Allan McAulay - Robinetta

“Unquestionably, since the cottage is needed,” answered Mrs. de Tracy. “She has occupied it too long as it is.” The speaker’s lips closed like a vice over the words.

“God pity Elizabeth Prettyman!” ejaculated Lavendar to himself. “Might is Right still, apparently, at Stoke Revel!” Aloud he merely said, “A weak deference to public opinion was never a foible of yours, Mrs. de Tracy; but I think I would advise you to consider some question of compensation to Mrs. Prettyman for the loss of the cottage.”

“If you can show me that the woman has any legal claim upon the estate, I will consider the question, but not otherwise,” said Mrs. de Tracy with such an air of finality that Lavendar was inclined to let the matter drop for the moment.

“The firm,” he said, “will communicate your wishes to Mrs. Prettyman by letter.”

“Prettyman cannot read,” snapped Mrs. de Tracy. “She must be told, and the sooner the better.”

“Well, Mrs. de Tracy,” said the young man with a short laugh, “provided it is not I who have to tell her, well and good. I warn you the task would not be to my taste unless compensation were offered her.”

Mrs. de Tracy’s features hardened to a degree unusual even to her.

“I am apparently less tender-hearted than you,” she said sardonically. “I shall, if I think fit, deal with Prettyman in person.” The subject was dropped, and Lavendar rose to leave the room, but Mrs. de Tracy detained him.

“The Admiral’s niece, Mrs. David Loring, is my guest at present,” she said. “It happens that she has crossed the river to Wittisham and is paying a visit to Prettyman. I should be obliged, Mark, if you would row across and fetch her back, as by some misunderstanding, my servant has not waited for her. You are an oarsman, I know.”

The young man consented with alacrity. “I shall kill two birds with one stone,” he said cheerfully, “I shall visit the famous plum tree cottage and see Mrs. Prettyman for myself; and I shall have the privilege of executing your commission as Mrs. Loring’s escort. It sounds a very agreeable one!”

“You have no time to lose,” said Mrs. de Tracy with a glance at the clock.

Lavendar escaped from the house, where, even in the smoke-room, it seemed unregenerate to light a cigar, and took the path to the shore.

“I wonder if one woman staying in a house full of men would find life as depressing as I do cooped up here under precisely opposite circumstances,” he thought, as he made his way through the little churchyard. “It cannot be the atmosphere of femininity that bores me, however, for Mrs. de Tracy has a strongly masculine flavour and Miss Smeardon is as nearly neuter as a person can be.”

He took a couple of oars from the boat-house as he passed, and going to the little landing stage untied the boat and started for the farther shore.

It was good to feel the water parting under his vigorous strokes and delightful to exert his strength after the hours of stifled irritation at the Manor. It was a bright, calm close of day, when in the rarefied evening air each sound began to acquire the sharpness that marks the hour. He could hear the rush of the waters behind the boat and the voices of the fishers farther up the stream. As he drew up to the bank and took in his oars the stillness was so great that you could have heard a pin fall, when suddenly from a tree above him a bird broke into one little finished song and then was still, as if it had uttered all it wished to say.

“What a heavenly evening!” thought Lavendar, “and what a lovely spot! That must be the cottage just above me. Mrs. de Tracy said I should know it by the plum tree. Ah, there it is!” Tying up the boat he sprang up the steps and walked along the flagged path. The plum tree these last few days had begun to look its fairest. The blossoms did not yet conceal the leaves, but it was a very bower of beauty already. There was a little table spread for tea under its branches, and an old woman like thousands of old women in thousands of cottages all over England, was sitting behind it, precisely as if she had been a coloured illustration in a summer number of an English weekly. She was on the typical bench in the typical attitude, but instead of the typical old man in a clean smock frock who should have occupied the end of the bench, there sat beside her a distinctly lovely young woman. What struck Lavendar was the wealth of colour she brought into the picture: goldy brown hair, brown tweed dress, with a cape of blue cloth slipping off her shoulders, and a brown toque with a pert upstanding quill that seemed to express spirit and pluck, and a merry heart. His quick glance took in the little hands that held the withered old ones. Both heads were bowed and in the brown tweed lap was a child’s shoe,–a wee, worn, fat shoe. Beside it lay an absurd bit of crumpled, tear-soaked embroidery that had been intended to do duty as a handkerchief but had evidently proved quite unseaworthy.

Waddling about on the flags close to the little table was a large fat duck wearing a look of inexpressible greed. “ Quack, quack, quack !” it said, waddling off angrily as Lavendar approached.

At the sound of the duck’s raucous voice both the women looked up.

“Is this Mrs. Prettyman’s cottage, ma’am?” Lavendar asked with his charming smile.

“Yes, sir, ’t is indeed, and who may you be, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

“I’m Mr. Lavendar, Mrs. de Tracy’s lawyer, Mrs. Prettyman. I’m come to do some business at Stoke Revel,” he added, for the old face had clouded over, and Mrs. Prettyman’s whole expression changed to one of timid mistrust. “I really was sent by Mrs. de Tracy,” he went on, turning to Robinette, “to take you home; Mrs. Loring, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I am Mrs. Loring,” she said, frankly holding out her hand to him. “I knew you were expected at Stoke Revel, but I sent the footman back myself. He spoils the scenery and the river altogether.”

“I’ve got a boat down there; Mrs. de Tracy doesn’t quite like your taking the ferry; may I have the honour of rowing you across? My orders were to bring you back as soon as possible.”

“I’m blest if I hurry,” was his unspoken comment as Robinette gaily agreed, and, having bidden good-bye to the old woman, with a quick caress that astonished him a good deal, she laid down the little shoe gently upon the bench, and turned to accompany him to the boat.

The river was like a looking-glass; the air like balm. “We’ll take some time getting across, against the tide,” said Lavendar reflectively, as he resolved that the little voyage should be prolonged to its fullest possible extent. He was not going into the Manor a moment earlier than he could help, when this charming person was sitting opposite to him. So this was Mrs. Loring! How different from the stout middle-aged lady whom Mrs. de Tracy’s words had conjured up when he set out to find her!

“Old Mrs. Prettyman was my mother’s nurse,” Robinette remarked as Lavendar dipped his oars gently into the stream and began to row. “I went to see her feeling quite grown up, and she seemed to consider me still a child; I was feeling about four years old at the moment when you appeared and woke me to the real world again.”

She had dried her eyes now and had pulled her hat down so as to shade her face, but Lavendar could see the traces of her weeping, and the dear little ineffectual rag of a handkerchief was still in one hand.

“What on earth was she crying about?” he thought, as with lowered eyes he rowed very slowly across, only just keeping the boat’s head against the current, and glancing now and then at the young woman.

Was it possible that this lovely person was going to be his fellow-guest in that dull house? “My word! but she’s pretty! and what were the tears about … and the little shoe? Did it belong to a child of her own? Can she be a widow, I wonder,” said Lavendar to himself.