. Many only stagnate in the country; they live in town."
Reyne gave another sigh. Then she said:
"We're going to have visitors next week. I believe you know them. Now
I come to think of it, aren't they connexions of yours? Major Dugald
McTavert and Mrs. Laing, his sister."
"They're cousins," said Orris, smiling. "How strange! I only heard from
Dugald the other day, saying he would be in these parts soon, for he
would be staying with friends in the neighbourhood. Does he know you
are in the Muirs' house?"
"No, he wrote to the house of ill-omen, as we now call it. I wonder
who the next tenants will be! It is so attractively advertised that it
never remains empty long, I believe."
"I wish it could be burnt," said Orris uneasily.
"You are very superstitious about it. I felt, when I was in it, that I
was as safe there as anywhere. But it is not a happy house."
"No," said Orris. "I think I must tell you what happened the other day.
Pippa persuaded Mr. Muir to take her over it. She had heard a good deal
about it from the postman, who is a great friend of hers. When she came
back, I asked her about it. She had run away from Mr. Muir for a few
minutes, it seems, had thought she would hide from him, and then she
said suddenly:
"'I'm 'fraid Master Jock swears wicked words sometimes. I heard drefful
words one after the other behind the door. He says he didn't, but who
could it be, Aunt Ollie?'
"I asked Mr. Muir, and he vows he never uttered a word, but says Pippa
was in the room where most of the tragedies have taken place."
"That's queer. Oh, I'm thankful we're out of it! Will you come over
to dinner with us one night, when your cousins are with us? And your
sister-in-law too? Do; I know mother means to ask you."
"I think we shall be very glad to do so when the invitation arrives,"
said Orris, laughing.
Then they walked back to the car, and found their way to the
Misses Dashwood's cottage. They met Miss Villars there, who seemed
very pleased to see them. Orris had not yet spoken to her, though
she had seen her in church and in the distance. She was a thin,
harassed-looking girl, but when Orris began to talk to her, she
brightened up wonderfully.
"I have so wanted to know you," she said; "you look so happy, and you
have that darling little niece who always talks to everybody she meets."
"Yes, she's a sociable little soul, but a little too forward with her
tongue," said Orris in her cheerful way. "You must be fond of children.
I see you surrounded by them in church."
"Yes, I enjoy the Sunday school. My sister-in-law does not care for
children. I love them. Fancy! We have been here fourteen years this
month, and I've seen some of my little scholars grow up and marry. It
makes me feel so old! Have you heard our news? My brother is giving up
the living. He has been offered one in London, and my sister-in-law
wants to go. It is at Hampstead."
"Will you be sorry to leave?" Orris asked, wishing she could honestly
regret the Rector's departure, but he was a poor preacher, and had not
much personality or influence amongst his parishioners.
"I shall be very sorry. I know every one here. It is so hard to begin
all over again."
"You are happy in having such work," said Orris; "now Miss Archer, who
is with me, is bemoaning her lack of occupation."
"Oh, is she going to stay here? Would she visit a few of the old
people? We know the man who is coming, but he is unmarried and rather
young. I believe his mother, who lives with him, is old and infirm. I
wondered who would look after every one when I went. I could tell her
all about the ones who most appreciate being visited."
"I rather fancy she will be here only for the summer, but I know she
would be very glad to give all the help she can."
Then Orris introduced the girls and began to talk to the Misses
Dashwood.
When they left, Reyne was a different person. She was delighted at the
opening that seemed in front of her.
"Of course, the new Rector may not want me interfering, but if he has
no wife, he may be glad of some help," she said. "I've heard that Miss
Villars has done more in the parish than her brother."
"Yes, all the villagers turn to her. Mrs. Villars does nothing. It is
not her line, she says."
Orris was dropped at Lilac Farm on the way back. She felt that the
afternoon's drive had refreshed and rested her. She found Venetia
sitting in the orchard reading a novel, and Pippa was playing near her.
"I've had a visitor," she said, as Orris approached her.
"I wonder who?"
"You don't know him. A man I met in Italy. He is partly Italian—at
least, his mother was of that nationality. He is going to stay at
Churt's Grange. Do you know the people there?"
"My dear Venetia, I know no one."
"Mr. Muir will tell us. There he is, crossing the farmyard. Run and
tell him I want him, Pippa."
Away flew Pippa, coming back perched on Jock's broad shoulders.
He smiled when he heard Venetia's query.
"Churt's Grange lies the other side of Churt's Hill. Very worthy
people—very rich. Made their money in Glasgow. Only been there ten
years. Do you want to know them?"
"Mr. Riley is going to bring Mrs. Potter to call. I told him we did not
even possess a sitting-room of our own. It is so absurdly rustic and
unconventional here."
"Mrs. Potter won't mind. She'll gush over it all. The country to her is
a kind of stage for her amusement."
"You will be quite gay," said Orris. "An invitation to dine with the
Archers is coming to us. Dugald and Marie are actually coming to stay
at Pinestones."
"I wonder who Dugald is?" said Jock, in his usual audacious manner.
Venetia looked up quickly.
"The man who I hope is going to marry Orris," she said. "He has been
waiting for her for years."
Orris's brows contracted. A pink flush rose to her cheeks.
"Please do not talk nonsense, Venetia," she said in a vexed tone.
Jock looked as black as thunder. And then Pippa, who had been taking it
all in, suddenly threw her word in.
"Oh, but the man I want Aunt Ollie to marry is Master Jock," she said.
"I simply would love him to be my—my stone-father."
It was impossible to help laughing.
"Stepfather, you mean," corrected her mother. "He couldn't be your
stepfather unless he married me. Run away child, and don't interfere in
grown-up people's conversation."
"Pippa is wiser than the whole lot of us put together," said Jock, as
he went off to the farmyard again, where he was helping Mr. Preston
with a sick cow.
Pippa darted off with him.
"I'm very fond of Cousin Dugald," she confided in him, "but I don't
think he ever climbed up into a window in his life. And I simply
''dore' you for doing it!"
CHAPTER VII
VENETIA DISAPPEARS
"NOW, Dugald, you must go away. My time is not my own. It is Mrs.
Calthrop's this morning till half-past twelve, when I go to dinner."
"It's past my comprehension," said Dugald, eyeing the rows of books
in front of him critically, "how a catalogue can take so long in the
making. I bet you I would do it in a fortnight!"
"Where ignorance is bliss!" said Orris, laughing.
"But look here, I came down to see you; I've been here two days and
have hardly got a squint of you. When is your time your own? Answer
truthfully."
"If you promise to leave me in peace, and I can get these three hours
clear of interruptions, I will meet you somewhere this afternoon, and
we'll have a walk, if you like. Be at Lilac Farm at three o'clock.
Venetia will be very pleased to see you to tea if you care to return
with me. That is, providing Lady Violet has not other plans for you. I
would remind you that you are her guest."
"Thank you," Dugald said sarcastically. Then he altered his tone.
"Isn't it queer the Archers coming here and turning you out? I never
heard of such a topsy-turvy arrangement. And I hear the rightful but
defrauded heir is in the neighbourhood, and that you and he are great
pals. Have I cause for jealousy?"
"Go away! I shan't talk to you any more. The friends I make cannot
possibly concern you." Orris turned her back upon him and plunged into
her work.
It was little more than half-past nine, but from his bedroom window
Dugald had caught sight of her crossing the fields, and had hastened
down to have a chat with her. He looked at her very ruefully now.
"You've no occasion to slave away like this," he said, "to give that
lazy parasite money to fly round with. Well, I suppose I must make my
exit. I shall be at the Farm at three, sharp." He left the room.
Orris was not disturbed again. Reyne respected her wishes, and rarely
came near her. Lady Violet ignored her, and her cousin Dugald's sister,
Marie, hardly realized that she was in the house.
When Orris arrived at the Farm for dinner, Pippa met her breathlessly.
"Mummy has gone away in a car with Mr. Riley. And haymaking is
beginning to-morrow, and I'm going to be in the hayfields all day long,
and Master Jock will make me little cubbyholes in it. Won't it be
glorious!"
"And what are your plans for this afternoon, I wonder?" asked Orris.
"Is your mother out for the day?"
"Yes. She said I was to be good. I wiss I'd gone with her, but she
wouldn't take me. She said she mightn't be home till I was in bed!"
"Where is Anita?"
Pippa advanced to her aunt on tiptoe, her finger to her lips.
"Locked in the barn. She—she bored me!"
The last words were in such exact imitation of her mother's tones that
Orris smiled in spite of herself.
"But that is very naughty, Pippa. You wouldn't like to be locked in the
barn."
"Oh, yes, I would, 'cause I can squeeze down through the holes into the
mangers."
Orris went to release the tearful and very indignant Anita, and told
her to take her work after dinner into the orchard, and keep Pippa in
sight.
"I am going out for a walk, but I shall be back before tea. As her
mother is out, you will be responsible for her."
"She is too wild, the child," murmured Anita. "I try, I make play with
her, but she flies like lightning in all parts of the farm at once. She
plays with peegs, she makes herself—her frocks like them. I wash—and
wash—but she is always not fit to look at for a little lady!"
"Never mind! This is the country."
"I do agree with my mistress: I like town."
Anita the adaptable was distinctly ruffled. Orris smoothed her down.
She wondered if she had better leave her little niece, for it was
evidently one of her naughty days.
At dinner Jock asked her if she was worried.
"Do I look so?" she asked.
"You have a certain pucker on your brow which always comes there when
your mind is working at something unpleasant."
Orris laughed, and her brow cleared.
"I am going for a walk with my Cousin Dugald," she said; "and I am
wondering whether Pippa will be all right if I leave her at home."
Pippa was chattering away to the farmer at the other end of the table
or Orris would not have discussed her. Jock looked at her with his
whimsical smile.
"Is it a case of pleasure versus duty? Let the cousin go, and bring
Pippa out into the five-acre meadow. We're starting the haymaking."
"To-day?
"Well, the machine isn't working quite right—we're giving it a trial."
"Anita might take her down, if you could have an eye on her."
"All right—I'm game. Because I think you ought to have a change from us
country folk sometimes."
Mrs. Preston overheard this conversation.
"No, Mr. Muir, don't hint that Miss Coventry doesn't like us. She might
have been born and brought up in the country, she's so understanding
and simple."
"Now you've said it!" laughed Jock. "Miss Coventry, simple!"
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said poor Mrs. Preston, covered with
confusion.
"My dear Mrs. Preston," said Orris, "simplicity is a virtue which all
of us ought to possess. I wish I had more of it."
"Would your little niece like to bide in the kitchen with me? We're
making some raspberry jam this afternoon."
Directly Pippa heard this she was enchanted at the idea of it, and
Orris departed for her walk with a light heart.
She took Dugald through the pinewoods. They had many mutual friends,
and she enjoyed hearing of town life, and all that was going on.
"It seems years since I was in the bustle of it all," she said. "I
suppose you think my life stagnation at present?"
"I'm afraid I couldn't stick it. Why doesn't Venetia get married again,
and relieve you of herself and child, then we would have you in town?"
"I don't know that you would," said Orris slowly.
It was an exquisite afternoon; they were leaning over a fence at the
edge of the woods and looking down along the rich pastoral valley below
them. There was a peculiar freshness in the air; every tree and shrub
seemed vibrant with luxurious life, and the pines behind them were
sending out their aromatic fragrance.
Orris turned to pick a branch of wild roses as she spoke; and as she
inhaled their delicate fragrance, she said again:
"I don't know that you would. The country is getting a hold of me.
The naturalness and simplicity of it all appeals to me. I am enjoying
first-hand the good gifts of God. I feel now as if I could not take
town life up again. If I could find a thatched cottage vacant, which
is, of course, an impossibility in these days, I believe I would
venture to take it. Look at that view in front of you! Isn't it
exquisite?"
"Oh, you can get many as good, outside town," said Dugald
indifferently. Then, turning to her eagerly, he said: "You mustn't
vegetate here too long. You have gifts which are squandered here. And
we—I—want you back again. I haven't a soul who cares whether I live
or die. I mean it. And I miss your motherly—sisterly—oh, how I wish I
could say 'wifely'—lectures for my good. Hurry up over that library and
come back."
"I have a good three months' work at it, yet," said Orris. "You don't
any of you want me. You map out your days and nights in one long array
of gaieties; you say the same things every day, you repeat scandal,
you tell each other 'bon mots,' you criticize each other, and you
contribute nothing towards the welfare of the unfortunate. And at the
end of your life, what have you got to show for it?"
Dugald looked at her with mischievous eyes. "Go on. I've heard all this
before."
"Yes; it's futile talking to you. And I'm just as bad myself. Reyne
Archer has been stirring me up by her fresh enthusiasm, and longing
after a busy, useful life. I have done very little in town, but here, I
fancy, if I were to settle down and get to know the country folk round,
I could do something to help them on a bit. So little amuses them, so
little pleases them. I'm not speaking of the young, but of the old and
feeble. I've just seen a few of them, but they fascinate me. I have
never come in contact with country people before. They're so leisurely
and shrewd, and think more than the Cockneys do. They have more time,
of course."
"How you drift away from the point," Dugald said. "Promise me you will
return to town in September. You will have had your three months by
then."
"Indeed, I shall promise nothing of the sort. Now shall we go back?"
Dugald felt, when the walk was over that he had gained nothing by
it. He had hoped that absence from town might make her more eager to
return. He had also hoped that she would have missed him, and learnt to
wish for him.
When they reached the farm, they found a bountiful tea awaiting them.
Mrs. Preston had suggested to Anita to carry it out under the apple
trees in the orchard.
Dugald did not stay long. Perhaps Pippa's chatter of her wonderful
"Master Jock" did not smooth matters. If Jock did not like the sound of
him, Dugald most certainly disliked his presence at the farm.
When he was gone, and Pippa had been taken to bed, Orris sat on in the
silent orchard. The future looked uncertain to her, and sometimes she
had an intense craving for a home of her own. Her flat was not a home,
she told herself. She wanted a garden, a sweet restful place where, as
now, she could sit and meditate with no fear of interruption.
She was a little anxious over Venetia. Every day found her more
discontented and more restive. These new friends of hers did not seem
to make her happier, only made her long the more to return to town.
And Orris did not care for this new admirer of hers. Mr. Riley seemed
to her a parvenu, and neither well-bred nor intellectual. Venetia was
never happy unless she had some man attendant on her, but Orris feared
she was more than interested in this one.
She did not return till half-past ten, and was cross with Orris for
waiting up for her.
"I thought you might be glad of a cup of soup. Have you been out in the
car all day?"
"We've been up to town," Venetia said shortly, "and we dined at
Salisbury on the way back."
Orris saw she did not wish to be questioned, so said no more and went
off to bed.
The next day she and Venetia dined with the Archers. The Rector and his
wife were there, but no one else. It was not exactly a happy gathering.
Venetia and Dugald heartily disliked each other. Mrs. Villars had
taken it into her head not to approve of Orris. Marie, a lively young
matron of two-and-thirty, put her foot into it all round. She told Mrs.
Villars that the country was deadly, and that parsons and their wives
were the deadliest. This was in innocence of Mrs. Villars' calling. She
told Lady Archer that they thought it a burning shame for Mrs. Calthrop
to let her house and turn Orris out, after making arrangements with her
definitely to stay there. And she asked Venetia why she did not try
another millinery venture in town. It was so fashionable, and she would
promise to patronize her if she did so!
Reyne and Orris did not get a chance of any talk together until just as
she was leaving, and then Reyne said:
"I want to tell you that I have mother's consent to my taking over some
of Miss Villars' work when she leaves. I am so happy about it. It seems
as if it has just been given to me. And I do agree with you that I
ought not to leave mother at present. If only she stays in the country,
it will be delightful! I am going to enjoy it all now, and shall leave
the future to take care of itself."
Dugald walked home with Orris and Venetia. The latter said, when she
came into the farm:
"Preserve me from going out again to any of these deadly country
dinners! Orris, I'm getting to the end of my tether. I shall have to
break away from you."
"But what do you think of doing?" said Orris, a little wearily. This
kind of conversation was getting frequent and monotonous.
"I think I should commit suicide if I stayed here much longer."
"Don't be foolish!" Orris's tone was sharp. "You have more backbone
than that, Venetia, so don't pretend that you haven't. We can't get
everything we want in life; and you have here at least food and
lodging."
"I thought you would add 'comfort,' for that I have not got. And talk
of life! This isn't life, it's stagnation. I am not a tortoise. I can't
sleep away my time as you want me to do. I shall go to one of those
cheap boardinghouses in Bayswater or Kensington. I don't mind leaving
you Pippa for a time. She ought to be going to school soon. How is it
to be managed?"
"I shall be able to do it," said Orris. Then she added, with a little
laugh: "That is, if I don't get too many bills of yours to pay."
Venetia shrugged her shoulders.
"If you will take your brother's liabilities upon your shoulders, it
isn't for me to complain. Good-night. I'm off to bed. I've warned you
that I shall make my exit soon." Then, as she was turning away, she
looked back. "You and I are not fitted to live together, Orris. You are
too superior in your aloofness from all fun and frivolity. You good
people are on such a different plane to us mere ordinary beings that
you make us uncomfortable in your presence."
"I have tried not to be a prig," murmured Orris.
"You can't hide your contempt for me."
Orris was dumb. She realized that she had been impatient, intolerant
of her sister-in-law's vagaries, and she wondered if she could have
influenced her more, had she shown her more sympathy. She looked at
Venetia somewhat wistfully.
"I wish you would teach me how to understand you," she said.
Venetia laughed and blew her an airy kiss.
"Good-night again. You've been a useful old thing to me, and you're a
pattern aunt to Pippa. You ought to be a mother. I'm not suited to the
role. Marry this young penniless farmer who's so desperately in love
with you. He isn't a bad sort—not spicy enough for me, but good enough
in his way." She disappeared.
Two days after, she made good her words. She had gone off again with
Mr. Riley in his car, presumably to some races that were taking place
about ten miles away.
This time Orris waited up till between eleven and twelve. She had felt
uneasy all the evening. Pippa had been curiously mysterious, and wagged
her head to and fro every time her mother's name was mentioned.
When she was put to bed, Orris went in and tucked her up after hearing
her say her evening prayer.
When Pippa got to, "God bless mummy," she gave a little giggle.
Orris promptly reproved her, whereupon she looked up with big eyes.
"God knows why I'm laughing. He will ascuse me."
"Have you got anything on your mind, my pet?" Orris asked, as she gave
her a "good-night" kiss.
"No," said Pippa virtuously; "I've been a 'markably good girl to-day."
Orris paced outside the house in the sweet dusky evening till it was
too dark to see, then she came to the conclusion that Venetia might be
sleeping at the Potters', so she went to bed when it was nearly twelve
o'clock.
The next morning Anita brought her a note which she had found on her
mistress's dressing-table. It ran as follows:
"DEAR ORRIS,—
"I haven't been long in doing it, have I? But Jack Riley has
precipitated matters. We are being married to-morrow at the Registrar's
in town. I go up to-night and sleep at the Metropole. He joins me
to-morrow. I didn't think he was in earnest till yesterday. He has
a ranch in California and we're going out there, but I must have a
maid to go with me, so will you send Anita along with my trunks? I've
packed one. She must pack the other and bring them up to town—to the
Metropole. She loves travelling, so will like to come with me. I
leave you Pippa. I shall miss her, but Jack doesn't want a ready-made
daughter at present; and we shall be travelling about, which would be
bad for her. You won't have me as a burden on your shoulders, so you
will be able to do better for her. She must be educated soon. I should
pack her off to a boarding-school if I were you, and go back to your
club again. Good-bye.
"You did your best for us, but a country farm is the limit for—
"Your good-for-nothing Sis,
"VENETIA."
Orris read this through with dazed eyes. She hardly knew whether
she was glad or sorry. Her immediate anxiety was Pippa with no maid
to look after her. She realized her capacity for mischief, and the
impossibility of doing her work and looking after the child.
She called Anita to her. It was quite true what Venetia had said. She
had a passion for travelling, and was willing to go anywhere with her
mistress.
"Miss Pippa, she is too great a charge; she likes not me when I am
reproving her; and she is too wild to be held still and good. I do
better with full-grown ladies who do not pour ink into my shoes and
comb the peegs with my best comb!"
"I'm afraid Miss Pippa has been very naughty."
"She is born so," said Anita philosophically.
She departed with alacrity to pack her mistress's trunks, and Orris
went down to breakfast with perplexed eyes.
Pippa was chattering in the porch to Jock who was filling his pipe
preparatory to going into the hayfields.
"Oh, Aunt Ollie, be quick with our brekfus', I'm going to be all day in
the hayfield, and I shall make it into little cocks to-day. Jock says I
can."
"Do you know your mummy has gone away?"
Pippa looked at her aunt and smiled.
"Aha! You didn't know I'd a secret! Mummy told me not to tell, and so
last night I didn't, though it nearly bursted from me ever so many
times. Mummy came to me in the orchard when the car was waiting for
her, and she kissed me and whispered in my ear that she was going away.
Mummy often goes away quite sudden, doesn't she? She told me not to
tell you till this morning, and I really quite forgot, I was so busy
thinking about the hay."
"Have children any hearts?" queried Jock, in an undertone. "Is it
anything serious, Bright Eyes?"
"Run in, Pippa; there's some bread and milk for you this morning. I'm
just coming."
The child danced into the house. In a few words, Orris told Jock of
what had happened. He gave a low long whistle.
"You don't want me to congratulate you," he said.
"No; it has almost knocked me down—the suddenness of it. But I wonder
that it has not happened before. He has money, so I consider she ought
to be content."
"And send you something for the child, I should hope?"
Orris shook her head.
"Never. He evidently has stipulated that the child is to be shunted
on me. I would not have it otherwise. She would be ruined if she
accompanied them. I don't consider him a nice man—he is very fast and
go ahead. Of course, Venetia is old enough to know her own mind."
"Well, I'm inclined to feel cheery about it. The Elf has stolen her way
into Mrs. Preston's heart, so you needn't worry."
"But she is too busy to look after her."
"She will be my charge for to-day."
"I must get some kind of nursemaid for her," said Orris. Then she
smiled at him. "I am beginning to tell you all my difficulties. I
wonder why!"
"Because you know that everything that interests you interests me,"
responded Jock quickly. "I expect you to confide in me."
"Go along to your work," said Orris, laughing. And then she joined her
little niece at breakfast.
Mrs. Preston, on being told the news, showed immense relief.
"I have done my best for Mrs. Coventry, but she's like a fish out of
water here, miss. She was always grumbling and bewailing our simple
ways. We'll manage fine. I believe Mrs. Will's Lily is at home out of
place. She's a nice girl and has known good service—been nurse-girl up
at Tarbets Hall. Shall I make inquiries about her?"
"Do, please, dear Mrs. Preston, for Anita must leave at once—this
afternoon, if possible. My sister-in-law will want her luggage."
There were a good many arrangements to be made before Orris was free to
leave for her work. In fact, she did not go to Pinestones till after
dinner. Anita had left by the two o'clock train, and Mrs. Preston said
Pippa could have tea with her in the kitchen, if she did not have it in
the hayfield. So Orris left the farm with an easy conscience.
As she was crossing the fields, she met Mr. Dunscombe.
"You are quite a stranger," he said. "How are you getting on with your
work?"
"I am seeing my way through the foreign section, but I haven't tackled
the Old English yet."
She plunged into her subject. Mr. Dunscombe had been of the greatest
help to her in many ways.
"Don't hurry too much," was his advice, on parting. "We don't want you
to leave us, you know."
"I am not nearly at that point," Orris said. "Sometimes I think I shall
never want to leave this smiling country. My town tastes are retiring
to the background."
"We'll do our best to keep you," he said pleasantly.
And then he went his way, and Orris went hers, more than glad to feel
that her work should occupy her thoughts for the present.
CHAPTER VIII
DISASTER
IT was Sunday afternoon. Orris sat under one of the old apple trees in
the orchard in a lounge wicker chair. Pippa was sprawling on a plaid
rug at her feet. She disdained chairs, and having on a fresh white
muslin frock, was not allowed to roll the grass at will during her
Sunday lesson time.
She lay on her chest now, chewing stalks of grass, and beating a tattoo
with her impatient little feet, but she had been listening intently
to one of the old Gospel stories which her aunt had been telling her.
Orris was taking the different incidents in the life of our Lord, and
had been telling the story of Zacchæus this afternoon.
Unseen by teacher or hearer Jock Muir had stolen up after them, and
lounging behind a thick old apple trunk, had let his eyes dwell
contentedly on the face which, to him, was the dearest and sweetest in
the world. Then Pippa spoke.
"I wiss, Aunt Ollie, I wiss Jesus was going about in these villages
to-day. Let's pretend He is. Only think how lovely it would be! He
would be walking towards our house here, perhaps, and He'd have come
through the village, and all the persons would have jumped out of their
houses and run after Him; and old Mrs. Bone would hobble up to Him on
her c'utches, and He'd give her new legs at once, and she would go
skipping and dancing along; and little Johnnie White would be taken out
of his bed, and made quite well; and old Tom Burden would have his ears
touched, and never be deaf again. And then they'd all come along the
road, and crowd and crowd round Him, and then I'd climb up into that
old oak by the gate, and look at Him through the leaves, and He'd look
up at me, and everybody would look too, and He'd say:
"'Make haste, Pippa, and come down, for I'm going to spend the day at
your house!'
"Oh, how dreffully exciting it would be! And then I'd climb down and
He'd perhaps take my hand and we'd come into the door and you would be
waiting for us, and Mrs. Preston would be getting dinner ready as fast
as she could, and the crowds would all have to wait outside. We'd shut
the door tight and have Jesus all to ourselves!"
Orris never checked Pippa's flights of fancy. The child was looking up
at her with shining eyes, her whole soul in her words.
"Well, Pippa, darling," said Orris, in a soft reverent voice, "suppose
we did have our Lord to ourselves, what would you say to Him, would you
ask Him for anything?"
Pippa shut her eyes tight and considered. Then, with screwed up eyelids
she said at last with infinite satisfaction and content:
"I'd just creep up softly and sit upon His knees, and love Him."
There was a little silence; a blackbird suddenly lifted up his voice
behind them, and burst into an ecstatic song of joy.
Orris murmured to herself, not loud enough for Pippa to hear:
"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven."
And then Jock showed himself.
Pippa jumped up and flung herself into his arms.
"We've done our lesson. Are you come to tea?"
"May I?" He looked at Orris, and she nodded with a smile.
"Pippa, darling, would you go in and help Mrs. Preston get the tea? I
know you like to be useful."
Away danced Pippa.
"And Master Jock shall have some cream on his bread instead of butter.
He likes that," she called out, as she ran into the house.
Jock lay down on the rug which Pippa had vacated.
"I've been listening for some minutes to you both."
Orris looked at him earnestly.
"Oh, don't you wish we were like little children? Don't you sometimes
envy them their perfect faith and trust and love? It seems to shame
one, when one doubts and hesitates and forgets."
Jock was silent. Then he said:
"I can't remember the exact somewhat hackneyed quotation. Doesn't it
run like this:
"''Tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Heaven than when I was
a boy'?"
"Did you have Pippa's faith when you were small?" Orris asked quietly.
"Didn't I tell you? I had a most religious tutor before I went
to Harrow. He began teaching me when I was six. He went out as a
missionary to India afterwards. He coloured my whole small life with
his religion. I heard of his death about five years ago. He always
wrote to me every Christmas—never failed."
"You haven't lost your faith?" asked Orris.
He looked at her meditatively.
"One can neglect, or nurture it. I've done a good deal in the
neglecting way. Neglect a field, you know, and it soon turns out a crop
of unwholesome weeds—gets rank and barren, doesn't it?"
"But a good farmer is always trying to reclaim his waste land."
"I'm a bad hat!" said Jock, trying to speak lightly, but failing.
Orris leant forward and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Come back to your Owner," she said. "He'll clear and redeem your
barren field. Hand yourself over to Him again. He had you as a little
boy, He wants you now."
Jock thrilled at her touch, and also at her words.
"Is it all a myth?" he queried.
And then Orris said very softly:
"'I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
that which I have committed unto Him against that day.'"
Then there was silence again between them.
Jock broke it at last by saying in a lighter tone: "You didn't see me
in church to-day?"
"No."
"I was there—came in late, and had to go out before the final hymn. The
sick cow was taken worse. I believe my calling is a vet. I'm better at
handling sick animals than Preston is, so he tells me. How do you like
our new parson?"
"Very much. Better than Mr. Villars. He is alive, and believes in his
message."
Pippa here joined them again, summoning them to tea.
Orris had said what she wanted to Jock; it was not her way to worry,
or to weary anyone by over-much talking. But she had always felt that
something real lay under Jock's happy-go-lucky nature.
As he and Pippa teased and joked and played together that quiet Sunday
evening, she wondered if he had cast aside his memories again. But when
he took his leave of her a little later on, he said:
"Thank you for my Sunday lesson. I shan't forget it." Then he raised
her hand suddenly to his lips, kissed it, and departed before she could
say a word.
Orris found herself thinking about him a great deal. One of the traits
in his character that she admired, was the good-tempered philosophical
way in which he took the loss of his inheritance; there seemed to be no
bitterness or vindictiveness in his composition towards those who had
evidently defrauded him of his rights. It was not that he did not feel
it, she felt sure. She had seen the sudden flash of his eyes, and the
tightening of his lips, when his will or wishes were crossed, but she
never heard him lift his voice in anger to anyone. He seemed to have
absolute control over his feelings, and no one could make him lose his
temper. All children, all animals, adored him; the farm hands would do
anything for him, and he got more work out of them than did anyone else.
One day he and she were having a discussion together over the world in
general. Orris had been talking about her sister-in-law, and said she
was one of the products of the war.
"I ought to make more allowances for her. She tells me I am not
sympathetic, and think and show my superiority in every way, but the
fact is, I'm almost a generation behind her. I don't smoke, I don't
shingle, or use a lip-stick, or care for jazz dances and night clubs.
I'm hopelessly old-fashioned, and, of course, she thinks me a prig, but
our tastes are utterly different. And what I say is that this present
generation are too much like a flock of sheep. They follow each other,
and some of them have not the courage to own to a different standard
and individuality to the rest. The worst thing in the world for a young
girl is to be found out-of-date or behind the times. It's all wrong. We
each have a different personality, and ought to know our own minds and
stick to them, without being biased by others. I suppose all ideals and
standards have been lost.
"'Live like the rest, and let everything else go hang!' That's the
motto of the young girl of to-day. I am thinking of Pippa in the years
to come. I may not have her with me many years. How can I expect her to
be stronger than the rest of her contemporaries?"
Jock was silent for a few minutes, then he turned to her with his
delightfully sunny smile.
"You know, I understand your sister-in-law's point of view. And you are
so strong, so genuinely superior to most of us that it does give one a
kind of hopeless feeling about getting hold of you and your affections.
I sometimes wickedly feel that I should like to see you brought down a
little lower—not in your ideals and morals—Heaven forbid that!—but in
your—shall I say circumstances? I should like to see you low enough to
be glad and thankful of my comfort and guidance. I should like to have
the raising of you."
"Oh, dear!" cried Orris. "You will always become so personal. But I
am sorry I seem to show my superiority. I don't feel superior in any
way—except, honestly—yes, in my heart I do feel superior to Venetia,
and that is the reason why I have never been able to influence her or
get her to like me. I'm all wrong. I wish I had more patience, more
tolerance, more love for those who have such a different outlook to
myself."
Jock nodded.
"More love," he murmured. "It will come if you cultivate it, and I can
wait."
He generally ended all serious conversation by some such remark. But
Orris thought of what he had said, and prayed daily for more humility
and diffidence of self.
One day, after the haymaking was over, and when the weather was rather
wet and stormy, Orris took Pippa down to Pinestones with her. The young
girl who was looking after her was not very satisfactory, and did not
seem to be able to manage her. Pippa had been rescued, soaking wet to
the skin, from a shallow pond, where she had been trying to wash some
young pigs, and had refused to have her frock changed, saying that, as
she was wet, she could have a good paddle. Later, she developed a bad
cold, and had to be kept in bed for two days. Now she was well again,
but Orris thought that she would rather have her under her own eye in
the library; and Pippa, of course, was delighted at the prospect before
her.
She accompanied her aunt well wrapped up in her little mackintosh cape
and hood, carrying her Teddy bear, a doll, and a box of zigzag puzzles.
"I shall be frifefully busy, Aunt Ollie," she said, "and I promise not
to say one word to you, only to myself and to Teddy and to Rosemary."
Orris established her in a corner of the library, and for an hour or
two this plan was very satisfactory. Orris was absorbed in her work,
and Pippa in her play.
Then came an interruption. Reyne came to ask if Miss Dashwood might
speak to Orris for a moment. It was about an entertainment which she
was getting up for the benefit of the village girls' club, and in which
Orris had promised to perform.
"Could you come and speak to her? I hate interrupting you, and it is
against rules, I know, but she came up here, hoping to catch you."
Orris consented immediately, telling Pippa to stay where she was till
she returned. Miss Dashwood kept her longer than she thought, and she
found it was getting near lunch time when the interview was over.
Coming hurriedly into the library, she called Pippa, put on her cloak
and hat, and equipping herself also, hurried home across the fields.
The rain had stopped, but there was a high wind, and Pippa much enjoyed
losing her hat, and having a chase over a muddy ditch after it.
Only Mrs. Preston dined with them. It was market day, and both Jock and
the farmer were away in the neighbouring town.
After dinner, Orris found that some of Pippa's clothes required
mending, so she and Pippa spent a quiet hour or two up in the bedroom.
Then Orris thought she might make up for her interrupted morning by
putting in another hour or so of work, so she asked Mrs. Preston to
have Pippa with her, and give her her tea, as she might be late. Mrs.
Preston was always glad to have the child with her in the afternoon,
but the morning was too busy a time to look after her.
Orris started away across the field path as usual, but as she came
within sight of Pinestones she saw, to her horror, a huge column of
smoke rising from behind the trees.
She quickened her steps, thinking at first it must be a chimney on
fire, but she soon found it was more than that, and when she saw that
both smoke and flames were pouring out of the windows of the west wing,
she gave a horrified cry.
"The library! The precious library!"
She tore along in a frantic breathless way, and found when she got
there that the gardener and the postman and a few odd men were hard at
work with a hose and buckets. The fire-engine had been sent for, but
had not yet arrived.
"Oh, save the books! Save the books!" Orris cried.
And as the hose was playing on one of the French windows, without a
thought of herself, she dashed in, and in spite of smoke and heat,
actually got hold of a few priceless volumes that were nearest the
window.
"Hold hard, miss; you can't do it. You'll be burnt!" the gardener
called out.
But Orris seemed blind and deaf to everything but the precious books.
Again she dashed in, but this time she enveloped herself in a blanket
that had been brought from the house. The gardener arrayed himself in
another, and followed her, but they could save but very few books. The
fire was raging hotly, and the smoke caused by the hose playing into
the room was suffocating.
It seemed a hideous nightmare to Orris! Three times she ventured in,
and reclaimed some of her treasures; she was in too much excitement to
notice whether she was burnt or not. For the fourth time she was going
in, but there was a sudden clatter, and the fire-engine was upon the
scene.
In the usual country way, a tremendous lot of talking took place before
they got to work. Orris felt every minute was precious, and was about
to dash into the room again, in spite of the protests around her,
when she suddenly felt some one put his hands upon her shoulders from
behind, and hold her in an iron grip.
"No, you don't! The firemen themselves can't enter that room now!"
Orris struggled frantically. She knew it was Jock who held her. He had
come up on the fire-engine from the town.
"I must go!" she cried. "I must try to save some! Oh, think of it! The
library! The books are priceless! Let me go!"
Jock tightened his hold, put his arm round her, and drew her away from
the scene.
"If you promise to behave yourself, I'll go and help, but if you won't,
I shall continue to hold you."
Inadvertently, he caught hold of one of her hands. She uttered a slight
cry, and drew it away. Jock saw at once that both her hands were badly
burned. Without a word, he caught her up in his arms, as if she were a
baby, and carried her into the house.
Lady Violet and Reyne were watching with anxious eyes the awful
conflagration in the west wing. But now the engine had arrived, they
had hopes of saving the rest of the house.
Jock carried Orris into the drawing-room, which was in the east wing,
and laid her upon one of the couches there. Then he saw that she had
fainted. The shock and the burns she had received had been too much for
her. Happily the telephone was in the house. Jock at once 'phoned for
the doctor, and asked Reyne to stay with her.
"I must go back. We may save something. You're quite safe; the wind
happily is not in this direction and is blowing away from us. Get some
oil. Have you any lint? Cover her hands up as soon as you can. She may
be burned elsewhere. I'll come back as soon as I can."
It seemed as if Jock took command of the whole situation.
"Water, and plenty of it, is the only chance," he said. "Come! Every
one work away with a will!"
And before an hour had passed, the fire had been got under. Not,
however, before the library had been completely gutted. But through
the smoking debris Jock went in and out, still rescuing a few of the
books which had escaped the flames. Alas! There were very few to save.
The fire had been so fiercely fanned by the high wind, and the wooden
shelves were so brittle and old, that only the charred and blackened
fragments of the once famous library remained.
When Jock felt that he could do no more, he strode into the house to
see how Orris was faring. The doctor had been and dressed her wounds.
Both hands and one arm were severely burned, also her left leg and
ankle. A great burnt hole in her dress showed where the fire had caught
her.
He found her still lying on the couch, pale and exhausted. But the
misery in her eyes was not due to her hurts.
Reyne was sitting by her.
"Oh, Mr. Muir, come and add your persuasions to mine. We want her to
sleep here. She must; she isn't fit to be moved."
"It can't be thought of," said Orris, a hot flush coming to her cheeks.
"It's very kind of you, but I must get back to Pippa and to my own
bed." She finished her sentence with a wry smile. Then she looked up at
Jock with eager eyes. "Have you saved any more of them? They can't—they
can't be all destroyed."
"Yes, I've saved some more," he said soothingly. Then he turned to
Reyne. "If you could let her be lifted into your car, I don't think she
will hurt. Mrs. Preston is a born nurse. She'll only worry here. The
sooner she's moved the better."
Reyne acquiesced reluctantly, but she felt she would have to be in
attendance on her mother, as Lady Violet was much upset by the shock of
it all, and she knew that Orris would be in good hands at the farm.
The car was brought round, and Jock again carried Orris down the broad
steps and put her comfortably inside; then he got in beside her. For
one moment his eyes turned to the blackened west wing, but he said
nothing.
Orris, keenly sensitive to all around her, said quickly:
"It can't mean as much to you as it does to me. It seems like some evil
dream. What a horrible dream it would be; and yet it is true—it's the
awful fact!"
"It's a mercy you've escaped as you have," said Jock, looking at her
bandaged limbs. "Didn't you realize what was happening to you?"
"No, oh no; it was the books that mattered. I did put out the
flames when my skirt caught alight. I think I did it with the thick
table-cloth. Oh, what can I do? How can I tell Mrs. Calthrop?"
"You talk as if you'd been the author of the fire," said Jock. "Don't
worry so. You're agitating yourself unnecessarily."
"But how could it have caught fire? I can't understand it. There was no
fire in the room. It's not a question of a defective chimney." She was
getting flushed and excited.
Jock bent towards her.
"Look here," he said, "I'm not going to let you say another word. Lie
still, or I shall take you in my arms again and make you."
Orris was dumb. The pain in her limbs was increasing. She was thankful
when the farm was reached. In a very few moments, she was upon her own
bed.
Jock delivered to Mrs. Preston a sleeping-draught, left by the doctor,
and then went back to the scene of the fire. He was still anxious to
pick out of the debris some of the treasures that had been in the
library.
Mrs. Snow and the servants were so thankful to be untouched by the
fire in their quarters that they did not seem to take any interest in
the ruined library. Mrs. Snow spent her time in conjectures as to the
origin of the fire, but could get no light upon it.
"Well, at any rate," she said, with a sniff, "Miss Coventry will have
lost her job, and it seemed as if she were never coming to the end of
it. I dare say she may have been careless with the matches. I've seen
her using sealing-wax in there, and there's no telling. The room was
all right before she went into it that morning, for I went in myself to
see if the girl had dusted properly. It's a mystery which will have to
be cleared up by some one."
CHAPTER IX
JOCK'S CONFESSION
PIPPA was not allowed to see her aunt that evening. Owing to the
sleeping-draught, Orris had some sleep, but she was very feverish the
next morning, and suffered acutely. Mrs. Preston did everything for
her, though Orris begged for the attendance of Lily, the village girl.
"You are more than busy, I know. Please don't worry over me."
"My dear, it's a pleasure. I love nursing. When I was a girl, before I
married, I always said I should like to nurse in a hospital. Lily is
helping in the kitchen."
And then a soft little knock was heard at the door, and Pippa's most
coaxing voice beseeching to be let in.
"Let her come," said Orris. "And you've done everything, dear Mrs.
Preston. I can't thank you enough. I am ready to see the doctor now,
and have only to wait for him."
Mrs. Preston left the room rather unwillingly, and Pippa, with big
eyes, approached the bed.
"Poor Aunt Ollie! Master Jock has been telling me all about you. Is you
very hurt?"
"No, darling. I shall soon be better." Then Orris raised herself a
little on her pillow, and her soft dark eyes fixed themselves on her
small niece's face. "Pippa dear, I want you to tell me exactly what you
did yesterday, when I left you in the library."
Pippa frowned.
"I think I was puzzling out the puzzle."
"And then?"
"Then? Oh then—" Pippa hesitated.
"Well, don't be afraid. I know you are going to be truthful."
"I think the nex' thing was I tried to make some cigarettes like
mummy's, out of the paper in the waste-paper basket."
"And then you took the matches?"
"Yes, I did, just to light the end of them, you know, but I was very
tidy. I lighted them in the basket, but they wouldn't light. And then
you came to the door, and I threw the matches in the basket, and you
hurried me out, you know, because you said we'd be late for lunch."
Orris was silent. She could not speak for a moment. She and her niece
between them had burnt down the library of a few hundred years. The
fear had been in her heart from the time she had returned to the farm
the evening before.
As her brain cleared, she had fixed upon Pippa as the culprit. And
now her fears were realized. She lay, looking at her niece, unable to
speak, and Pippa grew frightened.
"Are you angry with me, Aunt Ollie? I didn't make a fire, you know. The
matches wouldn't light."
"I am afraid, my Pippa, the matches did light. Some little bit of paper
must have burnt slowly and ignited the box, and then the flames spread
and spread. How often you have been warned about fire!"
Pippa stared at her aunt uncomprehendingly.
And then the doctor came in, and she was sent away, and Mrs. Preston
would not let her see her aunt again that day.
"She has a high temperature and some fever, and the doctor says she's
to be kept very quiet," Mrs. Preston told her.
Pippa was unusually silent that day. Jock came up and tried to cheer
her up. He thought it was her aunt's state that was depressing her, and
she gave him no clue to her thoughts.
Orris herself was suffering so much from the pain of her burns,
and also from the horror and anguish which she felt at the tragedy
of the burnt library, that she almost forgot the existence of her
little niece. She was light-headed for two days, and when finally her
temperature dropped, and her pulse and heart were normal, she lay
crushed and almost lifeless upon her bed. Nothing seemed to rouse her.
Miss Dashwood, Reyne, and Jock called daily, but no one was allowed to
see her.
At last, she was able to be moved out on the roomy couch in Mrs.
Preston's sitting-room. And it was there Jock found her one sunny
afternoon. He was shocked to see her so white and fragile.
She tried to smile when she saw him.
"You've been through a good deal to look like this," Jock said, as he
bent over her.
"I can't shake hands," she murmured. "I am as helpless as a baby; I
can't move one of my fingers."
"I am so sorry."
"Sit down," she said. "And don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"As if I were an object of pity! I am strong, and I am fast getting
well. I am a weak coward; and at present, I am wishing I could die, for
I feel I can't face life."
"That's not like you."
"No. Weren't you wishing that something would shake my
self-sufficiency? You see a wreck now before you. I am down so low
that I feel I shall never raise my head again. Tell me, what is done
to people who through carelessness cause such a catastrophe, such a
colossal loss, as that of Mrs. Calthrop's library? Has anything been
heard of her? I know Mrs. Snow wired. Have you been down there?"
"I've been there every day, picking out charred fragments, in spite of
Snuffy's warning me off the premises. Snuffy got a wire two or three
days ago. They're coming back, posthaste, of course—will arrive this
evening as a matter of fact. Lady Violet is afraid she will have to
move her quarters again. But I have reassured her on that point; she
has the house till the autumn, legally."
"I repeat again that I'm a coward," said Orris. "The guilty always
are. I feel like a bogus company promoter who has ruined a few
hundred widows and poor people, or a murderer. I fail to imagine Mrs.
Calthrop's state of mind."
"Now look here, let's have a straight talk. Did you wilfully set that
library on fire? Make a clean breast of it."
Orris gave a weak laugh.
"Wilfully destroy a thing that is my livelihood and the apple of my
eye! I'll tell you. It was sheer negligence and carelessness to leave a
child in that precious library alone. I did it."
In a few words she told him the facts of the case.
Jock was very grave and gentle. He seemed to be holding himself in, for
he spoke slowly and thoughtfully, unlike his usual impetuous fashion.
"I don't think Mrs. Calthrop could blame you," he said, "but there's
no saying what an angry woman will do, so I shall effectually suppress
her. You need not be afraid. I shall see she does not come near you."
"Oh, how I could laugh at your assurance, if I wasn't so miserable,"
said Orris. "I don't know why I'm confiding in you like this. Put
yourself in my place; what would you do? I won't run away, but that
is what I should like to do. Of course, I shall meet Mrs. Calthrop. I
shall not shirk that; and I shall tell her exactly what I have told
you. But much as I feel for her, it's the books—the books I am thinking
of. I had learnt the value of them; I had learnt to love them. It is
through me that they have been destroyed. If I had not come here, the
library would be safe and sound to-day. That rings on in my head all
day, all night."
"But," said Jock, "I've heard that useless grief for the past lays up
future grief for the present. Think that out. Dunscombe said that to me
one day, and it's quite true. Books and possessions aren't the best of
human life. If you had lost your life, now, ah! Where should I be?"
"My life at present seems of no value," said Orris in a hopeless tone.
"My darling!—Yes, I will say it; you can't stop me—I should like to
take you in my arms and comfort you, but I daren't touch you. And
that's the confounded nuisance of it! Listen. Suppose the library
belonged to me, would you feel as bad about it as you do now?"
"I can't suppose such a case. Yes, the loss of it would weigh just as
heavily on my soul. Of course, my pride squirms at Mrs. Calthrop's just
indignation. I know her well. I have had dealings with her at the Club
in town; and whilst she has always been kind to me, I have seen her
very hard and bitter to those who vex and annoy her. But, of course, I
merit her displeasure. I can go through with that."
"You shall not," Jock said decisively. "Don't you know I would guard
and keep you from the least annoyance if I could? And I have power in
this matter. Poor little Pippa has precipitated matters. I guarantee
that Mrs. Calthrop shall not give you one unkind word. She will not
have the right to do so."
"Oh, how can you talk so?" said Orris. "But it's very kind of you."
"Kind!" Jock muttered another word under his breath. "Well, you shall
have something else to think of to-night besides the loss of the
library and Mrs. Calthrop's wrath. But I think I must first tell you of
a scene I have had with Snuffy to-day. She heard I was digging about
amongst the burnt rubbish in the library, and came off like a hot fury
to see what I was about. I laughed at her, as usual, and told her I was
working on behalf of the owner of the library.
"Then she dared to say something about you. I think I'll tell you, to
let you know the sort she is. She said she'd always had her doubts as
to what you were really doing with the books. Any auctioneer could come
up and catalogue those books in a week, she said. And she'd an idea
that you knew Mrs. Calthrop was coming back, and just made a bonfire of
the whole to hide your idleness, etc. So I fixed her with my eye.
"'Out of this house you go this day month,' I said. And I think she saw
I was in a white fury, for she quailed under my gaze. 'And you've lost
a comfortable fat job by your false, malicious tongue. You're not fit
to lie down and lick Miss Coventry's boots, though I'd like to make you
do it.'
"She tossed her head. 'And who are you to talk of giving me notice?'
she said.
"And I answered: 'You'll know that within the next four-and-twenty
hours.'
"She crept off like a whipped hound. I don't often show my ire, but she
got it red-hot, I can tell you!"
"But I really don't understand you, and why you take such a high hand,"
murmured Orris, feeling bewildered by his talk.
"I'm putting off my explanation because I don't know how you'll take
it. If only you'll put your hand in mine! No, you can't do that—but
just assure me with your sweet lips that you will try to care for the
vagrant and ne'er-do-well; it will make the telling easier." Jock
smiled into her face so persuasively that Orris shut her eyes.
"Oh, my dear," he went on, "what does a library more or less matter if
you and I come together? I'd rather lose ten hundred libraries than
just lose you. I've been awfully patient. Do be kind! Tell me to hope.
Give me some slight encouragement! If you have had wakeful nights, I
have too. There's a lot before me, but I can go through it so joyfully
if you'll only let me have your love."
But Orris shook her head and, weak as she was, the tears came to her
eyes.
Jock was all compunction at once.
"What a brute I am! Mrs. Preston will be giving it to me for agitating
you."
"No," said Orris, "you are not agitating me. But at this juncture, when
I've been the cause of such a calamity, it isn't the time to become
engaged to you. I suppose you think you could fight my battles for me.
I thank you with all my heart for the thought, but I can stand alone. I
have done it for several years now."
"Then hear my confession! I hope you will believe me! Just before my
aunt died, after she had made her will, leaving me out of it, she
went up to London, to be free for one day from the supervision of her
cousins. She had been thinking over things, and had got at the truth of
a few of the misrepresentations about her errant nephew. In that one
day in town, she went to a strange lawyer, got a short and simple will
made out, in which she left me every single thing she possessed. This
she, in the calmest and most rash way, posted off to me with a letter
saying why she did so. It was the merest fluke that I got it, as I was
travelling about at the time. I came home as soon as I could, and found
that the Calthrops were in possession. It amused me—the situation; and
when Snuffy shut me out, I thought I would play round for a bit, and
see what they were doing.
"Then one day as you know, I determined to get into my own house. The
Elf received me so delightfully and whole-heartedly that I continued
the game; and when you came in—well, you bowled me over. I found out
all about you when I left. I wanted to know you. I knew if I took
possession of my house your job would be over, and you would fly back
to town; then I should never see you again. So, to gain time, I laid
low, and, honestly, I've found the life here well worth living. And I
have learnt to know you. I believe I know you through and through, and
we are close friends—you can't deny it."
He paused.
Orris lay and looked up at him with blanched lips. Never had she
imagined such a situation as this. She managed to gasp out:
"Then the library is yours, and I have destroyed it for you. Oh, it's
worse than ever!"
"Is it? I don't think so. The library was the cause of my leaving home.
I had no reason to love it—until you came there. Since then it has been
different. Don't you see that we can snap our fingers at everybody now,
and go and get married to-morrow? Then we shall be able to rebuild the
west wing with the insurance money, and live happily ever after."
"Oh, what a boy you are! I really feel overwhelmed. I can't take it all
in. Does nobody know this secret of yours?"
"Only Dunscombe, and he's not a talker, as you know. He has kept 'mum.'
No, nobody knows."
"But you must—you must feel the loss of the library. It never, never
can be replaced."
"I'm saving odds and ends of it in spite of Snuffy. You know your Bible
better than I; doesn't it remind us that we brought nothing into the
world, neither can take anything out of it? I am not a reader; the few
years of my life will be, I hope, none the less happy for not owning a
famous library. I did feel incensed at Mrs. Calthrop wishing to sell
it, but of course she never could. That knowledge comforted me."
"Oh, how you must have been laughing up your sleeve at us all! I so
often wondered why you took the loss of your inheritance so calmly."
"Honestly, I shouldn't have minded losing it. I'm a born farmer. What
has vexed me is seeing the Home Farm being so mismanaged. I ached to
run it myself. Now I shall have that pleasure. Has my news cheered you?"
"I think it has," said Orris, smiling, "I feel so glad for you. How I
have wasted my pity on you!"
"Never! I claim with gladness every atom of it. I shall want more from
you than that; and I'm going to have it, too. You can't get away from
me, Orris. It wasn't only your figure, your grace, your sweetness,
but your soul I saw shining through you that first day. My soul flew
straight to yours. You drew me as a magnet. I shan't worry you more
now. I've given you a lot to think about. I'm going over to Pinestones
this evening. I'm not going to take the chance of Mrs. Calthrop or her
son arriving over here."
"I shouldn't mind. She would not come to-night, after her long journey.
Let her have a night in peace. You can afford to be generous. It will
be such a blow."
"You're siding with her. Does she require our sympathy? I feel bitter.
She so systematically set to work to oust me and to influence my poor
old aunt. I have her letter which says so. But I'll do as you say.
After all, Mrs. Preston has you in her charge. She can refuse to let
her see you. Now will you promise me to sleep to-night? May I—may I do
what you do to the little Elf?"
"What is that?" asked Orris unthinkingly.
"I'll show you." Stooping, he kissed her on the cheek. "God bless you,
darling sweetheart!"
And then he turned and fled, whilst Orris lay back on her cushions, not
knowing whether it was anger or joy that brought the red blood rushing
up into her face.
"He's so audacious," she murmured. And then she lay still, thinking
over his news and fitting it into the past, wondering at her density in
not having discovered his secret before.
As Jock went out of the farm, Pippa came dancing up to him.
"Have you seen Aunt Ollie?"
"Yes, and she's far from well yet. Are you keeping your promise and
being a little angel?"
Pippa nodded.
"Do angels play see-saw? Tom Bridge has made me such a lovely one
across that big lumpy bank the other side of the barn. Do come and try
it!"
In a moment, like a boy, he was off with her. Mrs. Preston heard her
screams of delighted laughter and shook her head.
"Ah, Jock, you ought to have a child of your own, you love them so!"
she said, and then she went to Orris.
Orris said nothing of what she had heard. Jock evidently was still
keeping his own counsel, and until he had seen Mrs. Calthrop, she
concluded that he wished the matter to be kept quiet.
But when Pippa came to wish her good-night later on, she said, with big
eyes:
"Master Jock says that p'raps next Sunday he'll ask Lady Vi'let to let
me see the powder-room again. Won't Snuffy be angry when Master Jock
and I creep upstairs and hide ourselves away in it? And he says one day
he'll show me an old dolls' house in one of the top attics. It belonged
to a little cousin of his who died, and it's very, very old. But it may
in some wonderful way come to be mine one day. How do you think he will
manage it? Will he be a buggler, and climb up into a window and steal
it?"
"My darling, he would never steal."
"No; I suppose he wouldn't. Oh, Aunt Ollie, don't you 'love' Master
Jock? When I was hugging him just now, he laughed and said he wished
you were there, and then we'd all hug together. Shall we do it nex'
time he comes? You could say, one, two, three, and away, and then we'd
all do it together."
"Run away to bed, darling," was her aunt's comment.
And obeying, Pippa turned back at the door.
"I hope I shan't have to wait long for that dolls' house. Master Jock
seemed to think it might be got for me before very, very long. Isn't
fifteen days a 'very' long time?"
"A very short time to me."
"I'll ask God in my prayers to cut off a few days. He could do it easy.
He could make the sun skip them over; they could be got rid of while we
were sleeping."
Pippa disappeared.
Her aunt lay back on her couch and thought and thought, and finally
evolved a certain plan of action in her head, which somewhat eased her
troubled mind.
CHAPTER X
ORRIS'S LETTER
JOCK arrived at Pinestones about eleven o'clock the next morning. Dan
opened the door, and looked rather scared when he saw him.
"I want to see Miss Archer."
Dan hesitated, then led the way to the drawing-room, and in a few
moments Reyne appeared.
"Is Mrs. Calthrop staying here?" he asked, after they had shaken hands.
"Yes, for the night. Mother begged her to stay longer, but she and her
son are going to the 'Golden Bells' in the village. They seem to prefer
it. How is Orris? I can't tell you how upset the Calthrops are. Mrs.
Snow has told them that it must have been through some carelessness of
Orris's that the fire took place. I can't understand it, but I'm sure
Orris is not responsible for it, and I told Mrs. Calthrop so. She is
going to the farm this afternoon to see her."
"No, she isn't," said Jock, smiling. "I must see this good lady.
Wish me well through a most unpleasant interview, Miss Archer. It is
imperative that I should see her, but I think she will decline to do
it. You must get us together, for I'm not going away till I've had an
interview."
Reyne looked at him a little uncertainly. He spoke so decisively that
she felt he would not be easily turned away.
"I will go up to her. She has not left her room yet."
"Thank you. I hoped you would be my messenger; the fat would be in the
fire if you sent old Snuffy."
When she left him, Jock paced to and fro in the big drawing-room with
compressed lips. Once he paused, and with his hands in his pockets
stood looking out of the long windows, facing the garden. Then it was
that a dreamy look came into his eyes.
"I wonder," he murmured, "how soon I shall win her."
It was a long time before Mrs. Calthrop appeared. He judged rightly.
She had at first flatly declined to see him, and said it was great
impertinence for him to come near the house, but Reyne pleaded his
cause.
"I think it is on some urgent business matter. He would not come here
unless it was. He is generally too hard at work to make morning calls.
He may bring you a message from Miss Coventry. He works on the farm
where she lodges."
"From what I hear," said Mrs. Calthrop with asperity, "they are
continually together. And his behaviour towards the old housekeeper
here has been most insolent. He can have nothing to say to me."
"He may have discovered the origin of the fire. I told him I would
bring you down. I hope I did not do wrong."
After some further persuasion Mrs. Calthrop came downstairs.
When she opened the drawing-room door, her demeanour was haughty and
cold.
Jock looked at her, and a feeling of pity shot through his heart. Then
he said:
"I know you are surprised, and not very pleased to see me, but I shall
not stay long. This fire is a terrible affair. I conclude you have kept
up the insurance for the house and library?"
"That is my concern, not yours," said Mrs. Calthrop. "But as a matter
of fact, the insurance people are getting the police here to inquire
into the circumstances. It seems very mysterious. Miss Coventry may
throw some light upon the matter. I am going to see her this afternoon."
"That will be unnecessary when you have heard what I have to say.
Directly I heard of my aunt's death, I came home. As you must know,
the contents of her will were totally unexpected. But you acted too
precipitately. She made a later will than that which you possess, and
it is a very different one."
"I should like to see it."
Mrs. Calthrop spoke calmly, but her lips went white. She sat down, and
rested her clasped hands upon a small table in front of her.
"I have a copy of it. The original is with the lawyer in town, who drew
it up. Here it is. I should also like you to see a letter which my aunt
wrote to me. She did a very unusual and a rash thing: she sent me her
will by ordinary post, and told me to keep it until after her death.
She must have died within a few weeks of signing it."
Mrs. Calthrop took the document and letter from him. She opened the
letter first. It was as follows:
"MY DEAREST JOCK,—
"Yesterday I met the postman coming in at the gate and received your
welcome letter. I have never received any letters from you at all for
the last two years, or longer, but I am Inexpressibly thankful to know
that you have been working so well and steadily all this time. I was
led to suppose otherwise. I am not at all well. I wish you were home.
I have not been myself, and am now but a cipher in my own house. My
cousin Letitia overwhelms me.
"I cannot withstand her, and even Edmund has got upon my nerves. I
am sorry for the causes that drove you away. I shall go up to town
to-morrow and make a fresh will, 'by myself.' I am a free agent, after
all. And I shall send it out to you for safety. Wills get lost, and I
want you to come home and settle down and run the farm as you wished.
"I was unduly influenced last year after a bad attack of flu; and I
almost was made to believe that you were dead—or, at any rate, gone to
the bad altogether. And now I find that it is not true, and I'm glad
and thankful. My dearest love, and write to me again.
"Your loving aunt,
"ELLA."
Mrs. Calthrop read this letter through with icy composure. Then she
took up the copy of the will, but she did not read it.
"I would ask you to leave this with me. I would like my lawyer to see
it. It is a very extraordinary proceeding. I cannot understand such a
complete change of thought and action. Her mind must have been unhinged
at the last." Her voice was steady, but her hand trembled.
"Well," said Jock easily, "you see I'm the man in possession. I don't
want to turn Lady Violet and her daughter out. You let the house to
them for six months, so we'll let that still stand good. As regards
the library, it's as big a loss to me as it seemed to be to you, but
the insurance will help to restore the wing, if necessary. It will not
bring the books back. Those are gone for ever. Our lawyers must have a
consultation together and arrange business matters. Shall I tell Miss
Coventry you're coming to see her?"
"I shall be returning to town to-morrow," said Mrs. Calthrop. "I shall,
of course, wish to know if this later will is genuine and legal. You
will hear from me in a few days' time. Good morning!" She swept out of
the room.
And Jock gave vent to an exclamation.
"She has pluck, certainly!" he muttered to himself. And then he went
out into the hall, and almost tumbled into the arms of Mrs. Snow.
He did not chaff her as was his usual custom. He could not forget the
way in which she had talked about Orris.
"You'll remember the notice I gave you," he said gravely. "You have a
month more here, not a day longer."
Mrs. Snow stared at him, as if he were not responsible for his words.
In fact, she really did wonder whether he was right in his senses. But
he gave her no explanation, only joined Reyne and her mother, who were
taking a little walk up and down the terrace outside. In a very few
words he explained his position to them.
"The only apology I must make is the dismissing of Mrs. Snow, who is no
doubt serving you well. But she has been a most baleful influence in
this house for many years, and I want to get rid of her at once. I'll
try and find you another housekeeper to take her place."
But Lady Violet assured him this would not be necessary.
"It's kind of you to wish us to stay out our time, but I shall be very
glad to get back to town sooner. We will stay till the end of the
month, then you can take possession. I really must congratulate you,
Mr. Muir, for I know how you have loved the place. We have heard a good
deal of the village talk, and it seems right and proper that you should
come here."
Jock gave a funny little bow. He admired Lady Violet's quick change of
front. A few days ago she was alluding to him in terms of disparagement
as "that penniless young farmer."
Reyne looked at him with a friendly smile.
"I always felt you belonged here," she said. "But I can't understand
why you have been in hiding, as it were, all this time."
"I was going to wait till Mrs. Calthrop came back from her trip
abroad," said Jock, a little hesitatingly. "I wasn't in a hurry.
Besides, I wanted to give Preston a help with his place. I enjoy
farming—the practical part of it—and every year you're at it, you gain
experience!"
Then he made off, for he feared more questions, and he would not for
all the world have told anyone his real reason for remaining incognito.
He visited the farm in the afternoon, and there made a clean breast to
the Prestons, who were much amazed, and not a little perplexed, at his
news.
"Don't ask me why I've done it," he besought them. "It was a sudden
freak or fancy, and for many reasons I should like to have slipped
along as I was. But this fire and Mrs. Calthrop's return have hurried
things on a bit. It was no good her uselessly distressing herself over
the loss of her son's library, when it was in reality mine."
Then he went off to Orris. He found her under her favourite apple tree
in the orchard. She was reading, and for a wonder Pippa was away, out
for a walk with the village girl.
"Oh," he groaned, throwing himself down on the grass at her feet, "I'm
having such a time confessing! I can't stand the queries as to why I
haven't taken possession of my house before."
"Well, we all think it very foolish of you," said Orris.
"You know why I did it," he retorted, looking at her reproachfully.
"How are you feeling, Orris?"
"Very much better, thank you, Jock," she said, laughing. "If you will
use my name, I will use yours. After all, we know each other well
enough by this time to do so."
"Say my name again, do," entreated Jock. "You have put new life into me
by doing it."
She shook her head at him. Then she said:
"We have had rather a trying visit this afternoon. About two o'clock,
the inspector of the police from Spenbury called. I was put through a
searching cross-examination, and in the end I had to send for Pippa.
She was very funny, as you can imagine she would be. First, she was
rather frightened, then excited. She was asked to give an exact account
of herself when she was left alone in the library.
"'Teddy Bear wanted to smoke a cigarette,' she said, 'so o' course I
had to make one for him like mummy does sometimes. And then he wanted
me to light it for him, and I tried, but it wouldn't burn. And then
Aunt Ollie came along, and I threw the matchbox in the paper basket and
came away, and I 'sure you there wasn't one tiny bit of fire there! I
never left any fire at all!' She repeated this with much emphasis.
"I said to the inspector that there was no conclusive evidence that
she was the culprit. And he agreed with me, but it was a probable
explanation of the origin of the fire. He began talking about it to me,
and then Pippa stepped up to him with big eyes and, putting her hand on
his knee, said in an awed whisper:
"'If you don't know for certain, why don't you ask God to tell you?
He's the only Person who truly knows who did it.'
"The inspector smiled. 'I could ask, missy,' he said; 'that part would
be easy, but the difficulty would be to get the answer.'
"'Oh, I get lots of answers from God, I feel them inside me,' she said;
'and God knows quite well that I wouldn't have burnt up a house. I
couldn't do it if I tried.'
"I sent her out of the room. She is so assured that she did not do it,
that it does not trouble her. But I feel utterly crushed."
"There is nothing for you to feel crushed about. I'm sorry that the
inspector has bothered you. I meant to have got his ear first. He has
lost no time about it."
"Have you broken the news to Mrs. Calthrop? Tell me about it."
He told her.
"I feel I must see her," Orris said. "After all, she got me this job; I
am in her employ."
"Yes, but she won't like to see you. She's feeling sore and hurt all
round, and will get away from here as quickly as she can. Let her write
to you—she's sure to do that."
Orris looked doubtful.
"I will wait, if you think it wiser. When are you going to take
possession?"
"I'm not in a hurry. I've a lot of business to tackle, and the Home
Farm is my next affair. The man who is in charge of it is a rotter.
He'll have to go, and I shall take it over myself."
Orris looked at him meditatively.
"Through me and mine you have lost the most valuable part of your
property," she said. "I don't think I shall ever lift up my head again."
"I am not going to encourage you to bemoan past events," said Jock.
"You and I are going to begin a fresh chapter together, very soon. I
won't hurry you. I must tell you that the Elf is going to pay another
visit to the powder-room with me. Lady Violet has given me 'carte
blanche' to come and go as I please, and there is something I want to
give her out of the attic."
"You are very good to her."
Orris spoke slowly, as if weighing her words. For a moment she felt
inclined to confide in him her intentions ahead; then she judged
silence would be most prudent. And after some further talk, he took his
leave.
On the following Sunday, Pippa got her wish and went off to the
powder-room with him. And a few days later, she was shown the old
dolls' house in the attic. Jock promised to have it done up for her,
and she was in a state of wild delight about it.
Then, towards the end of the week, Jock came up to the farm again.
He had been very busy, had been up to town once or twice to see his
lawyer, and had been making many necessary changes on his small
property.
The village and neighbourhood heard of the news with much exhilaration.
They all wanted Jock to be owner of Pinestones. Now, as he strode
across the fields to Lilac Farm, his heart was filled with hope. Surely
Orris would listen to his suit! Surely she would not hold out much
longer! She was so downcast, so gentle and diffident now! It would be
easier to persuade her, to bend her to his will. He felt that he had
the power within himself to make her happy. And no one else in the wide
world could love her as much, or give her such wholesale worship and
adoration! So he reasoned with himself.
His step was blithe and gay as he opened the porch door. Mrs. Preston
had seen his approach and came to welcome him, but he was struck by her
tired dispirited look.
"Well, Mrs. Preston, I've come to see Miss Coventry. I haven't seen
her for these last three days, I've been so awfully busy. I hope she's
nearly well by this time."
Mrs. Preston looked at him with miserable eyes.
"She's gone away. She went yesterday."
"Gone away!" Jock looked dumbfounded. "Where to?"
"That I don't know. She wouldn't tell me. I am afraid she thought I
would tell you."
"But she hasn't gone away from me?" Jock's tone was short, sharp and
bitter.
"She's left a note to be given to you when you called."
Jock seized it, saying somewhat impatiently: "Why didn't you let me
have it yesterday? I suppose she has gone back to town?"
"I don't think she has. But perhaps the letter will tell you," said
Mrs. Preston. "I'm sure it's a blow to me. I loved having them here.
Miss Coventry has cheered me as I've never been cheered before, and as
to little Pippa, she's the darling of my heart. I dote upon her, and so
does Tom."
Jock strode off with his note to the old orchard, then, leaning his
back against Orris's apple tree, he read, with rather angry eyes, the
following letter:
"DEAR JOCK,
"This is going to be a difficult letter, for I fear you will
misunderstand me and be hurt. You have been so good, so kind, so
forgiving through this time of trouble, that I cannot bear to distress
you. But I must get away. And I don't want to be followed or to be
written to. They say time heals wounds. Time and absolute quiet may
heal mine. At present, I feel I want no sympathy, no friends, above
all, no environment that will open up the past. It is cowardly on my
part, but I want to be free of it all, to be able to take stock of
myself, as it were, under fresh and strange conditions. I hope I am
not morbid. I must face life again, and take up some work for the
sake of my darling Pippa, but for the present I am going to rest—my
brain, my body, my soul. So don't on any account worry over me, don't
try to discover where I am, don't write to me. If you really care for
me, do none of these things. Our part in the late destruction of your
property will keep people's tongues wagging busily for some time yet. I
am perhaps not altogether making this move on my own account, but the
position is bad for Pippa, who is being made the centre of comment and
attraction. I want her to forget her part in the tragedy. We shall be
quite well and comfortable. Do not give us a thought, but take care of
yourself and be happy.
"Yours always sincerely,
"ORRIS COVENTRY."
Jock read this through and through, snapping his lips together like
steel, as he did when he was much moved. The blow had fallen heavily.
He had not been prepared for it. He had not thought it possible that
Orris would take herself out of his life so suddenly.
"It's a cruel letter," was his first thought; and then he relented.
"Poor little soul! She has gone to hide her wounds, and thinks that she
can hide from me! She's more like a child now than I ever thought she
could be. Hide from me! It's quite an absurd impossibility!"
CHAPTER XI
IN RETREAT
AWAY down in Devonshire was a little village by the sea. As yet no
motor-bus had touched it, for it could only be reached by one of the
old pack-horse lanes, and the way was steep and stony, up a precipitous
hill, and down through a narrow combe to the sea. A cluster of
fishermen's cottages, an old storm-battered grey church on the hill
above them, a couple of farmhouses, and a small granite vicarage, these
composed the village of Cudweed Cove.
A butcher came every Saturday from Drangerford, a small town eight
miles inland; he brought loaves of bread for those who did not bake
at home. A grocer and oilman arrived every Wednesday; he also brought
bread, and with these supplies the people of Cudweed were well content.
Fish was not very plentiful, but shrimps and crabs were always to be
had, and lobsters occasionally.
Into this small village, at the close of a hot afternoon in August,
arrived Orris and her little niece. They had been driven in a small
trap from Drangerford, and their destination was a little whitewashed
cottage half-way up the combe.
The cottage was owned by a Mrs. Dabbs, a widow, and she had as a young
girl lived with Orris and her father for some years. She had always
been devoted to Orris, and had often said how much she would like to
see her again. On the previous Christmas, she had come up to London
to see a married sister, and Orris had given her tea at her flat, and
promised one day that she would pay her a visit at Cudweed.
As Orris had racked her brain to think of what place she could take
refuge in, away from all friends and acquaintances, she suddenly
thought of Maria Dabbs. So she wrote to her at once, and received a
reply in two days' time, saying that she could put her large spare
bedroom and little parlour at her disposal, and would be delighted to
take her in and do for her.
Pippa was half delighted, half regretful, at this sudden move. She did
not at all like going away without wishing "Master Jock" good-bye. She
wanted her dolls' house, and she loved the farm, but, childlike, the
excitement of a journey in a train, and going to the sea kept up her
spirits.
Orris felt tired and depressed. She did not see her future. She had a
shrinking from town life again, and yet felt that to give Pippa a good
education, she must supplement her small income in some way or other.
Mrs. Calthrop had written her a brief letter, enclosing a cheque up to
the date of the fire. Jock had judged her rightly. She had no desire to
see Orris, but in her letter she wrote:
"Of course, I cannot believe in this extraordinary will that has so
suddenly been produced by Jock Muir. If he had received it when he says
he did, would he have kept it so quiet all this time? I am going to
take legal steps when I reach town."
She never mentioned the fire. The loss of the library did not trouble
her now, it was eclipsed by her intense anxiety to prove this recent
will invalid.
But nothing could put the disastrous fire out of Orris's thoughts. She
was thinking of it now as the trap creaked and rattled up and down the
stony lane, with the steep banks and high hedges on either side of it.
"Would the drive ever end?" she wondered. She marvelled at Pippa, who
was keeping up an animated conversation with the old driver. His broad
soft Devonshire tongue amused her greatly.
"Say it again," she said, with her rippling laugh. "It's something like
French, isn't it? What is 'gurt,' and 'wisht'?"
The old man shook his head.
"Aw, 'ee'll find 'en oot, I rackon, when the wind do cum auver 'ee. It
do drive doon to the zay praper strong 'twixt the girt hedges. Us be
terrible buffeted here to winter. The moor on tap on we, an the zay to
bottom, but there, a' be livin' to Drangerford now, on'y foreigners ull
niver bide in this vitty plaace."
"You mustn't depress us," said Orris, smiling, and trying to turn her
thoughts to things around her. "It isn't winter yet, but August—the
month in the year which is best for the sea."
When they at last came in sight of Cudweed, the old driver rattled down
the lane at a tremendous pace and drew up at Pansy Cottage in great
style. Mrs. Dabbs was standing at the door to welcome them, dressed in
a fresh-starched pink cotton gown.
Pippa was enchanted with the smallness and quaintness of the cottage.
The big shells and china dogs on the mantelpiece of the small
sitting-room delighted her, as did also a stuffed parrot in a case.
She wanted to go and see the sea before her supper, and scampered up
and down stairs and in and out of the rooms till Orris felt giddy. But
she was quite firm on one point, that Pippa must do no sight-seeing
that night, but have her supper and go straight to bed. And by the time
supper, consisting of hot chicken and bread sauce, and a milk pudding,
had been consumed, and her box unpacked, and everything arranged for
bedtime, Pippa was quite ready to be tucked in upon a real feather bed
and fall asleep, to be ready for the joys of to-morrow.
After she was disposed of, Orris took a turn along the beach to ease
her aching head. The tide was out, the rocks, with their slimy amber
seaweed, were touched with gold from the setting sun. It was a very
still evening; the sea lay calm and still with just a ripple at the
edge, and as Orris paced the golden sand and dreamily gazed out over
the ocean in front of her to the opalescent sky, with faint rosy clouds
on the horizon, peace stole into her heart.
"After all," she mused, "I am not a criminal. I have only been guilty
of an act of carelessness. And if he doesn't feel it as much as I do, I
ought to be thankful."
And then her thoughts dwelt on Jock. At first, she had looked upon him
as a careless, irresponsible boy. Gradually, as she came to know him
better, she found, if he had a boy's sense of humour and light-hearted
gaiety, he had a man's will and purpose in life. At the farm, the
Prestons' opinion of him impressed her.
"He's a born master of men," said the old farmer.
"He's the kindest heart and the sweetest temper in the world," said his
wife.
And Orris had proved both these statements to be true.
"I have really come away to test my own heart," she murmured to
herself; "to discover whether I could love him enough to cast in my
lot with his. I was afraid of his hurrying me into something of which
I might repent later. I believe I'm a very cold-blooded, cautious
creature. I have lived down my warm impulses. I felt too old for him a
short while back, but I don't now. I believe, if we did come together,
he would be my master, and his will bears mine down already. But I
never, never could marry him unless we were of one mind on the deepest
things in life. He knows that, I am sure, though I think he feels more
than he says. It is of no use; I cannot make up my mind yet. If I were
really in love with him, there would be no hesitation. And he is worthy
of being loved as he would himself love. I will try and not think about
him any more at present."
But in the ensuing days Orris found this very difficult, for Pippa's
talk was incessantly about "Master Jock," as she always insisted upon
calling him.
"If he was here, I b'lieve he would take me into the sea on his back!"
she sighed one day.
"If only Master Jock would walk in at the window one day and come and
help me build my sand castles, Aunt Ollie! Can't you write and ask him
to come?"
"Do you think Master Jock is settled in his house yet? We'll soon go
back, won't we? And then he'll ask us to tea, and p'raps we'll have it
in the darling little powder-room."
Orris found it quite impossible to explain the situation to Pippa, so
would generally try to turn her mind to another subject.
And one day a fair-haired boy appeared on the sands. He was the old
Vicar's grandson, who came every summer to see his grandparents. He
and Pippa were about the same age, and were soon the greatest friends.
Orris was glad and thankful to see the intimacy between them. She was
making friends with some of the fisher-folk. Occasionally she went to
tea at the Vicarage, but the old Vicar and his wife were badly off, and
plainly said they could not offer much hospitality to visitors. Orris
liked the Vicar; he was a dreamy mystic, talked over the heads of his
parishioners in his sermons, but was a good friend to them in the week,
and was never absent from any sick-bed or troubled house.
A week or two passed very quietly. Then came Orris's birthday. Pippa
had made great preparations for it. Mrs. Dabbs had been told to make a
big iced cake; Pippa herself had made some wonderful little cakes for
the occasion, Mrs. Dabbs had, of course, superintended them. They were
made of dough, and were supposed to represent mice, with currants for
their eyes and slips of candied peel for their mouths.
Pippa had been to the post office in the village, and had bought
a wonderful shell box out of her own money. She rather coveted it
herself, and spent a good deal of her time in unwrapping it and
wrapping it up again in its silver paper coverings. But of course it
was a dead secret. Then, the day before, she had been into some meadows
and collected all the wild flowers she could find, chiefly ox-eyed
daisies and wild grasses, and had made a long wreath or garland with
which to decorate her aunt. This also was hidden away, and for the
time Pippa was a most mysterious little person, stealing up and down
stairs on tiptoe, and into the kitchen to talk about the event in loud
whispers to Mrs. Dabbs.
Of course, Orris was delighted with the garland and the shell box. They
were both presented to her at half-past six in the morning by a very
wide-awake little person in her white nightie and bare feet.
"Dear Aunt Ollie, I wiss you very many happy returns of the day."
So Orris took the giver and the gifts into bed with her, and had no
more rest that morning.
But the postman arrived that day with a parcel for her. She had as yet
told no one of her address, and could not understand it. The postmark
was unfortunately erased, but the box proved to contain some most
exquisite hot-house flowers, and at the bottom, in a little separate
parcel of silver paper, were two pairs of white suede gloves. A hot
flush came into Orris's face as she recognized the writing:
"Blessing and joy be yours to-day. From one who thinks of you."
"Now how has he discovered my address?" Orris gasped in bewilderment
and dismay. She remembered how often he had said: "You'll never be able
to get away from me. I should find you in any corner of the earth you
chose to go to!" He had done it. Her secrecy was a failure. If he knew
her whereabouts, there was no reason to conceal it from anyone else.
And how had he known her birthday? She called Pippa to her.
"Pippa darling, have you ever talked about my birthday to anyone?"
"No," said Pippa promptly and cheerfully; "at least, Master Jock asked
me one day. He put it down in a book he had; and he put mine too. I
wish my birfday would be quicker about coming. It seems 'years' since
my last one. Has Master Jock sent you these pretty flowers?"
"I rather think he has."
Orris sat looking at her presents as if she were lost in a dream. How
"could" he have discovered her retreat? She had not told Dugald or any
of her friends in town. No one knew that she had left Veddon Weal. She
wondered if he would respect her wish to be left alone, or whether he
would suddenly appear in person one day. She finally decided that she
would not acknowledge his gifts. Then he would know that she wished to
be left undisturbed.
But the following week a box of chocolates arrived for Pippa. There was
no word with it, no signature, so that also was left unacknowledged.
Pippa was now quite reconciled to her new life; she played daily
with Allan Bridges, the little boy, and she was friends with all the
fishermen. Orris simply rested—or lazed, as she expressed it. She
had not had such a holiday for years, and it was doing her good. But
when September came, and the days began to shorten, and the weather
became chilly, she wondered what her next move had better be. Her
cousin Dugald implored her to come back to town. She had, after some
considerable thought, let him have her address, and then, feeling
she was rather like an ostrich hiding her head in the sand, she had
at last written to Reyne. She and Lady Violet were back in town, and
Lady Violet had been extra poorly and was going to the Riviera for the
winter.
"I am going," Reyne wrote, "with a contented heart. Miss Dashwood has
taught me such lessons from her cheerfulness with that poor sister of
hers that I am now going to put her principles into practice. I have
missed the village people so much. I learnt to know them as friends,
but Mrs. Dane writes occasionally, giving me all the village news.
I hear that Mr. Muir has not yet taken possession of his house, for
it is in the builder's hands, and he is having it renovated from top
to bottom. He is busy farming his own land. He often dines with Mr.
Dane—they seem to be great friends. I am afraid we shall not meet each
other again before I go abroad, but if you chance to come up to town,
do come and see us."
Orris shook her head.
"No," she murmured to herself, "I do not feel like town—not yet!"
It was a few days after this that she met, on the sands, a stranger.
She looked a well-bred woman, was very tall, and carried her head
proudly. She was dressed plainly in a severely-cut coat and skirt, with
a soft grey felt hat pulled over her head. She might be between fifty
and sixty, had white hair, very striking dark eyes with thick bushy
eyebrows, and her face was stern and unfriendly. Yet when she saw Pippa
dancing about on the sand, covered all over with strands of seaweed,
and calling out to her aunt that she was a mermaid just come out of the
sea, she smiled at her, and her smile was peculiarly sweet. When Orris
went in to dinner, she asked Maria Dabbs who she was.
"Oh, that's Miss Lyle," she replied promptly. "She has come down to
her house again. She really owns the village, and lives at Cudweed
Chase. 'Tis about two miles from here. She lives in London most of
the year, but comes down here for a month or two at a time, and she
arrived yesterday. She generally rides about on a big grey horse. She's
masterful, but kind; she's very good to our Vicar and his wife, and she
always takes charge of the Sunday school when she's here."
Orris felt interested in this new arrival. It was not long before Pippa
made her acquaintance.
She was playing on the beach alone one morning—for Orris had rather a
bad headache and was lying down—and Miss Lyle stopped and spoke to her.
Pippa, of course, was delighted to give her full information about
herself.
"I think I must come and see your aunt," Miss Lyle said, after she had
received a jumble of facts from the child.
"I wish you would," said Pippa. "Aunt Ollie has no books to look at
here, and no Master Jock to talk to, nor Mrs. Preston, and she doesn't
laugh so often as she used to. Can you make people laugh?"
"No, I never could," said Miss Lyle a little grimly, though her eyes
twinkled in spite of herself.
Pippa sighed.
"Master Jock always does—'always.' You simple can't help laughing,
for if you don't, he gives you a squeeze and a tickle. He says if you
laugh, you make the world go round quicker. Did you know that?"
"I expect you could teach me a lot of things," said Miss Lyle
pleasantly. And then she passed on.
Pippa told Orris, when she saw her, that the new lady was "very solemn
indeed, but just a little bit smily when you talked to her."
The very next day Miss Lyle appeared at the cottage, and in the course
of conversation Orris gleaned that she was a lonely woman and had had a
great deal of trouble in her life. She did not give Orris any details.
"I am a busy woman in town," she said. "I have found the only cure
for loneliness is work. I am secretary and treasurer to one or two
philanthropic projects, but I get away here for relaxation in the
summer and autumn. I'm fond of the fisher-folk. I suppose I must not
ask you if you are making a long stay here?"
"I don't know," said Orris; "I came here for a rest and change, but my
circumstances are rather difficult at present, and I hardly know what
my future plans are going to be."
"Will you come over to lunch with me one day next week? I won't ask the
child. I would like to have you to myself."
Orris consented. She felt strangely drawn towards this grave stately
woman.
After she had left, Maria Dabbs told Orris a little more about her. Her
father and mother had died together of virulent 'flu in London. She was
engaged to be married to the Vicar of Cudweed, evidently a charming
man, from Mrs. Dabbs's account. And then, only a twelvemonth after
her parents' death, and a week before their wedding was fixed, he was
drowned trying to rescue a fishing boat in a gale.
"And she's been all alone in the world ever since," Mrs. Dabbs said.
"She did have a brother away at sea, but he was killed in the war; it
seems that every one has been taken from her that she loves. Of course,
she's wealthy, but she lives in a most simple style, and doesn't seem
to care for the things that money could give her."
"Perhaps," said Orris gently, "she has most of her treasures away from
this world."
"Yes," assented Mrs. Dabbs, "she's very religious—I know that; for one
month, in a very stormy autumn that we had, when our Vicar was down
with pneumonia and nobody could be got to take the services, and the
church was shut, she opened the schoolroom on Sunday evening and had a
service there with us. And we had some hymns, and she got Peter Lobbs
to read the lessons, and she gave us such a sweet simple kind of talk
out of the Bible that all of us said we wished we could have her always
doing it."
Orris went to lunch at Cudweed Chase the following week. It was a
rugged grey stone house by the sea, not beautiful, but sheltered and
comfortable inside, furnished in the solid Early Victorian style. Miss
Lyle received her in a pleasant sunny morning-room overlooking the bay;
and before very long Orris found herself confiding in her a little of
her late history. Jock's name did not figure much in it, but Miss Lyle
showed such interest and sympathy, that Orris perhaps was led to be
more confidential than she would have thought it possible, with such a
comparative stranger.
When they parted, Miss Lyle said:
"You are fortunate in having such a charming little niece. If I had
any of my flesh and blood left to me, I should not feel so desolate at
times. My house, my money will come to an end when I die. I have no one
to whom I could leave my possessions. I have sometimes been tempted to
sell them. And then, again, I've felt when bring a few town friends for
rest that perhaps I can do more good with my house than would anyone
else. And my tenants look to my coming and are glad to have me here for
a bit."
As Orris walked home, she felt she had made a new friend, and she was
thankful for the fresh interest that had been put into her life.
CHAPTER XII
NEW QUARTERS AGAIN
AS the days went on, Orris began to wonder whether she should ever hear
of Jock Muir again. Though she had told him not to write or follow her,
she inconsistently began to want him to do one or the other. She had
withdrawn herself from him of her own free will, but the miss of him
brought an aching blank in her life. She took herself to task for this;
she was angry that she could not shut him out of her thoughts, and
tried her best to forget him.
Pippa still chatted incessantly about him, but, like a happy child,
she took this change in her life philosophically, and was engrossed
with her little playmate at the Vicarage. When he went home, and
she was left alone once more, she turned to the old fishermen for
companionship. They all loved her, and would take her out in their
boats to their lobster-traps, and occasionally for a row out to sea.
Orris was at first a little nervous about these expeditions, but the
old men were cautious and experienced boatmen, and Pippa was absolutely
tractable and good when with them.
One day Orris was sitting on the rocks reading a letter from Venetia.
She did not often write, but whenever she did, she made allusions
to Pippa's education. Was she being sent to school? There was no
possibility of having her out in California, but she hoped she would be
well educated, for she regretted in her own case that she had not been
at a good school when young.
Orris made an attempt at lessons with Pippa for an hour every morning,
but she felt that the child ought to be learning more steadily. And
now, the letter in hand, she was once more considering ways and means.
She was interrupted presently by the appearance of Miss Lyle, who sat
down beside her to have a chat.
"What is worrying you this morning?" she asked at once.
Orris smiled.
"My old problem, which I must solve pretty soon. I cannot continue to
laze away my life here, and let Pippa grow up a dunce. I can't bear to
send her away from me, but she must be educated."
"It's very strange to find you at that problem this morning. You know,
as I go through life, I am always trying to bring together employers
and employees. It's a difficult task. I have told you that my interests
in town are with the poor gentlefolk in our land. Now, I know a girl
there who is simply working herself to death at a High School in
Kensington. She is not strong, and the confined life is killing her.
Her doctor told her the other day that she ought to get out of London,
but in these days of competition she is afraid of giving up her present
post for fear she would not find another. Her earnings help a delicate
mother in little comforts. Now, can you afford to have her as governess
to your small niece? She is not a London girl, she loves the country,
and it would be the making of her to get these Atlantic breezes through
her."
Orris considered.
"Of course, a governess is what Pippa ought to have, if she does not
go to school. I cannot teach her. I feel it would spoil the conditions
of our affection—if you know what I mean. Pippa needs a certain amount
of discipline during lesson hours. She thinks she can play with an
aunt, but she would not try to play with a governess. But I am a little
uncertain of my movements, and Mrs. Dabbs could not find room for
another lodger. May I think over it, and let you know?"
"Of course. But I want to say something more. You have told me a little
about your circumstances, and I gather that the governess's salary may
be a difficulty. Now I have a proposal to make to you. I spend, as you
know, most of the year in town; my house lies idle, and will be empty
this coming winter. Will you and your little niece take possession
of it, and keep it warmed and aired for me? I have three or four old
servants who find it dull without anyone there. Mabel Raynor can be
fitted in easily. Now, please, listen, and don't let pride stand in
the way of benefiting me and many others. I want you to do something
for me. I have been longing to send down certain invalids and poor
gentlefolk, who are needing comfort and rest, for a long stay at my
house, but I cannot do it unless there is some one there who would act
as hostess and run the house. You have managed a club in town: would
you care to manage a kind of rest home for me? Live in my house and be
the lady superintendent? I would give a salary of £200 a year, and this
would help to pay for your little niece's education." She paused.
Orris drew a long breath. It seemed at first too good to be true. Her
tangled knot was unravelled. Her way before her was clear and plain.
She did not hesitate a moment. She turned to Miss Lyle with deep
feeling in her tone:
"I can't thank you enough for your generous offer. I will not let pride
stand in the way. Why should I? I must earn. I have not a big enough
income to support Pippa as well as myself, and I am afraid her mother
has cast her off for the time. You have indeed solved my problem. There
is nothing I should like better than to take such a post."
"What a sensible girl you are! I shall come down for visits now and
then, but I warn you I shall fill your hands with occupation. There are
so many of my ventures in this small village in which I should like
your help. You will be my substitute in my absence. I suppose you will
not find it dreary in the winter?"
"How could I, with Pippa?" said Orris. "And I'm getting to know the
fisher-folk, and I'm never tired of the sea."
Then they began to discuss the plan in every detail.
Miss Lyle lost no time in setting to work. She went up to town the next
day, and insisted upon Orris accompanying her to interview Miss Raynor.
She took Orris to her town house as guest; and when they came back in
two days' time, the matter was settled.
Pippa had been as good as gold in her aunt's absence, but she was
rather mystified as to what was going on. Orris broke the news to her
one fine morning, as they sat on the sands together. At first Pippa
pouted.
"I don't like governesses."
"How many do you know?" asked her aunt, laughing. "This governess is
so young and bright, Pippa! She loves games, and will play with you as
well as teach you; and I shall never be far-away."
But when told of their move into the big comfortable house by the sea,
Pippa's spirits rose.
"I do love the sea so much, Aunt Ollie; there are so many lovely things
in it—like crabs and seaweed and shells. But aren't we ever going back
to see Master Jock again? I thought we'd come here for a holiday."
"So we did, darling, but the sea suits us both, doesn't it? And I have
got a new job, Pippa. I can't be idle, you know; and I'm going to keep
house for Miss Lyle when she is away, and look after some visitors of
hers, who will be coming to stay."
This sounded rather exciting to Pippa. She loved making fresh friends,
and would have made acquaintance with the whole world, could she have
managed it.
A few weeks later, they left Mrs. Dabbs, and moved into Cudweed Chase.
A short time before their departure, Orris received a brace of
partridges and a pheasant. This time the label was quite decipherable,
and she knew they had come from Jock.
Still she could not make up her mind to write to him. He was obeying
her injunction, and she felt, if she once broke the ice, he might come
down and try to interfere with her plans.
Miss Lyle did not go back to town till Orris was thoroughly settled
into her new home.
Miss Raynor arrived, and she and Pippa had a pleasant suite of rooms
all to themselves—a schoolroom, a large bedroom, and a smaller one
leading out of it where Pippa slept. The little girl was very proud and
pleased to have a bedroom of her own, and took at once a great liking
to her governess.
Mabel Raynor was a delicate-looking girl, with large dark eyes and pale
cheeks, but she was energetic and high-spirited, and had the knack of
teaching small children and keeping them happy in lesson time.
When Miss Lyle left, Orris began to find her time pleasantly occupied.
She acted as organist every Sunday in the little church, she took the
Sunday school in the afternoon, and she had a weekly class for the
fisher-lads, and young men when they worked at crafts. She was thankful
that she had little leisure for brooding over the past. When Dugald
heard of this fresh move of hers, he came down to expostulate.
"You are the most extraordinary soul for falling on your feet," he
grumbled. "I was hoping you would get so moped and dull with the lack
of occupation and of society that you would thankfully throw yourself
into my arms when I came down to see you, and beseech me to take you
back to town."
"Is that like me?" questioned Orris, with dignity.
"Perhaps not, but I'm always hoping to see a change in you. You are too
self-sufficing, my dear Coz."
"Oh!" sighed Orris, with downfallen face, as she remembered another who
complained of the same fault in her. "Surely I am not, now. I have had
a fall, and a bad one, Dugald. I sometimes think that, like Queen Mary
with Calais, I shall go down to the grave with 'library' engraven on my
heart. I hope I shan't fail in my trust now. I pray I may not."
Dugald looked around him. They were talking in the comfortable
morning-room at Cudweed Chase, the room in which Orris chiefly lived.
There was a blazing log fire in the open grate, golden chrysanthemums
were in great bowls on the deep window-sills, brightening the room
with their colour. If it was furnished in Early Victorian style, it
was essentially comfortable. There were deep armchairs, and a big
Chesterfield covered with bright cretonne; the Turkey carpet underfoot
and heavy red velvet curtains to the three windows facing seaward all
made for warmth and cosiness.
"Yes," he repeated; "you fall on your feet, and go from one comfortable
house to another. Not that I call the farmhouse comfortable, but you
started well down there, at Pinestones. What is that fellow doing?
Going on with his farming, or living decently, like the rest of us?"
"I think his life as a farmer more decent than lounging about in London
clubs," said Orris rather sharply. "I believe he is continuing to farm."
"Knew I would get a rise out of you if I but mentioned his name," said
Dugald, with a short laugh. "Now, look here, Orris, you are not going
to waste your life down in this quiet place, and spend the rest of your
years as a housekeeper or caretaker—whichever you like to call it. Give
it a trial if you like, but come up to town before Christmas, now do!
Your flat will be vacant again, I believe, by that time. We want you
badly."
Orris shook her head.
"You are a disturber of peace, Dugald. I may come up for some Christmas
shopping, that is all that I can promise. I am perfectly happy here,
and so is Pippa. I could not be dull. Next week we are having three or
four visitors."
Dugald shrugged his shoulders.
"'Decayed gentlewomen'! Isn't that the expression? What a life for
'you!' Will you sit up doing knitting and crochet with them, and
talking about rheumatics, and all the ills of poverty and old age?"
"At all events, I shall be trying to cheer poverty and old age,"
retorted Orris good-humouredly. And she sent him back to town with no
ray of hope for himself in the situation.
"His life is so limited," she said to herself; "it is bounded on all
sides by conventionality. Never, never could I link my life to his, and
he must be convinced of it by now."
Her thoughts flashed to Jock. He would never stagnate anywhere. He was
a born worker, and whatever he put his hand to seemed to prosper. "I
should like a talk with him again," was the desire of her heart; "he
braces one, and makes one believe in the happiness of work." Then, as
usual, she took herself to task for thinking about him, and turned to
other matters in hand.
A great pleasure soon came to Pippa. Miss Lyle kept a couple of horses
for her own use, and a tiny Shetland pony to work the big lawnmower.
She had an old coachman who had served her faithfully for years; and as
he had to exercise the horses in his mistress's absence, he asked Orris
if she would care to ride one of them.
"The little Missy could have the pony. I would dearly like to teach her
to ride. Miss Lyle herself took her first riding lessons from me."
Orris demurred at first. She had ridden as a young girl, and had always
loved horses. As for Pippa, she went perfectly wild at the thought.
Miss Lyle was consulted, and she said she would be only too glad for
them both to exercise the horses. So the riding began.
Pippa took to it as a duck takes to water. She went out directly after
breakfast with Perkins, before her lessons began, and sometimes had a
ride with her aunt in the afternoon. The narrow lanes and steep hills
did not incommode the horses. Perkins said that he was thankful they
kept the motors and charabancs from coming near them. Like most grooms,
he had a jealous horror of Miss Lyle taking to a car and putting down
her horses.
"Oh, Aunt Ollie," said Pippa one day, coming in rosy and breathless
after her ride, "How I wish Master Jock could see me on my pony! Shall
we 'never' see him again? He is my bestest friend in the world!"
"Perhaps he may come and see us one day," said Orris.
She knew that the word must come from her, but she was not yet ready to
send it, and little thought of the circumstances in front of her that
would force her hand.
The first visitors to arrive from town were a lonely clergyman's widow,
an Irish single lady who had lost her beautiful property, and an Indian
Officer's daughter who had attempted to set up a small preparatory
school for little boys at Hampstead Heath and had failed in the attempt.
Of the three, Orris's sympathy was mostly with the latter. She was
barely thirty, but looked much older. She had a young brother at a
public school, whom she was educating; and latterly she had almost
starved herself to do it. Miss Lyle had found her one day fainting in a
'bus. In her usual prompt energetic way, she had accompanied her home,
and then, seeing the poverty of her bed-sitting-room, she had insisted
upon taking her into her town house as a guest, and, after hearing her
story, had sent her off to Cudweed.
"If you don't like to be idle," she said brusquely to her, "I'll give
you orders for knitted silk jumpers. I supply a shop in town with those
made by different friends of mine."
So Kathleen Walters had arrived, and Orris and she became very good
friends.
Miss O'Flauty and Mrs. Hatton, the other two ladies, got on extremely
well together. Orris had often heard of the great difficulty in having
a happy household of perfect strangers, but so far she had had no
disagreeables. Each of the three was thankful beyond words to be for a
time freed from the carking care of a small purse and a lonely life.
And then one morning Miss Raynor came to Orris with a troubled face.
"I don't think Pippa is at all well, so I am keeping her in bed. She
does not want to get up, says her head hurts her. She complained of the
cold yesterday evening, and I gave her a hot drink and put her to bed;
it may be a slight chill. Will you come to her?"
Orris had been at her fisher-lads' class the evening before.
"Why didn't you tell me last night?" she said, as she took a
thermometer into Pippa's room.
"I thought it might pass off."
Pippa seemed drowsy and flushed when her aunt bent over her. Her
temperature was found to be one hundred and three, and the doctor was
sent for at once. He looked grave when he had examined her.
"Has she been playing in the village at all?" he asked.
"I don't think so. Why?"
"There's an outbreak of fever—rather a nasty kind; and one child is
dying, I fear."
Orris's face blanched.
The doctor, an old man, put his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't get frightened. With good nursing, there ought to be no danger,
but one can never tell. Would you like a nurse?"
"No, oh, no," cried Orris; "not unless she gets very much worse. Is it
infectious?"
"Slightly, I should take precautions. If you nurse her, keep in this
part of the house." Then he gave her directions, and Orris listened
with a clear head but an aching heart.
Very anxious days followed. Miss Raynor ran the house, and looked after
the guests. Orris never left the sick child's room. Maria Dabbs came up
to help, and proved very efficient as a nurse. Poor little Pippa became
delirious, for the fever ran very high, and her incessant talk was
about "Master Jock."
"I want Master Jock. Why doesn't he come? I want to go to the
powder-room. Let's hide from Snuffy! Not you, Aunt Ollie, I want Master
Jock to carry me!"
She was a frail little thing, and had always had more spirit than
strength. The doctor was anxious, for her strength seemed ebbing away.
And Orris, outwardly calm and almost cheerful, was in her heart
absolutely hopeless. She thought of the light-hearted careless mother
so many thousands of miles away, but who yet had a great affection
for her child; and she thought of her own life unbrightened by the
winning ways and joyous spirits of her little niece. Her lips moved in
continual prayer:
"O God, let it be Thy will to spare her! Have mercy on us! Come near,
in our hour of need, and heal and save, for we cannot!"
The fever ran its course, and, when it left her, the child lay like
a broken lily, her little wasted face, with its big eyes, white as
the pillows on which she rested. She hardly knew her aunt, until one
afternoon she sat up in trembling agitation.
"Master Jock! Oh, I want Master Jock."
The pitiful wail was too much for Orris.
"Yes, darling, he will come. I'll send for him."
The doctor happened to call at that moment. Orris followed him out of
the room.
"She seems to be conscious. Shall I send for Mr. Muir? She cries
continually for him."
"Send by all means. I've known that kind of thing answer if—if he can
be in time, but she's getting weaker. A distinct step down-hill this
morning."
With trembling hands Orris wrote out a wire:
"Pippa wants you. Come immediately."
And dispatched it by the hands of Perkins.
CHAPTER XIII
JOCK'S ARRIVAL
IT was early dawn when he arrived. Orris met him at the front door, and
for the first time, her fortitude nearly forsook her.
"She is sinking fast," she said, as she held out her hand to him, "but
she still murmurs your name. She has had no sleep for twenty-four
hours, but she is barely conscious."
She led the way swiftly upstairs, and Jock followed her in perfect
silence. The darkened room, the tiny wasted form in the bed, the
agonized look in Orris's eyes as she signed to him to come near, sent a
thrill through Jock's heart. But very softly, he seated himself by the
bed, and took the little hand in his.
"Little Elf!" he said, in his cheerful good-natured tone.
Instantly the heavy lashes quivered and the eyelids opened. A long look
of recognition followed.
"Master—" the little voice could get no farther, and trailed away into
silence.
"Yes, I'm here; and we're going to have great fun when you get better."
Pippa drew his hand up to her, and laid her cheek on it with a
quivering smile, the first smile that Orris had seen for many a long
day. Her lips moved.
"Stay."
"Yes, I'm going to stay all right."
The heavy eyelids shut again. Orris came forward, and with a teaspoon
got some meat jelly into her mouth. She swallowed it, pillowed her
cheek afresh on Jock's hand with infinite satisfaction, and dropped off
into a sound and healing sleep. Jock sat still, and for two hours never
moved.
"It's touch and go with her," Orris had whispered.
He nodded, but the tender pity and love in his face, as he looked at
Pippa, brought the tears with a rush to Orris's eyes.
She sat on the opposite side of the bed, and they waited together
for the awakening. At one time, Orris thought she might even now be
slipping away from them, so faint was her breathing, but Jock reassured
her.
"She is breathing regularly. I believe she'll pull round."
His quiet cheery voice brought hope and balm to Orris's soul. She was
nearly at the end of her strength, and Jock was shocked to see how thin
and worn she had become.
When at last Pippa opened her eyes, Maria Dabbs came forward.
"Go and have something to eat, ma'am. You've been up all night. I'll
call you if there's any change. She'll take some food from me, I know."
"You've comed at last," said Pippa in a faint whisper, as poor Jock's
hand was released.
He stood up and smiled upon her.
"Yes; and I'm not going to be sent away from you, either," he said in
his pleasant way. "There's no Snuffy in this house, is there? Now I'm
going to take Aunt Ollie away and make her eat some breakfast. And then
we'll come back to you. What you have to do is to sleep and eat all day
long until you get strong enough to play hide-and-seek with me."
Pippa smiled. She was being fed by Maria; and then again her eyelids
closed, and she slept.
When a little later Jock and Orris met downstairs for breakfast, they
were strangely composed and quiet. Pippa was the one subject of their
conversation. Orris was asked how long she had been ill, and she gave
as much detail as she could.
"I believe," she said, "you have brought her the sleep she needed. She
was really fretting to see you. She has never forgotten you, and has
talked about you perpetually."
"I could not come till you sent for me," said Jock gravely.
Orris said nothing; then asked him if he had been travelling all night.
"More or less. I started at midnight. There was no train before."
"The doctor will be here directly. We will wait to hear how he finds
her, and then you will have some rest, will you not?"
Jock gave a quiet laugh.
"A sleepless night is nothing to me," he said. "I should think you are
far more in need of rest than I. Is there an inn of any sort in your
village where I could get a bed to-night?"
Orris considered.
"I believe that Mrs. Perkins could put you up," she said. "Perkins is
our old coachman here. He lives in the cottage at the bottom of the
drive. Would you like to walk down and see?"
"Thanks, but I'll wait till we know how the wee Elf is." Then, after a
pause, he asked: "And how long have you been here? I thought you were
living in the village."
"Who told you that?"
He looked up at her with a little of the old mischief in his eyes.
"Well, I came down to see one day. Do you wonder how I found out your
retreat? In the simplest way possible.
"I knew your banker in Veddon Weal. I went straight to him before
you had had time to pledge him to secrecy. He told me you were going
to Devonshire, he believed; you had been over, and mentioned Cudweed
Cove to him. So two months ago, I ached for the sight of you, and
my patience was well-nigh exhausted. I came as a tourist, slept in
Drangerford for the night, and got to Cudweed one fine morning—borrowed
a motor cycle. I dodged you about the whole morning, saw you and the
Elf on the sands, and was satisfied that you were well and happy. I
gossiped with the fisher-folk a bit, was told where you were lodging,
and went home in the afternoon."
"Oh!" said Orris, with a little sigh. "I don't think there is another
man in the whole world so foolish as you."
"Is this a private hotel?" Jock asked. "I came across just now two
elderly ladies who bowed to me and disappeared, and a young woman
directed me to this room in a very charming way, just as if she were
hostess."
"That was Miss Raynor, Pippa's governess."
In a few brief words, Orris explained her present position, and touched
on Miss Lyle's extreme kindness to her.
And almost in the same words as Dugald had used, Jock made comment on
her explanation.
"You certainly do fall on your feet, but you always would, wherever you
go."
They were interrupted here by the doctor's arrival. Orris went out to
him immediately, and Jock paced up and down the room with knitted brow
and brooding eyes.
She was a long time away. The doctor came downstairs at last. Jock
heard their murmuring voices in the hall, and then he opened the door,
as the doctor's car moved swiftly off down the drive.
Orris had disappeared, but in a few moments, he found her. She had
turned aside into her morning-room, and, throwing herself in a chair
by her writing-table, had bowed her head in her hands and was weeping
bitterly.
[Illustration: For a moment he looked at the bowed figure, and longed
to kneel down by her side. _Jock's Inheritance]_]
For one moment Jock's lips paled. Had the child already passed away
from them? He made a quick step forward, and Orris looked up.
"Oh," she sobbed, "it's the joy—the relief! He says she has turned the
corner—she is going to be spared to us."
"Thank God!" murmured Jock with real feeling. For a moment he looked
at the bowed figure, and longed to kneel down by her side and comfort
her in his own way, but there was some nice instinct within him that
forbade him, at this juncture, to intrude himself and his desires upon
her notice. So he smothered his feelings, and spoke in a peculiarly
quiet grave tone. "I think I'll go and see your coachman's wife, and
then, later on, perhaps the Elf would like to see me again. I won't
excite her; I know how quiet she'll have to be kept."
Orris held out her hand to him.
"Forgive me for giving way like this. It has been such a strain. Yes,
do go and fix up something with Mrs. Perkins. I must go up to Pippa
again."
She rose and left the room, and Jock strode out of the house and down
the drive on his errand.
For the next few days, Jock haunted Cudweed Chase. But so quiet and
self-controlled was he, that Orris began to wonder whether his liking
for her had died a natural death. He, as well as she, seemed entirely
absorbed in the small invalid.
And as Pippa came back to them again, and day by day grew brighter
and stronger, she insisted upon monopolizing Jock's society. She grew
fretful if he was out of the sick-room for long at a time, and at
length Orris began to protest.
"We are spoiling her," she said to him one afternoon, when he had
announced his intention of going out fishing, and the laments of
Pippa had made him give up the idea. "She is well enough now to be
reasonable; you are making her selfish, and that will not make for her
happiness."
"I shall not be here much longer," he replied, "so she can have as much
of me as she wants."
The next day, after lunch, Orris asked Jock if he would like a ride
with her.
"I am leaving Miss Raynor with Pippa for the afternoon. It will be our
only opportunity if you leave us to-morrow."
Jock gave her such a look that Orris almost repented of her proposal,
but she had felt sorry for him passing all his days indoors, and wanted
to show him a little of their beautiful country. It was the first time
Jock had seen Orris on horseback; he could not but help admire the ease
and grace with which she sat her horse.
His spirits rose as they cantered down the drive and met the tang of
the salt sea breeze full in their faces.
"This is a treat which I did not expect," he said to her. "I have been
very good, have I not? We have both kept each other at arms' length,
and the little Elf has taken all our time and thoughts. But now, as you
say, this is our only opportunity for a quiet talk, you may be sure I
will make full use of it."
Orris was silent for a moment, then she said pleasantly:
"Do. Tell me all about Veddon Weal. How are the Prestons? And the
Misses Dashwood? And is Mr. Dane getting on with the villagers? Tell me
all your local gossip. I shall love to hear it."
He fell in with her mood, and gave her details of every one and
everything in his neighbourhood. Then he asked lightly:
"And when are you coming back to us?"
"Oh, I am settling in here very comfortably," said Orris. "I am really
interested in Miss Lyle's philanthropy. I wish you could have met her.
She is my ideal of what a rich woman should be. Just a steward—nothing
more or less."
"It seems a most strange coincidence," said Jock slowly, "that you and
I should be led into the same groove, though under utterly different
conditions. I won't say it's extraordinary, because it has all been
arranged, I believe, for a purpose. Dane and I have been putting our
heads together, and the result is that I am not going to rebuild the
west wing. I shall have the ground cleared, but in the big meadow below
the kitchen gardens, I am building a roomy house in cottage style.
Dane came from an East-End parish, and is great friends with his Vicar
there. Relays of tired and delicate East-Enders are to be sent down
for rest and change, and Miss Dashwood is going to be secretary and
treasurer, and work it in conjunction with a matron who will be in
charge. It's just a sop to Dane—and a pleasant job for Miss Dashwood,
who thirsts for a little more occupation." Jock added this last
sentence a little awkwardly, for Orris's glowing radiant face turned
towards him embarrassed him.
"Oh, Jock," she said, "how delightful! It's the first bit of light and
comfort that has come to me since that awful fire. You are bringing
good out of evil."
"Let us dismount," he said suddenly, "and look at the view."
They were on high ground; a sloping bit of rough moor led to the edge
of the cliffs; beyond was the blue ocean. A fleet of fishing boats were
putting out to sea, and the sun was already slowly disappearing below
the horizon, but it was sending its rosy rays across the water, and
Orris drew a long breath of pleasure and appreciation as she watched it.
She was ready to fall in with Jock's suggestion. He tethered the horses
to some iron railings, and then found a pile of granite slabs upon
which they sat, facing the sea.
"You haven't answered my question yet," he said, laying his right hand
over one of hers as he spoke. "When are you coming back to us?"
Orris could not answer.
"You'll never get away from me," Jock went on. "I'm positive that we
are two souls who are meant to cleave together eternally, and you must
know it too by this time. I have been getting the house ready for you
as fast as I can; and I have a surprise for Pippa in it. I have waited
patiently for your time, and now it has come. You are not going to send
me home an unhappy man, are you?"
Orris looked up at him serenely, though her heart was throbbing
painfully.
"But what is it that you want?" she asked. "I cannot come back to the
Farm—my work is over at Pinestones."
"Your work at Pinestones is not begun. You know what I want, and the
work there is to do there. You have to take rather an uncouth rough
sort of a fellow, and mould him into a model husband. Oh, Orris, don't
let us beat about the bush any longer. Put your dear hand in mine, and
tell me that you'll come to me."
Orris did not move. She was gazing out over the sea. She was going to
capitulate—she had no doubt about her feelings by this time—but she
hesitated. Jock saw the hesitation. He took her hands in his, and made
her look at him.
"Now then, my heart's dearest," he said, "be straight and true—you can
be no other. Tell me that you'll be mine."
"I will."
The words were soberly uttered: they had as solemn a ring about them as
if uttered in the marriage service.
And then Jock's arms were about her and their lips met.
It was some minutes after that, releasing herself from his embrace, she
said a little playfully: "And you have never asked if I love you?"
"I don't need to," he said. "I'm not much to love, but my love for you
is big enough for us both."
"Oh, Jock, dear Jock!"
Happy tears rose to Orris's eyes.
"Do you know what you are to me?" she said. "A tower of strength,
a modern knight of chivalry, one whom I know I could test to the
uttermost and who would never fail me. I think, of all combinations,
the equal mixture of strength and gentleness is what I admire most, and
these are what you possess."
"Spare my blushes," said Jock, and he had reddened slightly under his
tanned skin, but the joyous light in his eyes deepened into a steady
glow at her words.
They sat on there, oblivious of time, until the last golden rays of
the sun had died away, and then in the dusky twilight they rode home
together.
"You must let me tell the Elf the good news," said Jock, as they
entered the house.
"Yes," assented Orris; "it will please her."
So Jock went upstairs, and found Pippa sitting up amongst her pillows
with a small white face and big eyes.
She smiled her sunny smile when she saw him. "I've been wissing you
were here," she assured him.
Then, as he stooped and gave her a kiss, she seized his hand.
"Master Jock, Miss Raynor says you're going away. You aren't, are you?
I reely won't get well if you do—I know I won't! And I do want you to
see me ride my pony."
"I promise you I shall do that one day."
Miss Raynor slipped out of the room.
Jock drew a long breath.
"Ah!" he said. "Now we're alone, I can tell you a secret. It's a
stupendous one. I hope your eyes won't fall out of your head. I'm
hurrying back to get Pinestones made clean and smart for you and Aunt
Ollie. This is a very nice house, but it's not nearly so nice as mine.
The dolls' house is fresh with paint and papering, and waiting for you
to come to it. The powder-room holds a surprise for you. And I think
there will be a little brown pony with a very long tail champing his
hay in the stables, and waiting for a little Elf to ride him."
Pippa clapped her thin little hands.
"Are we going to live with you?" she asked.
"I hope you are. I've asked Aunt Ollie, and she has said 'yes.' We
shall have to go to church first, so make haste and get well, for we
shall want you there."
"Oh, Master Jock!" Pippa's eyes were dancing with joy. "And there'll be
no Snuffy to be cross and turn us out; and I'll be able to go into the
powder-room whenever I like. And you'll swing and see-saw me, and we'll
both do lots of fun togever!"
"Lots," said Jock cheerfully. "But it's all a secret at present,
remember. Only Aunt Ollie and you and I can talk about it in whispers."
Pippa nodded. This was after her own heart.
When Orris opened the door, two radiant faces were turned towards her.
"Aunt Ollie, Master Jock is going to belong to us. He's told me so,"
Pippa cried exultantly.
"I think it will be the other way about," said Orris, smiling.
And Jock, putting his hand on her shoulder, said:
"We're going to be one happy family; and if Pippa were only well
enough, she and I would have a mad gambol together at the very thought
of it. But we'll wait to have our rejoicings later, won't we, little
Elf?"
"When my legs have left off shaking," said Pippa.
And then Orris sat down by the bed and drew her into her arms.
"We must thank God, darling, that He has made you better."
"Yes," responded Pippa, her eyes fixed on Jock's happy face; "and I'll
thank God for making Master Jock come to us, for I was tired of waiting
for him."
CHAPTER XIV
A VISIT TO VEDDON WEAL
CHRISTMAS found Orris and Pippa still at Cudweed Chase, and though Jock
would have had it otherwise, he had to possess his soul in patience.
Miss Lyle spent Christmas with them, and she and Orris were busy making
the season bright to all around them.
Pippa was nearly well again, and able to take very short rides on her
beloved pony.
Orris had been up to town for two or three days, and in that time she
had made her engagement known to her friends. Dugald received her news
in gloomy silence.
"It was an evil day," he said, "when you went off to Pinestones. I bear
Mrs. Calthrop a grudge for taking you there."
"Now, Dugald, if I had never gone there, my feelings towards you would
have been just the same. Be content to be my dear cousin and friend.
You knew long ago that I could never be anything more."
"You'll turn into a mouldy frump!"
"Better that than a town gadabout!"
She saw Reyne Archer, for their visit to the Riviera had been delayed
owing to Lady Violet getting a bad attack of 'flu, and received some
news from her which astonished and delighted her. Mr. Dane had been up
to town to see them several times, and on the last occasion had asked
Reyne to be his wife.
"And mother likes him so much that she makes no difficulty about it at
all," Reyne said. "Oh, Orris, you and I in the same parish! Think how
heavenly it will be! But we are not going to be married yet. A cousin
of mine is coming to be mother's companion when I leave her. The way
has smoothed out so wonderfully, and I shall have the desire of my
heart—to be a useful worker instead of an idler; and last and best of
all, to have such a splendid man to guide and help me."
"And to love you!" Orris put in, smiling. "I am so very, very glad,
Reyne dear."
She saw many of her old friends in town, but she was quite ready to
leave it, and come back to the lonely grey house by the sea. She felt
rather guilty when she saw Miss Lyle's extreme disappointment and
regret that she was leaving her. But after a good deal of thinking, she
came down to breakfast one morning with a bright idea in her head. And
this was to suggest Miss Dashwood for the next Lady Superintendent of
Cudweed Chase.
"Of course," she said to Miss Lyle, "I don't know that she would do
it. She has an invalid sister, but she could be made very comfortable
here, if you would extend your invitation to her. You would love
Miss Dashwood. She is so clever and cultured and brimful of life and
cheerfulness! And she has given up all her beloved work so happily and
contentedly for the sake of her poor sister. I shall be truly sorry if
she leaves our village, but for her sake I should be delighted, because
it is work that she will love."
"It sounds feasible," said Miss Lyle. "Will you write to her? Is it too
far for her to come and see me?"
"I am afraid she would not leave her sister. She is never away from her
for a day. I will write at once."
Brisk correspondence ensued, but the matter was not clinched until
Orris herself went down and stayed for a few days with the Prestons.
Jock was, of course, enchanted. He wanted to consult her about several
alterations at Pinestones, and met her at the station, one bright
frosty afternoon in January, with a radiant face.
"You are very bold in venturing here," he said to her, as he drove
her to Lilac Farm in a new car in which he had just invested. "How do
you know I will let you away again? I'm just feeling that the days
are empty and useless without you. I've been wonderfully patient, I
consider."
"Now, Jock, I haven't come down here on our own business, but on Miss
Lyle's. Do you think I can persuade Miss Dashwood to make the venture?"
"I'm not approving of it. She's running, or going to run, my Rest Home,
remember. I don't want to part with her."
Orris looked grave, then she laid her hand gently on his arm.
"Don't you think I could run that for you? We shall be only changing
places."
He looked at her, laughed, then screwed up his lips.
"I want a wife to attend to me, first of all. Not to be a busybody
outside her home." Orris said nothing.
"I wish I wasn't driving," Jock said irrelevantly. "It keeps me from
doing what I want to do. Speech is too cold for my mood at present."
"Let us keep to our subject," Orris said with her quiet dignity. "I
am not going to be your slave and chattel, am I? It isn't a chaffing
matter. If I am going to be your wife, Jock, there will be many outside
bits of work that I shall like to do. You built your Rest Home. Don't
you think your wife is the person to be the secretary or treasurer of
it?"
"I think my wife will be an adorable angel, and will be able to twist
her poor inferior husband round her finger."
Then they both laughed.
"I shall be entranced for you to be boss altogether of my Rest Home, my
house, and perhaps of me."
"That I should never be," Orris said; "I know my limitations. It is
your strength and pertinacity that sometimes appals me. Shall we ever
be on different sides I wonder?"
"Our conversation is not profitable," Jock said gaily. "We will be
joyful in each other's company and let the future go hang!"
When they reached Lilac Farm, Mrs. Preston gave Orris a warm welcome.
"It's so delightful to know that you're coming soon to live amongst
us," she said. "'Twas what Tom and I always hoped, but things seemed a
bit contrary before you went away."
Jock was loath to leave.
"You're tired, sweetheart," he said, when a few minutes later he was
saying good-bye to her in the old hall, and Mrs. Preston had discreetly
left them. "I feel that the little Elf's illness took a great deal out
of you, but it brought 'me' great happiness." Then, taking her in his
arms, he said very tenderly: "I am longing to have you in my keeping.
You have always been looking after other people, and now you'll have to
take instead of give."
"I'd like to ask you something, Jock," said Orris, a little wistfully.
"I wanted to do it when you came to us at Cudweed, but I was not brave
enough!"
"Why? Are you afraid of me? Never!"
"No, but I am afraid of your cloaking your real feelings by a veneer
of—of indifference."
"Now look here, you and I are on very intimate terms now; we're going
to be one before long, instead of two. You may ask me any question you
like. I will bare my soul to you. Never hesitate to scold me, question
me, and advise me for my good. We have got to know each other through
and through!"
"Are things different with you now? Can you and I talk together of the
unseen world? Have you got your old faith back?"
Jock held her tighter in his arms, and looked into her eyes very
earnestly.
"Do you think I'd have bothered over this Rest Home, and been such
chums with Dane, if I hadn't had anything in common with him? I'm not
going to have any barriers between us, sweetheart. Your God is my God,
your faith is my faith, and your hope mine. You'll be my guardian
angel, and help me along, I know. But I've made up my mind to say, as
Joshua did: 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!'"
Orris's eyes filled with tears, which tears Jock promptly kissed away.
"I shall have to go," he said. "This is a tantalizing visit of yours,
but I invite you to tea to-morrow afternoon, just to see that my
preparations indoors are according to your liking."
"I shall love to come," said Orris.
And then they parted, and she slipped indoors again with a happy heart.
She had instinctively felt that Jock had changed, before she gave him
her answer at Cudweed. She was assured of it now, and she thanked God
in her heart for this assurance. She knew well that it would have only
spelled disaster to link her life to his unless they had been of one
mind upon the real and deep things of eternity.
The next morning she set off on her visit to Miss Dashwood, who was
both surprised and delighted to see her.
But when she unfolded her plan, Louisa Dashwood demurred at taking part
in it.
"Personally I should love to do what you want, but it is Grace who will
object. She likes, if I may say so, to be my centre, and would not like
other people to share my interest and care. Will you wait a moment? I
will call her. It is better to discuss the matter fully before her. She
likes you, and may be influenced by your wishes."
So Miss Grace came in, and, as Louisa had said, she vetoed the
proposition at once.
"I am not strong enough to move. And from what you say, it is a lonely
house in a lonely position. It is bad enough here, but we know a
few people and have the village close to us, and Mr. Dane is a very
pleasant Vicar."
"I don't think you would be lonely," Orris said, "for you would
have very pleasant people in the house, and the village is not very
far-away, and there is a low pony-chaise which Miss Lyle says she would
put entirely at your disposal. I can't tell you how lovely the sea is.
And the country round, and the air, is glorious. Miss Lyle would come
and go, and to me she is a most fascinating personality."
Grace shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not care for strangers," she said. "No, it is a plan that I for
one could not contemplate for a moment."
"But, Miss Grace, you are always complaining of this small cottage, and
you do not care for the villagers. You would have many more comforts at
Cudweed Chase."
"Are you wanting to get rid of us?" Miss Grace demanded sharply. "Is it
because you are going to live here that you want us to go?"
"Oh, Grace!" expostulated her sister, seeing Orris's hurt look. "It
is entirely on our account that Miss Coventry has come down to-day to
tell us about this. It is a hard matter, as you know, for us to make
both ends meet. If I had an extra two hundred pounds a year, and a
comfortable house to live in, do you realize how many extra comforts
you would enjoy?"
"I am feeling ill," said Grace suddenly, putting her hand to her head;
"you are agitating me. I must go and lie down."
She left the room, and her sister accompanied her. Then she returned to
Orris, who was looking disappointed and depressed.
Louisa put her hand upon her arm.
"Cheer up," she said. "It isn't easy to help us, is it? But Grace may
think it over and alter her mind. Leave it an open question for a few
days, will you? Grace hates changes, though she always says she is not
happy here. But I don't think she would be happy anywhere—it is not her
nature to be so. And sometimes she suddenly turns round and agrees to
what is proposed, after I have given up hope that she will do so."
"I should insist upon the plan if I felt it would be for her good,"
said Orris.
"No, you would not," said Louisa, smiling, "if you knew that opposition
of any kind really makes her ill. Persuasion, not force, is the only
way to deal with her."
They talked together for some time, and then Orris left, her mission
still unfulfilled. But Louisa promised to do her best to influence the
fretful invalid, and Orris went back to the farm, wondering at the
cheerful patience and serene calm of her friend.
Jock appeared directly the farm dinner was over, and he and Orris
walked over the fields together. They first inspected the new building
which was very nearly completed, and then stood together on the waste
piece of ground upon which the west wing had once stood.
"It makes me very sad," said Orris. "Why did you not build it up again?"
"The house is big enough without it," said Jock cheerfully. "I've had,
as you see, all the rubbish taken away, and we'll make this bit of
ground into a sunk rose-garden. Truefitt, my new gardener, is wild to
do it. Now come along into the house."
Orris was surprised to see how much had been done to the house when she
entered it. Fresh paint and papering, and a general clearance of old
worthless bits of furniture, and some really good bits of oak put in
their place, gave the house a new aspect altogether. He took her into
dining-room, smoking-room, and big drawing-room, and showed her the
room upstairs that he was going to make into a private sitting-room for
her.
"You must have some retreat where you'll be able to get away from me,"
he said to her lightly, and Orris assented at once.
"We can't sit in each other's pockets all day long," she said. "But I
don't think you'll ever overburden me with your society, Jock. It will
be the other way about. Yet I would not have you an idle man about the
house. Out-of-doors is your sphere, and I'm old-fashioned enough to
believe that indoors will be the sphere for me."
"It will be heaven on earth," said Jock in a low emphatic tone. "We're
going to have tea in the hall now. Will you pour out? I'll sit opposite
you and imagine we're already husband and wife."
His gay spirits infected Orris. Her dimples had free play. After tea
was over, he and she took counsel over patterns of chintz and damask,
as to the best material to re-cover the drawing-room furniture. Then
Orris was shown the contents of the powder-room, and when she came out
she said:
"I don't wonder at Pippa's infatuation for you. But you spoil her,
Jock."
"I couldn't," he said. "I only hope she'll stay with us till she grows
up."
Orris looked grave.
"I am anxious about her future, with such a mother. But I tell myself
that I have her at the most susceptible age, so I shall have faith to
believe that her character will be formed before she joins her mother
again."
Jock was loath to let her go when the time came for her to return to
the farm.
"I have all to-morrow," Orris said.
"Oh, do let us get married at once," cried Jock. "What is the good of
waiting? You don't want a regular show, do you?"
"I should like," Orris replied softly, "to creep into a little quiet
lonely church, and plight our troth before God, away from every one."
"And so should I. We'll do it. I'll get a special licence and we'll do
it before you go back to Cudweed."
"No, no! What an impulsive creature you are! Miss Lyle has determined
to give me a send-off. I have promised her to be married from her
house."
"Well, let us settle the day. I shan't let you move from this house
till you've done it!"
He was as good as his word, and though he chafed at the delay, Orris
would not leave Cudweed till the end of the following month. They
settled the day, and then he let her go. But he arranged to take her
for a ride and show her round his farm the following day.
The following morning Orris had an early visit from Louisa Dashwood.
"My dear Miss Coventry, it's done. Grace has relented, and I am
allowed to take up the post. It is Mr. Muir's doing. He came round
last night after his dinner, and simply coaxed and wheedled Grace into
acquiescence. What a power he has with his tongue! Will you be able to
withstand him in anything. I wonder?"
"I wonder that, sometimes," said Orris, smiling. "But I hope such an
emergency will not occur. I am very thankful for your news. Now I can
return to Miss Lyle with a light heart."
"At the same time," said Louisa, "may I say that I have real regret in
removing myself away from your society. We have not seen very much of
each other, but when we have met I have always benefited."
"No," said Orris; "I think you have been my benefactor. I have taken
heart again and again when I have seen your cheerful courage and
patience. We must not be parted for good. I hope sometimes you may be
able to pay us a visit."
And then, as she said, Orris returned to Cudweed with a light heart.
Miss Lyle was pleased to hear about her successor, and Pippa was
eagerness itself to hear all about "Master Jock" in his "real own home."
CHAPTER XV
WED
IT was Orris's wedding day, and though March had come in like a lion,
it was going out, as proverbially it should, like a lamb. It was a
still bright day. The sea lay serene and calm, with only a ripple of
movement, as it lapped the shore.
Orris stood at her bedroom window looking out upon it with dreamy happy
eyes. Life had given her a good share of its cares and anxieties. Now
she faced the future, feeling that whatever the coming years might
bring her, loss or gain, she could face them steadfastly, for Jock
would be by her side.
It was, as they had both wished, going to be a very quiet gathering.
Miss Lyle was in a comparatively empty house, for her last guests had
departed, and she had purposely refrained from having any others till
the wedding was over. Miss Raynor was the only outsider. Mr. Dunscombe,
as best man, was staying with Jock at the village inn. Dugald had
been invited, but would not come. His sister Marie had accepted her
invitation, and was very comfortably ensconced in the best spare
bedroom.
Orris had asked that she might be left undisturbed in her room till the
carriage came to take her to church. Perkins had been allowed to get
out the old-fashioned brougham, which Miss Lyle so seldom used, for the
occasion.
At eleven o'clock she heard a soft knock at her door. It was Pippa,
almost hidden by the big white bridal bouquet which she was carrying.
"It's for you, Aunt Ollie; it's all come out of the 'servatory. And,
oh, how lovely you are!"
"And you, Pippa, are my sweet white Elf indeed."
For Jock had asked that Orris should be in the traditional white, and
very queenly she looked in the soft white satin gown, with no trimming
of any kind about her, except an Italian lace berthe and her veil, both
heirlooms belonging to her mother. Pippa, in her tiny white frock and
lace cap, with silver ribbon and a silver sash around her waist, was a
dainty picture. Her cheeks were pink with excitement.
Orris stooped and kissed her.
"My darling!" she said. "What lovely flowers! Is it time to go?"
Pippa nodded.
"Miss Lyle is waiting, and the carriage is here, and Bess and Bones
have real satin rosettes to their ears."
Then they descended the stairs, and Marie, at the bottom, gave Orris a
quick kiss before she got into the carriage.
"It's a shame," she said, "that you should not be in town amongst all
your friends. Who is there to admire you here, except a handful of
fisher-folk?"
Her words sent Orris into her carriage with a smile. Miss Lyle followed
her, for she was going to give her away. She had discarded her usual
severe style of dress, and was in a powder-blue crêpe-de-chine gown,
with black velvet hat and ostrich feathers, and black fox fur round her
shoulders. She looked, as she was, a very handsome woman.
They were very silent as they drove to the little church. It was a
painful occasion to Miss Lyle. She remembered, as a young woman, how
she had hoped to come to that same church as a bride. Her wedding
day had been fixed and she was within a week of it when the tragedy
occurred that took her fiancé from her.
And Orris began to feel nervous. They found quite a little crowd
collected in the church porch. The carriage which preceded them had
been hired from the inn, and contained Marie and Pippa.
A few minutes later, and Orris and Jock stood side by side, taking part
in one of the most solemn services in the Prayer Book.
Jock was very grave. His erect, stalwart figure evoked open admiration
from some of the village women.
"Ay, he du be a praper man, sure 'nuff. He holds his head like a king!
Vit to wed the dear lady!"
When it was over, and Jock was driving back in the brougham with his
bride, he took her hand in his.
"My greatest moment in my life!" he said. "But oh, sweetheart, what a
nervous opportunity it is! What a comfort to feel we shall never have
to go through it again!"
And Orris's amusement at his speech took away her momentary feeling of
shyness.
They had a pleasant informal meal at the house before departing for the
tiny village in Cornwall where they were going to have a fortnight's
honeymoon. At first they meant to dispense with that, but later Orris
began to think differently.
"It will do you good to get right away from your farm, Jock. Let us
have a complete holiday with nothing to distract us."
And so to Cornwall they went, and Pippa waited impatiently for the time
when she should join them at Pinestones.
It was a lovely day in April when the bride and bridegroom came home.
Pippa and her governess had arrived early in the afternoon, and the
hall was decked with flowers when they appeared.
"Why, you little Elf," said Jock, seizing the child and swinging her up
in his arms, "you've been stealing my flowers."
"They're mine too," cried Pippa joyously. "We all belong to each other.
Aunt Ollie said so."
"Well, if you belong to me, I shall do what I like with you, and I'm
going to lock you in the powder-room for theft! Come along!"
Pippa willingly obeyed. It had needed all her self-control to keep from
entering her favourite room, but she had been strictly forbidden to go
near it. Orris accompanied them, for she knew the secret.
When the door was opened, Pippa gave a gasp, then a shout.
For the little room was furnished now. A thick carpet was underfoot,
and a child's suite of furniture was in it. There was a tiny round
table, a miniature armchair, and two little wooden chairs with
blue velvet cushions upon them. The window was draped with quaint
old-fashioned chintz curtains. Against one side of the wall was the
dolls' house, against the other was a small glass bookcase, holding
children's books. There was a tiny rocking-chair, and a little white
china stove with a miniature oven in it. On a little side table was a
basket-tray, upon which was a pretty china tea-set.
"Well," said Jock, "does it suit Your Highness, wee Elf? It's to be
your own room, and you can shut us all out if you like."
Pippa flung herself into his arms.
"I knewed there would be something lovely, but not half so good as
this. You are the darlingest man in the world, Master Jock!"
"I think, Pippa," said Orris, smiling, "that you must forget that name.
He is Uncle Jock now."
Pippa went round and round the room in ecstasy of delight. She sat in
every chair, she drew them up to the table and spread out the tea-cups
on it, and wanted to have tea there and then. She rocked herself in the
rocking-chair, she looked at all the books, and then ran away to fetch
Miss Raynor to see it all.
Jock and Orris went downstairs and found tea awaiting them in the
drawing-room.
"You know how to give pleasure, Jock," said Orris, as she sat down at
the tea-tray and commenced to pour out tea. "Pippa is a lucky child."
"Not so lucky as I am!" said Jock warmly. "This is what I pictured to
myself over and over again: you and I having tea together in our own
house. It has all come to pass as I told you it would. What do you feel
like?"
"Very much at home," said Orris, laughing.
"Oh, say something nicer than that!"
"What can I say? We won't be always expressing our happiness in words,
Jock. It is too deep for that."
"Yes," he assented more soberly, but letting his eyes travel over her
slowly with radiant content in them; "it is deep and sure and lasting."
Orris could echo his words in her heart. She knew that life would bring
shadows and trials, but she felt she could meet them contentedly if
Jock were by her side.
When their tea was over, she wandered round the house with Jock, and
interviewed the cook, a new importation and a great improvement upon
Mrs. Snow.
Orris was amused at Jock's housewifely qualities. He had got a new
staff of servants alone and unaided, had interviewed them personally,
had told them that he was a stern master but, he hoped, a just one; and
that their mistress was an "angel on earth."
"I shall never keep up my reputation," said Orris, laughing, when Jock
told her this. He assured her gravely that she could not change her
nature.
The room to which they drifted last was the smoking-room. Here on one
side was a new glass bookcase made of dark oak, and on the shelves were
the remnants of the burnt library. Jock had had a few of the volumes
rebound, but, for the most part, the blackened and singed leather
covers remained.
"Now, darling," said Jock, as he opened the door for her to inspect
them, "we must have no sighs or laments for the books that are gone,
only pleasure for those which remain."
Orris smiled at him, but an eager light came into her face as she
fingered some of her treasures. "Oh, Jock, in the winter evenings we
must make ourselves more acquainted with some of these old writers. How
glad I am that so many of them have been saved! No, I won't lament over
the past. I have put it from me."
"That's A 1! And do you know, I have an instinct that had my precious
library remained, I should have found in it a formidable rival. You
were getting absorbed in it. It would not have been pleasant to come
home tired and hungry and find a wife absolutely indifferent to my
needs, deaf to my plaintive voice, entirely buried in her books. You
might have quoted your old philosophers to me all day long, until I
should long to destroy their works. Now you are detached from that
unlucky catalogue making, and have nothing in the world to take off
your thoughts from your lord and husband."
Orris laughed at him.
"I warn you, I mean to lead my own life, and I claim my own
individuality. And you will find me sometimes in this room enjoying
some of the old authors whom I have learnt to love."
"Oh yes," assented Jock; "in my absence you can read as much as you
like, but not when I am home."
"We shan't quarrel," said Orris contentedly. "Your bark is always worse
than your bite, Jock. To hear you sometimes, one would think that you
had a masterful, tyrannical temper, whereas I know to the contrary.
Pippa can twist you round her finger."
Jock's eyes rested on his wife with a tender light in them.
"You and she together will coax the life out of me, but I have a streak
of obstinacy in me."
Then he took his wife out into the garden. The peace and beauty of it
brought stillness and sweetness into their souls. They talked of unseen
things, and watched the sunset from the terrace overlooking the pine
woods.
"Oh, Orris," Jock said, as finally they returned to the house, "at one
time I had lost all interest in this place. But now you are going to
make it into a home, I feel so differently. We'll emanate sunshine and
content on all around—you see if we don't!"
"With God's help, we'll attempt it," was Orris's rejoinder.
Pippa was a happy child at all times, but this arrival at Pinestones,
with the present of the powder-room for her own peculiar domain,
almost turned her head. And when, the next morning, Jock came to the
schoolroom door and said he wanted to introduce her to a little brown
gentleman who was waiting to see her, her eyes nearly started out of
her head.
"Is it anuver surprise?" she asked.
Jock nodded.
"What's he like?" she said in a delighted whisper, as hand in hand with
him she danced down the stairs, eager expectation shining out of her
eyes.
"Well, his hair is too long to please me, and he's rather fat."
"Oh!" screamed Pippa. "Is he a pixie or a brownie?"
"Come and see."
He led her out to the stable, and then she guessed; and she danced up
and down in excitement.
In another moment she was standing by the dearest little brown pony
that she had ever seen. He had come from Exmoor, and his mane and tail
were flowing in the wind. In a moment, she had climbed upon his back.
"What's his name? Is he mine to keep? Can I ride on him whenever I
like?"
"His name must be Pixie, I think. He's absolutely quiet, and a little
boy has been riding him for over a year, so I think he'll carry you
nicely. He is for your very own."
Pippa looked at Jock with unutterable gratitude.
"I do think you're the wonderfullest man in the world," she said,
"better than Father Christmas or a fairy godmother. Can I ride him now?"
"Not without a saddle. In half an hour's time, you shall."
The happy child flew into the house. Miss Raynor saw that lessons
must not be started that first day, so she gave her a full holiday,
and Pippa spent the morning with her pony and the afternoon in her
powder-room.
It took a few days to calm her high spirits and make her willing to
settle down to her lessons again, but Miss Raynor understood her, had a
fund of patience and of humour, and kept her happy.
Two or three days after their return, they had a visit from their
Vicar. Orris thought he looked worn and weary. She asked him if he had
been overworking himself.
He smiled at her.
"There's not much chance of that here. My days are only pleasantly
filled. No, I have had an uncongenial task to do, and I think I have
accomplished it."
"You began it over a month ago," said Jock, looking at him with
interest. "Tell us the result."
"What is it?" asked Orris, scenting a mystery.
Mr. Dane drew a long sigh.
"Well, Mrs. Muir, I have not been at all happy about a certain house
in my parish. You know it. Ivy Towers. I cannot tolerate superstition
in any shape or form. Christians ought to be above it. I heard that
some new tenants were going to take it, so when they came down to
inspect it, I thought it my duty to warn them. Not against the house,
but against the intense credulity and superstition of the villagers.
The power of suggestion is great. I was afraid from what had happened
before that they would soon be driven out of it. And they were most
grateful to me.
"He is one of these invalided officers; she is quite young, and has a
young family. But she besought me to use my powers of exorcism, and in
the end I promised to do this: to live in the house myself for a good
month before they came into it. My good old Susan was willing to come
with me. Mother wanted to pay my married sister a visit, so I let the
Vicarage, and Ivy Towers has been my home for some time now."
"And what have you seen or heard?" questioned Orris. "Is it only the
power of suggestion that has proved so fatal to those who live there?"
Mr. Dane did not reply for a moment or two, then he said slowly:
"Our nerve, even our sight, is not always as reliable as it should be.
But I can assure you with certainty now that the house will harm no one
in future. If evil in the world is strong, God Almighty is stronger. I
laid hold of His strength, and it has not failed me."
"It has been a strain," said Orris, looking at his white face and
hollow eyes.
And Mr. Dane, looking at her with a smile, said:
"'This kind goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting!'"
He would say no more. But as far as Ivy Towers was concerned, the tide
of misfortune was turned. The villagers knew what their Vicar had done,
and expressed their satisfaction.
Major and Mrs. Latimer with their four little boys moved in at once;
they brought their own servants with them, and peace and cheerfulness
reigned there. Pippa was delighted to have small playmates near her,
and she and they met frequently. Ivy Towers was now a home of merry
children. The atmosphere of depression was no more.
In a few weeks' time, Orris had settled down into her new home. She
found her days, like Mr. Dane's, "pleasantly filled."
Jock was out every morning, sometimes away for the whole day, but the
evenings were always spent with his wife.
Orris visited the villagers, helped the Vicar in many of his
organizations, and worked hard in making the Rest Home a success to
those who would use it.
She heard from Venetia, who congratulated her warmly upon her marriage.
"I always knew you would pull it off," she wrote, "you couldn't
withstand his determination to get you; and as it turns out, you have
done remarkably well for yourself. I am still leaving Pippa under
your care. I think she needs English training and education. Perhaps
she will grow up a different stamp to her cosmopolitan mother. But I
haven't given her to you altogether. When you get a family of your own,
you may not want her. And when she gets a young woman, I shall be glad
to have her with me."
Orris showed this to Jock.
"It makes me shiver," she said, "when I think of the day on which I
shall have to hand Pippa over to her mother."
"We'll get her married first," said Jock the optimist.
"Marriage, with you, is a cure for all evils," laughed Orris.
"It's a cure for a good many, as far as girls are concerned," he
retorted; "that is, if they get the right kind of husband who'll look
after them and keep them from follies."
"You're very primitive," Orris said. "Don't you know that the modern
girl will not be managed by anyone, least of all by her husband?"
"I thank God daily that you are not modern," said Jock.
"Even so," Orris said demurely, "I cannot always be managed, Jock."
He laughed.
"Our wills have never clashed yet, and I hope they never will."
Yet only a few days after this conversation, they had their first
disagreement.
CHAPTER XVI
JOCK'S INHERITANCE
MARIE LAING wrote and asked Orris and her husband up to town for a
week. She lived in a small house in Kensington Gore. She told Orris
frankly why she wanted them both.
"You've been married in such a hole-and-corner style that your friends
in town are wondering what your husband is like. And I want them to see
that you have married a gentleman and one who can hold his own with
any. I think it is his due to be recognized by your relatives. I shall
give one or two quiet dinners and invite some of your old friends.
Don't lose sight of us, for I tell you that we expect to be entertained
by you later on. You must not seclude yourself in the country and get
out of touch with civilization."
At first Orris thought she would keep this letter to herself, but she
had been so accustomed to tell Jock everything that she put it into his
hand.
"We can afford to laugh at Marie and her fussiness," she said, "but all
the same, I think we'd better go. I should like to have a week in town."
A dark flush mounted to Jock's cheeks as he read the letter; then he
tossed it back to her.
"I don't see myself being dragged up to town to be shown off like a
tame monkey," he said hotly.
"Oh, Jock, don't be so foolish! I wish I had not shown you the letter.
We can afford to laugh at her. But at the same time, I should like to
accept the invitation."
"Then you can accept it, but don't include me."
"I should not think of going without you."
They were facing each other now. Orris with a worried pleading look in
her eyes, but with determination about her lips; Jock with grim-set
mouth, and shoulders set taut and square, a sign of extreme obstinacy.
"You will not come if I ask you?" Orris said.
"Not if you go down on your knees to me," Jock snapped out.
And then very quietly, without another word, Orris left the room.
She went upstairs to her little sitting-room, and there, sitting in a
low chair by the window, she cupped her chin in her hands and pondered
over the situation.
Jock should not shut her away from her old acquaintances and friends.
It would neither be right nor kind to do so. And it would be wrong to
encourage him to shut himself away from his own kind. He might develop
into a tyrant or a crank. Orris had seen both types amongst country
squires, and she dreaded such a possibility for her husband. She
considered that it was not a question of her own liking, so much as
that it would be bad for both of them if they never left their country
house, and if Jock refused to be friendly with any of her relatives.
Yet how could she compel him to come with her against his will?
An hour passed, and still she sat there. The letter had come by the
evening post. It was the hour that she generally sat with Jock in the
smoking-room, between tea and dinner, but she felt that she could not
go down to-night. She wondered if he would come and seek her, but he
did not. She did not meet him again till dinnertime.
For the first time since their marriage, there was restraint between
them. Orris talked cheerfully of different matters that interested them
both locally, and Jock responded with a slight effort.
She went into the drawing-room afterwards and Jock shut himself up in
the smoking-room.
About ten o'clock, with a weary sigh, Orris put aside the book she had
been trying to read and resolved to go to bed. Then, as she was moving
towards the door, Jock came in.
"We've got to have this out before we go to bed," he said.
"Come and sit down, then," said Orris very quietly.
Jock looked at her sharply.
"You've been crying," he said.
"A few tears," Orris said, striving to keep her lips from quivering.
"You see, Jock, this is my first experience of your anger. And you are
so rarely angry with anyone that I feel it all the more."
Jock stood over her on the hearthrug. He would not sit down.
"I've a raging hot temper when roused," he said; "and I'm proud, and
I won't be made into a puppet and have to talk and dance for the
edification of your cousin Dugald and other empty-headed noodles of his
kin."
"Now, Jock, is that kind or just?"
He was silent. Then he burst forth:
"I wish I did not love you so much. It saps away all my determination
and will." He was down on his knees by her now and his arms were round
her. "Do you want this so much, sweetheart?"
Orris felt inclined to make an unconditional surrender, but her
commonsense and right judgment saved her.
"Jock, dear, when I married you, I never knew that it would entail my
giving up all my relations and friends. We are so sure of each other's
love that jealousy cannot find room in either of our hearts. You know
that I enjoy nothing without you. To go to London so soon after our
marriage and leave you down here would evoke criticism from all I know.
If you love me, make this sacrifice for me. I know your dislike to
town, but it is only for a week. And oh, Jock, my dearest, I will be
frank, I am so proud of my husband that I want my relations to know him
and appreciate him."
"Don't flatter. I'll come with you. I have tackled hard jobs in my life
and this will be the toughest. But I won't have you shed tears on my
account." And he kissed her as if he could not let her go.
Orris said no more, but as they went upstairs together she murmured:
"I hope the next time it will be I that make the sacrifice, and not
you, dearest."
They went to town and nothing happened to mar their visit there. Jock
met two old friends, one—a Colonel Stacy, who had been at Oxford at the
same college with him, and who was a great friend of Marie Laing's.
The other was a Lord Denver, who had recently come into his title and
property, and who had lived for two years with Jock at his farm in New
Zealand. Both were delighted to see Jock again, and Orris was glad that
their friendship had prevented him from feeling dull or lonely.
He did his best to make himself pleasant to his wife's friends, but
after two dinners, three receptions, and two afternoon teas, he told
Orris that he had done his duty and would go out no more.
She and he did a little sight-seeing together, and attended a service
in Westminster Abbey, which Orris loved.
They did not see Reyne, as she was abroad with her mother, and Dugald
had gone over to Paris. He did not wish to see Orris in the company of
her husband.
When the day came for them to leave for home, Jock was as light-hearted
as a boy.
"Give me the country," he said to Marie; "you're all frittering away
your time and spending money like water without having anything to show
for it. I can imagine girls and boys jigging round, but there are men
and women well on the way to seventy who are as keen as the young ones
on amusement."
Marie laughed at him.
"You earnest backwoodsman," she said; "if we make gods of our pleasure,
you make them of your work! We use our brains more than you do.
Agricultural labour exercises muscles, not brains."
"I beg to differ. If you were to drop in to a country inn on market day
and hear a few farmers talking, it would make you sit up and teach you
a bit."
"Oh," said Orris, laughing, "you will never understand each other, so
don't argue any more."
They came home, but before they reached their gates they heard sad
news. Mr. Preston had been carried home unconscious from the fields
with a bad heart attack, and he was sinking fast.
"I must go to them," Jock said; and he went off to the farm at once.
Orris would have liked to accompany him, but she was afraid of
intruding at a time when perhaps wife and husband wanted to be alone
together.
It was late at night before Jock came back. He was very grave.
"He has gone," he said to Orris, when she met him in the hall, "and
I've lost one of my best friends here."
"How is Mrs. Preston?"
"Wonderful, as she always is. I'm glad I went. He knew me—and said
good-bye. And then he took his wife's hand.
"'Twon't be long before you come to me,' he whispered to her.
"And she looked at him with her brave smiling eyes. 'Ask God to make
the time short,' she said.
"And he nodded, and then he murmured: 'A good wife from the Lord.'
"I came away, for Dane arrived, but I waited till his visit was over,
and he came down just as Preston had breathed his last."
Orris's eyes were full of tears.
"I don't know how Mrs. Preston will live without him, but I know she
will be comforted."
It was rather a sad home-coming, but when Orris met Mrs. Preston she
found her resigned and calm.
"It's only a short time," she said; "and I 'know' he's happy, so how
can I mourn?"
Jock had been left executor and trustee. He was over at the farm a
good deal after the funeral had taken place. Mr. Preston had expressed
a wish that Jock should take over the farm and work it with his.
Mrs. Preston had enough to keep on the house and live there. She was
pleased to have Jock still about the place, and he was as tender and
considerate as a son might have been.
A fortnight after their return, Jock and Orris were on the terrace
together. It was a lovely evening. The garden below them was full of
the fragrance of late spring flowers. In the distance, a red sun was
sinking behind the pine woods. Pippa had just left them and gone up to
bed. She had been telling Jock a wonderful Norwegian legend that Miss
Raynor had been relating to her.
"And so," she ended, "the king brought the peasant girl into the palace
and made her his queen. And he made a big feast and told all his people
that God had given her to him, and so she was to be called Queen
Theodora, the gift of God. Did God give Aunt Ollie to you, Uncle Jock?"
"He did, indeed," said Jock, with deep feeling. He sat on silently with
Orris after she had left them.
Orris was gazing at the fair scene in front of her.
"It is a beautiful inheritance, Jock," she said at last.
He looked up at her.
"Yes," he answered. "But you remind me continually that I am only a
steward. The possession which I prize most is beside me. I was thinking
of old Preston's words this morning. I knew they came from the Bible,
so I hunted them up. 'Houses and possessions' we are told, come from
our 'fathers.' A good wife, or a 'prudent,' as it puts it, 'comes from
the Lord.' Pippa was perfectly right in her deduction just now. My
inheritance from men is a matter of indifference to me. My inheritance
from the Lord is my all in all."
And Orris, as she turned to meet his ardent tender gaze, could but pray
that she might never fail or disappoint him.
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