  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover art [image] "I BELIEVE WE ARE GOING STRAIGHT OUT TO SEA." Page PAM BY Illustrated by Gordon Browne, R.I. BLACKIE & SON LIMITED By E. E. Cowper Gill and the Beanstalk. Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow Contents CHAP.
Illustrations PAM AND THE CHAPTER I In which Pam does a Good Deed, Pamela sat among the rocks with her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. In spite of the entrancing loveliness of her surroundings she had been reading with such interest that she had scarcely looked up in an hour. The book now lay face down on another round-topped rock, while Pamela stared at the sea, and thought about the contents of the book. It was spring-time, and in spring Bell Bay was perhaps a thought more perfect than at any other time in the year. The wonderful little horse-shoe of its quiet haven was a jewel of colour in the dark setting of its cliff entrance. The semicircle of the high, rough stone sea-wall above the rock-strewn sands seemed to take on light from the flowering of the tiny rock plants, while the gardens at the Bell House behind that wall were just a mass of greenness and bloom. Outside and above those gardens rose the sides of the valley, towering up into the blue of the clean, clear sky, and melting away into the woods inland. The bay was so small that the Bell House and its grounds filled the centre of it, as it were. There was no room for a "sea-front". No room for another house even--Bell Bay belonged to the Bell House. Farther up the valley was Paramore's--the Temperance Tea Inn--to which parties came in the season by the one narrow road that ran along below the Bell Ridge--on the north side, that was. Farther still up the valley--also on the roadside--stood the tiny church, no bigger than a room, Fuchsia Cottage, where lived Anne Lasarge, and a few more cottages--not enough to make a village--that tailed away to Folly-Ho, a hamlet on the Peterock road. On the south side of the valley--facing the long, grey front of the old Bell House--the woods fringed the heights like a green rampart. Just in one place glimmered the white walls of Crown Hill, the beautiful country place of Sir Marmaduke Shard, K.C. That was all there was of Bell Bay--unless you count Mainsail Cottage, sitting like a gull's nest over the sea on the south headland, and Woodrising, the empty house so long "To Let", buried in dense woods right up at the back of the valley. In the former lived Penberthy--pensioner--who looked after Sir Marmaduke's little yawl--the Messenger. In the latter lived nobody but Mrs. Trewby, a caretaker; a mournful widow afflicted by bilious attacks, and living therefore in a cloud of her own creation. Finally, as a last word in this explanation, the Bell House was the ancestral home of the Romilly family, and Mrs. Romilly was living there with all "the family" except its head, away in command of that first-class battleship Medusa; and her eldest son, Malcolm, who was busy as lieutenant on the destroyer Spite. Now Pamela, already introduced reading a book among the rocks of this miniature haven, was absorbed in a new idea, of which the book was an outward and visible sign. Pamela was by no means a self-constituted martyr, but at the same time she believed herself to be a sort of "odd man out" in the family circle. She was thirteen--not even a long way on the road to fourteen. It must be allowed then that thirteen bore no comparison to Adrian and Christobel, who had reached sixteen and seventeen, or to Hughie, who was but seven. Malcolm, of course, was out of it altogether, being nearly twenty, and at sea. Christobel was the one other girl in a party of five. She was undoubtedly Adrian's chum, and when he was at Harrow her particular friend and companion lived close at hand as a rule--Mollie Shard, that is to say, the only child of Sir Marmaduke and Lady Shard. Mollie was eighteen, Christobel seventeen and a half; Mollie exceptionally clever, Christobel exceptionally in earnest, and tenacious as her father, whom she resembled so closely that in babyhood she had been nicknamed "Jim Crow", being a darker edition of the elder "Jim". Pamela's admiring affection for her one sister never failed, but it must be admitted that the gap between "nearly eighteen" and thirteen is considerable. Moreover, Christobel had been to school, the same school as Mollie Shard. They had left for good together this Easter, and Pamela hugged the thought that she was to share the same rule, going to school next Easter, when she would be fourteen, for four years. At the same term, Hughie would go to a preparatory school, and the reign of Miss Violet Chance, their governess, would be over. That was how the matter stood; also, it was the reason why Pamela studied a Girls' Guide Handbook, with zeal that was seldom present in the case of Arithmetic or French Grammar. Her high aim--her secret ambition--was to become a Girl Guide, a "Silver Fish" with power to wear at least twenty badges on her sleeve, and, by the time she was sixteen, a Patrol Leader. Pamela was bitten deeply by the thought of this wonderful army of girls, who could do practically everything possible for girls to do. But there was no chance of joining in Bell Bay. The nearest corps would be at Peterock, four miles to the north; or Salterne, the big town on the estuary harbour, eight or ten miles to the south. Mrs. Romilly did not know anything about companies and patrols, and did not like the idea of Pam getting mixed up with all sorts of girls. She knew about the ambition, but had asked for it to wait till her anxious daughter should join the school company at Somerton. So there it was. Pamela meanwhile fought with difficulties. She wanted to learn to cook; Mrs. Jeep, who had ruled long years in the kitchen, would not let her. She wished to wash and iron; but Miss Chance thought it was not quite nice for her to associate with Patty Ingles--between maid--who did these things three days a week. It was tiresome, but had to be put up with. Pamela perforce spent her zeal on the book, and on making secret signs whenever opportunity occurred. She tried to fulfil Scout Law, including one good deed every day, and she tried to hide what she was doing from Hughie--which was impossible, as he possessed an uncanny power of seeing everything, no matter how carefully hidden. With intent grey-blue eyes fixed on the distance, Pamela considered life as matters stood. At that moment Miss Chance came up to the sea-wall from the garden, and called her. When she looked round Miss Chance asked questions. It was a way she had, and quite exasperating at times, because she seemed to have a perfect genius for asking questions to which answers were obvious. "Isn't the sand rather damp, Pam dear?" she inquired in an even voice. "I think you ought to be careful about chills now we have so much influenza about. Are you reading? Wouldn't it be better to come up to the garden?" Pamela answered neither of these questions, but she got up, stretched, and shook her skirt. "The others are not back yet, are they?" went on Miss Chance, shading her eyes with a knuckly hand and gazing towards the shining horizon. "Why didn't you go with them, dear?" Pamela said she wanted to read; then she came across the rock-strewn sand towards the rugged steps that led up to a gap in the wall, and as she came certain sentences in "The Knight's Code" repeated themselves:-- "Defend the poor, help them that cannot defend themselves." "Do nothing to hurt or offend anyone." "Perform humble offices with cheerfulness and----" There are certainly moments when fulfilment is not easy---- "When do you suppose they will be back?" asked Miss Chance. Pamela explained that there was a strong tide, and a light wind, but they'd said they would be back by tea-time--meaning six o'clock and solid high tea, not the afternoon variety. "How tiresome!" exclaimed the governess, "I do wish they would hurry." "You can't hurry sailing-boats," suggested Pamela patiently, as she went up the steps. "I should have thought you could put up more sails, dear," said Miss Chance, who had spent none of her valuable time in mastering the intricacies of yachts and their habits, "it really is most annoying!" "They don't know anybody wants them back before ten. I believe they've gone up to Peterock; the tide served--Penberthy said so--besides Salterne is too far; they didn't start till after lunch, you see, there was a lot to do at Crown Hill, Mollie couldn't come before." "Your mother wants a message taken to the station about the stores she expects to-morrow," said Miss Chance, as they walked along the terrace, "they may come to-night by the 9.20 from Salterne. She wants them sent out specially at once, because there is too much, she thinks, for Timothy Batt; besides, his cart won't go to the station again till Saturday." "Did she want Addie to go?" asked Pamela, waking to the situation. Then she continued quickly: "He won't want to go after tea, Miss Chance, he's arranged with Penberthy to do some painting on the yawl." "He must put that off," said Miss Chance firmly. "I'll go to the station--now, before tea," was Pamela's answer, "I cleaned my bicycle this morning. It looks smart enough to go out calling even on the station-master at Five Trees." She said this so gravely that Miss Chance was a little uncertain as to whether she herself was not being laughed at. You could not quite be sure about Pamela, she was rather an inscrutable young person--tall and slim like her lovely mother, with a small face, a square chin, and firmly closing mouth. She owned a distinguishing nose also, very delicately modelled and turning up the least bit in the world. The family alluded to it as a "snub" at times, but there was nothing at all snubby about it, and it was full of character. For the rest, she owned a plaited rope of hair that fell below her waist, brown with more than a hint of red in it. Hughie was like her, but the other three followed rather faithfully in Captain Romilly's pattern, except that Adrian was on the way to be tall--had outgrown his sixteen-year-old strength, in fact, which was no doubt why the influenza fiend had driven him home in term time. "Well," Pamela concluded with a question, "will that do?" Miss Chance thought it would. Mrs. Romilly, finishing letters in a hurry for the 5.30 post, thought it would too. The stores were very important, as Mrs. Jeep was "out" of nearly everything that made life pleasing, and there was no fruit yet in the garden to help out puddings. "Don't tire yourself, darling," murmured Mrs. Romilly, writing an address. "I shan't be back by six o'clock, Mummy--at least most likely not--coming back is easy but going will be uphill most of the way." "So it will." Mrs. Romilly spoke as though this was a new idea. Then she turned her head and smiled at Pamela with serene large blue eyes, "I dare say the Messenger won't be punctual," she said, "so the others will be late, and anyway, dear child, tea can be kept for you, so don't hurry--and thank you so much for going." Pamela wheeled the bicycle up the drive into the narrow road that ran up and up close under a towering hill-side. All along it, hanging over the road, were banks of fuchsia trees--in summer the whole track would be a sheet of fallen fuchsia blossom. She passed the Temperance Inn on her right, then the church upon the height among the fuchsias, and soon after that the little fairy house called "Fuchsia Cottage", where lived Miss Anne Lasarge, the small grey lady called "The Little Pilgrim" by the Romilly family, because she was like a character in a book they loved. Miss Anne had done wonders during the War; she had been out in the devastated regions of France working among the homeless peasants. She had only been back since Christmas. Pamela looked at the cottage as she passed. It was like a lovely toy--an ideal cottage--the atmosphere of Miss Anne made a distinct sense of peace cling to it all the year round. No one was in the garden, no one working on the three little terraces bright with flowers, that rose one above another to the lattice-paned bow window of Miss Anne's sitting-room. Pamela was the least bit disappointed. There was perfect understanding between her and Miss Anne--who possessed a genius for understanding everybody, and everybody's worries. She knew that it was rather lonely to be a middle person in a family--cut off above and below. Pamela vaguely wondered where she was gone to; a natural conclusion being that some one must be ill in one of the farms. Wheeling the bicycle on up the clean even road she left all trace of houses behind and came to the woods at the back of the valley. The road ran between an over-shadowing height on one side, and thick woods on the other--they bridged the centre of the deep to where the southern heights towered up, covered with more woods. Presently a white wall began, and the trees behind it thinned a good deal. The wall was high and had broken glass along the top of it. There was a distinct suggestion of rebuff to an inquiring public. Pamela, looking at it, remembered Kipling's story in which "the invasion of privacy" is spoken of as a danger. In this part of the far west land there did not seem much need for walling yourself in, she thought. Moreover, no one lived at Woodrising but Mrs. Trewby the pessimistic caretaker, and it belonged to Sir Marmaduke, who wanted to let it, and had wanted to let it ever since he bought it before the War. There was the big square board--"To be let un-furnished". There were several boards at different points, but no one took the house. It required much money spent on the inside, and the large pretty gardens were neglected. No one worked in them but Peter Cherry, son of Mrs. Rebecca Cherry, the widow who ran the Temperance house in conjunction with her sister Mrs. Paramore. As Pamela passed the big double gates in the wall, she glanced up at the house behind them. Little could be seen of it but slate roof and chimneys. It was a square, white house of moderate size; not pretty, but comfortable. There was smoke going up from four chimneys. Pamela noticed this as she noticed most things, and deduced from it that Mrs. Trewby was airing the rooms. She also decided that Sir Marmaduke must find the house--still unlet--a great expense. People said he had bought it because he did not want anyone in the valley of an uncongenial kind. He and the Romilly family owned the whole place in present circumstances. A third family--the sort that could afford a house and grounds like Woodrising, might be in the way! That is what people said; no one knew anything actually, because the great K.C. was not a man to confide his affairs to the general public. Pamela, having glanced at the chimneys went on her way still alongside the white wall with glass on its top. She was walking in the road and some impulse caused her to glance back at the gates when she had gone some little distance. She could just see that one of them had opened inwards, and within the opening stood two people in earnest conversation. One was short and slight, the other was tall and leaned on a stick. The short and slight person was Anne Lasarge, her grey cloak and grey bonnet with white strings proved her; the other was Major Hilton Fraser, the invalided army doctor, lodging at Mainsail Cottage, with the Penberthys. He was lame from shell splinters in the thigh; also four years spent in Mesopotamia and front-line dressing-stations in France had left their mark. Major Fraser was the hero of the Romilly family; Pamela could not mistake his figure. The question was: what could he and the Little Pilgrim be at, meeting at Woodrising? She paused to gaze, making sure. Then she went on her way, wondering and interested. Pamela was always interested; some people called her "inquisitive", which is not so pleasant an accusation to have tacked on to one! But she could not help herself, for it was that which her nose stood for, with its delicate, keen lines and sharp outline. Just inquiry and the liveliest intuition. "I daresay they are in love with each other," considered Pamela, reviewing the situation mentally, "they ought to be, they've gone through a lot together, but what has Woodrising to do with it, unless they know somebody who wants to live there!" This seemed to her a reasonable explanation. She decided that he had friends who wished to take the house, and he had asked Miss Anne to come and look at the rooms for him. He might find difficulty in measuring rooms perhaps. All the same he'd better not have depended on Miss Anne for that sort of thing. "I'd sooner be nursed by that angel than any living soul," thought Pamela, "but I don't believe she knows about houses, and paint, and carpets. She's perfectly vague and unpractical about prices. He'd better have asked Miss Chance--or Jim Crow--she'd be better than anybody. I wish he'd marry Jim Crow, then we could keep a hero in the family." Pamela sighed as she decided that there was no hope of this glorious conclusion to friendship. "It's a pity she's too young--but he likes her better than Mollie Shard." She reached the top of the long hill at the back of the valley, and, mounting, began the easier part of the journey--down and up, down and up, over the loveliest scented moorland road--till presently she came in sight of the miniature railway station, looking like a good-sized hen-coop on its platform, and the shining rails stretching away north and south as far as eye could see, until the hills swallowed them. Nobody was in the hen-coop. The booking office was locked. The person who did most things had gone off for some meal. There would be a train from Salterne through to Peterock at 6.45, and then the last one at 9.20. No rush of trains let it be said, as of course the up trains from Peterock did not count in this connection. Pamela sat down on a seat to wait for a human being to appear. She hoped they would not be long, because she was hungry, but she was not in the least dull. She was always looking and thinking--years ago by instinct, nowadays with intention; it was part of the Scout training. She looked once at the shed of the platform opposite, then she shut her eyes and counted mentally how many posts supported it, how many scallops edged the roofing, how advertisements were hung within against the wall behind, and what they were all about. It was good practice. Anything could be used. The great idea, of course, was accuracy, and the power of noticing every detail in the quickest time. Pamela loved doing it, and she did not know yet, of course, that she had a special gift that way. Time passed. At 6.30 a man sauntered into view wiping his mouth. Pamela went to him, and gave her instructions about the cases from London in a concise and definite manner. Then she hurried off to her bicycle, and made speed on the way home. She calculated that she should be back before seven; the sooner the better, because sun had set, and a veil of dusk was falling over the uplands--faint, sweet twilight. Just at that moment the front tyre burst. There was a bit of broken glass on the road. As Pamela picked it up and threw it aside into the heather, she thought of Woodrising and that strongly-guarded wall--quite irrelevant, but better than losing one's temper. It was maddening, but there was nothing to do but walk home--about two miles from where she stood. First, however, she made a try at mending the rent, and it was while she was at work--on what resulted in nothing but a waste of time--that a motor-car passed. It was a large car and strange to Pamela, which was not a surprising thing perhaps, though many cars paid visits in summer to beautiful Bell Bay. The car was showing lights, and hummed past the girl at a good pace, but Pamela took in all details with her usual swift inclusion. Luggage--a good deal. Certainly three people inside, and the window on her side closed. It was a large car, but, she felt certain, a hired one. The driver was no smart chauffeur, and the girl felt certain that no gorgeous private touring-car would have been allowed to carry miscellaneous trunks. It was not the Shards' car. She knew that; it was a huge thing and painted grey; besides, the Shards would have turned off seaward earlier, for Crown Hill was reached by a road that went to Ramsworthy, the other side of the southern heights. This road was the direct route to Bell Bay, and though Peterock could be reached by turning off to the right lower down, any car for that town would have followed a straight line past the station and away northward. Who could be coming to Bell Bay, then, in a big, hired car, laden with luggage, at that hour? Now here was a mystery, and if Pamela could have imagined all that was to come out of it, she would have felt even more thrilled than she did. CHAPTER II Mollie Departs, but Comes Back Pamela failed to make anything of her repairing job, so, after fifteen minutes loss of time, she started off to walk it, wheeling the bicycle, for there was no place on the lonely way where she could leave it. Dusk was now falling in earnest. Pam lighted her little lamp for company and made all speed. She had lost time over the tyre, but felt she was not far from home when the turn to Peterock was reached. From the top of this height now she could see over the long stretch of the Bell Bay valley, and the shimmer of grey sea beyond the trees--just a peep between the great headlands, Bell Ridge on the north above her home, and The Beak on the opposite side of the cove. The evening was so still that the far-off mutter of the everlasting tide on the rocks came up to her. She lifted her head and sniffed the faint salt breath of the wind, and in that instant caught the throb of a motor. She checked and listened. Then went on again quickly. There was no doubt about it, a motor was coming up the long hill, out of the valley shadows. Then it must have gone to Bell Bay, for she was convinced it was the same car. In a minute or two it passed her, going back to Salterne. The same car--big and dark, with powerful lights. The luggage was gone from the top where it had been placed, protected by a low fenced enclosure. Pamela saw all that at a glance, but her attention was centred on the occupant of the car--there must be someone inside there still, because she could see an electric lamp alight within the carriage. She stopped at the roadside, waiting for it, and as it went by fixed all her attention on the person who was reading a newspaper by the light of the brilliant lamp on the wall. She saw the face distinctly--clean shaven, the powerful heavy features so often associated with great lawyers. He was reading intently, and his soft hat was pushed backward from his eyes. Pamela opened her lips in a little gasp of astonishment. The last person in the world she had thought of! [image] SHE SAW THE FACE DISTINCTLY It was Sir Marmaduke Shard. Alone. But he had not been alone when the car passed her the first time. Pamela stared after the receding car till it was lost in the dusk; then she went on again at her best pace, very much surprised, for it would really seem that the great Sir Marmaduke had actually brought someone to Bell Bay, left them behind somewhere, and gone back to Salterne. It really was exciting, because there was nowhere to come to except his own house, and had he been going there he would surely have chosen the direct road. Moreover, to leave again at once, like this! Pamela could find no answer to the riddle. When she reached home, nobody questioned her lateness, because they were all, so to speak, rather busy being low-spirited--a condition that nearly always takes people's attention off others. Poor Adrian was very sorry for himself; very sorry indeed; and there was much excuse for him. It seemed likely that there would be no more sailing in the beloved Messenger. Christobel, on her part, was passionately sorry for Adrian. She understood fully what such a blow meant to him who found more delight in sailing than in anything else in life. Mrs. Romilly was grieving for both of them, but as usual was most absorbed in trying to think of a way out of the wood, and how to substitute something that would do--nearly as well. Finally, there was Miss Violet Chance--nicknamed the "Floweret" in happier moments, by the way--who paralysed Mrs. Romilly's efforts and made matters worse by bright endeavours at dispersing the cloud. "After all," said the Floweret, "what is a yacht? Surely we can find something quite as jolly! What about rounders? Wouldn't it soon be good weather for croquet?" She suggested to Adrian a collection of moths, and asked him where he had put the stamps he had been so proud of the year before last? Adrian said: "I've got them all, thank you, Miss Chance," in a voice that went to Jim Crow's heart, because the suppressed torture in it was so acute. Because, then, this gloomy company was assembled in the drawing-room, Pamela found no one about, and going straight to the dining-room proceeded to make a good tea; and Hughie, hearing her come in, entered on the tips of his toes, sat down at a distance on the big leather sofa, curled up his toes under him--till he looked like a small soapstone "god"--and waited patiently. "Why aren't you in bed?" asked Pamela, as she helped herself to some fresh cocoa brought in for her. "It isn't eight," said Hughie. "My dear child, it's ten past!" "Well," Hughie glanced at the clock unashamed, "they've forgotten me, you see. That's why I came out here, for fear they should remember." "Miss Chance won't forget," warned Pamela with conviction. Hughie set that aside. "They are in a state of miserableness, so nobody is remembering things," he said, "it's rather beastly, Pam, they can't sail the Messenger any more----" "Who can't?" interrupted Pamela sharply, pausing with a glass of potted meat in her hand. "All of them--Mollie, and Jim Crow, and Addie, and the worst is that Addie will be cross most of the time now, which is a fearful pity; he won't help me do my rigging, because it will remind him of the yawl. It's most unlucky for everybody." "Why can't they sail the Messenger any more?" asked Pamela, going on with her supper. The thought flashed through her mind that the sudden and brief appearance of Sir Marmaduke was going to be explained simply. "Because the gardens at Crown Hill are in a mess," Hughie went on with slow emphasis, "they are in a fearful mess, and everything is growing too fast, and Mr. Jordan can't do it, and there aren't any men, because they're mostly dead in the War. Miss Ashington says Penberthy has got to go in the gardens the whole while. Not a minute on the sea--and you know they can't go without Penberthy, Sir Marmaduke won't let them." "Beastly hard luck," said Pamela firmly. "I expect it's Fate," Hughie suggested thoughtfully. "Why can't they have Peter Cherry from Woodrising?" said Pamela, ignoring fate. "It isn't any good asking me," answered Hughie, "because, how can I tell? But anyway Woodrising is simply bursting with weeds, and the more there are, the more they come. He must stay and pull them out, and plant greens for Mrs. Trewby. She eats greens, she told Mrs. Jeep she has to. He can't possibly go to Crown Hill, and Miss Ashington is worried about the garden, Mollie says she is." The door opened and Miss Chance looked round the edge of it. "Ah, there you are, little runaway!" she said with her usual sprightliness, "I've found you." "I wasn't lost, Miss Chance. I was only talking to Pam," remarked the little runaway, letting himself drop over the back of the sofa in an ingenious and complicated manner. Miss Chance turned her attention to Pamela. "You've come back, dear," she suggested, "I hope it's all right about the Stores' cases; Mrs. Jeep will be so glad to have them." Pamela explained her accident, mentioned that she had been obliged to walk back, and gave the message from Five Trees, namely, that the cases had not come, but should be sent on at once when they did. She added that she was just going in to tell her mother. She said everything she could think of to forestall the inevitable questions, and good Miss Chance swept Hughie away to bed, remarking that it was late, but that the days were getting longer, and the summer would soon be here. "That's what will make it harder for poor old Addie, about the yawl," thought Pamela, as she got up from the table, and departed for the scene of woe. She was very glad that Hughie's information had "put her wise", as the folk of the far west say--it would have been so galling for Adrian if she had plunged in, and asked what the matter was to start off with. That was Pam's way of looking at it. So she gave the story of her mishap; said she would have to send the bicycle to Salterne, it must go in on Saturday by Timothy Batt's cart; gave her message about the stores, and made talk of a mildly distracting nature. Adrian was gloomily turning a magazine; he looked up. "It's all knocked on the head about our sailing, Pam," he said, "pretty rotten! Fancy having to see the old Messenger moored out there the whole blessed summer, and have nothing but our dinghy to go out in! It's enough to make a person of sense commit suicide." "Hughie told me something when I got in," said Pamela with sympathy, "I was awfully sorry; he said Penberthy is wanted at Crown Hill. Of course the gardens are too much for Jordan--there used to be three men." Adrian muttered something biting about gardens generally. Christobel broke in. "Mollie told us--she is most horribly disappointed herself--it cuts off her fun too, but she says the gardens must come first, as Lady Shard hates seeing things go--as they are; and men are so scarce, they want every creature they can get on the farms, of course. Oh dear, I wish one could get at Sir Marmaduke, he's always nice about the yawl." "Why don't you ask him yourself?" suggested Pamela. Both the others began to answer together in their eagerness; then Christobel dropped out, and Adrian went on. "How can we, my good child? We can't exactly write letters to him asking him to hand over his yawl to us! As for talking, we shan't meet till goodness knows when--August at earliest." Pamela suggested cautiously that Sir Marmaduke usually came for week-ends in the summer. "Well, he may have, once in a way," allowed Adrian gloomily, "but he won't do it this year. Not a dreg of hope. He hasn't been down, and he's not coming. Government has put him on one of these hundred and fifty thousand commissions about miners' bath-rooms, or railway men's sofa cushions! It makes one ill. I wish the whole lot were at the bottom of Vesuvius. We can burn wood, and drive coaches, and go back to decent life. Anyway there it is. We can't get at Sir Marmaduke. Penberthy has got to do gardening----" his voice ceased in a sigh that was a positive groan. "One would almost think you three--I mean Mollie and Crow and you--would do as well without Penberthy," said Pamela, "Penberthy does nothing ever but talk, does he? Mollie is as good as any man, she's pretty well trained her muscles on the land--and all that----" this was an allusion to the heroic efforts of Miss Shard on the Ensors' farm at Hawksdown during the holidays of two war years at least. "Of course she could, Pam," Christobel interrupted hastily, noting Adrian's rising irritation, "but you see Mollie won't be here either." "Mollie not here!" Pamela's face of startled dismay was satisfactory to the distressed pair. "You see," said Adrian, "things have pretty well tumbled about our ears this afternoon! Well, the bottom has been knocked out of the whole show." Pamela looked from one to the other, she did not ask another question, but her expression did, so Christobel answered: "Mollie is going up to town this week-end to see her mother about crowds of things. She believes they've taken a cottage on the river just for--well, airing themselves. Mollie says Crown Hill is too far to come for week-ends; it is a long way, we know. If they have a cottage they can live out of London, and he can go up--I mean Sir Marmaduke can; he can't get down here, Mollie says--not yet anyway. The only person who will be here much will be Miss Ashington, and she'll look after things for Lady Shard, who says she can't possibly live here and leave Sir Marmaduke in London; besides she wants to present Mollie." "Present Mollie!" echoed Pamela with awe. The world was simply changing swiftly. Mrs. Romilly folded the paper she was reading, and said in her even, restful voice. "I should have liked to have presented Crow at the same garden-party as Mollie, but it isn't convenient this year, so we must wait till next summer." "When Hughie and I are at school," suggested Pamela, a little smile quivering round her firm lips. Her mother's eyes smiled back sympathy. "It's unlucky for Mollie and Crow not to be together," she said, "but of course Lady Shard wants Mollie and of course she can't leave Sir Marmaduke alone, so we others must e'en put up with it all. Something will turn up presently. I feel it in my bones," said Mrs. Romilly, "and meanwhile don't let's cross bridges before we come to them. I know nothing will be as bad as one fears, it never is." She looked at Adrian, who made no response. "Let's hope," said Crow. "Has Mollie gone?" asked Pamela, suddenly thinking of an explanation for the motor-car. She put her foot in it, of course. "My good girl, do have a grain of sense," begged Adrian, "how could she be gone, when she was out on the Messenger with us till nearly seven o'clock?" "She goes to-morrow," explained Christobel, "not finally of course. She comes back about Tuesday--she's got to pack and take up things Lady Shard wants, you see. Then she'll go for good--I mean for about six weeks--after that." Pamela made no comment. She was trying to fit that car piled with luggage into this sudden development of Bell Bay doings. Hitherto, the great K.C. and his wife had been to and fro constantly winter as well as summer. Miss Ashington--commonly called "Auntie A.", as her name was Adelaide Ashington--had been in residence nearly always. She was Lady Shard's sister, and a person positively made up of schemes--which never seemed to come off, and were, as a rule, dropped in favour of something more arresting. At present, the farming problem was her hobby, and she was full of an idea for milking cows once a day at eleven o'clock in the morning, so that land-girls need not get up so early, and farmers could do with less labour. The trouble, though, seemed to be that the cows would not agree to this excellent plan. However, Auntie A. did not despair of bringing them also to a sense of duty, and meanwhile she stayed at Crown Hill doing no one any harm, which was something to be thankful for. It appeared then a settled question that the Shards would not come to Bell Bay until summer was well nigh through. Penberthy would no longer be available, and the lovely yacht would be on her moorings--useless to the Romilly party. It certainly was a sorrowful outlook for Adrian. As Christobel said afterwards to Pamela: "If Addie had never been able to use the yawl almost like his own it wouldn't have mattered." But he had; and of course nothing could make up for it. Pamela thought that week-end was one of the most dismal she had ever spent. Indeed it was so gloomy that she forgot about the motor-car mystery and surprising visit of Sir Marmaduke; all her mind and efforts--hers and Crow's--were spent in trying to devise a new and interesting way of passing time. Mrs. Romilly was willing to fall in with any plan, even to the extent of hiring a sailing-boat of a size suitable. She was ready to suppress her own feelings in the matter--they would have been distinctly anxious--and let Adrian go to Salterne and find something; an open boat with a sail. However, on Monday, Adrian, as his manner was, shook himself free of this weight of care and announced that no one was to bother about him and his needs. The dinghy--which was bigger than the average dinghy carried by an eight-ton yacht, and which belonged to the Romillys--would do well enough for fishing, he said. And for the rest, he had made various appointments with John Badger of Champles--the farm on the Down above Bell House--connected with rats and young rabbits. "Besides the lawn must be kept decent," he concluded; which was his way of saying that the ancient gardener, "Hennery" Doe, could not be left to bear what Mrs. Jeep called "the blunt" of the Bell House gardens. So content was restored, and Mrs. Romilly wrote to her husband that "the children were perfectly sweet"; they were certainly of the kind that has a sense of responsibility very much awake. On that day--Monday--Miss Lasarge came down to the Bell House, stayed to tea, and was a joy to everybody--especially Hughie, who adored her--but it struck Pamela that she was a little less talkative than usual; perhaps even a little absent-minded. She went away early and said she had gardening to do. Nobody noticed this but Pam, and she, sitting at her window in the evening looking straight across the sea-wall, the rocks, and the tide rippling out over the golden sand, decided that the Little Pilgrim was in love with Major Fraser. "Why don't people settle things comfortably and be done with it," thought Pamela vexedly. "They are both nice, and they could live at Fuchsia Cottage." On Tuesday morning, so early as the nine-o'clock breakfast hour, came a surprise. It had been raining in the night, and was still drizzling, with an inclination to clear up, when Mollie Shard burst upon the scene in an atmosphere of wet wind and scent of salt. She had not had breakfast. It appeared that Auntie A. was not down, and as Miss Shard had something to communicate that refused to be kept back till conventional hours she had left Crown Hill, in a "trench" coat and no hat, racing down to the Bell House to see her friends, and tell her tale. Everybody was down and beginning, except Pamela, and the conversation was a perfect rattle of questions and answers. "Suppose," said Mrs. Romilly, "you let Mollie tell us what she has been doing." Mollie explained that what she had been doing was entirely uninteresting. It was only what she expected--a little house on the river near Weybridge. "Yes, the usual little cottagey thing--with a lawn." Mollie liked it, and anyway it had to be because Dad couldn't leave London for ages. "It'll have to be put up with," said Mollie, "one must look forward to better times," but it seemed that was not the matter that was causing all this bubble of excitement and beam of smiles. "Addie, I've got a message for you and Crow from Dad. Very special. You can have the Messenger to play with, till he wants her." "We can!" gasped Christobel. Adrian murmured "My hat!" and flushed red all over his tanned face. "Yes. That's why I came bursting down, because why shouldn't we go out to-day? Do let's. I've got to do reams of packing, and I'm vowed to go back with the goods, next Monday. Mother lets me off till Monday. Well, anyway Dad says he sees that Crow and Adrian can manage the yawl just as well as he can, and he trusts her to you--only he says if you wreck her you'll have to give him another--that's all. Of course he knows Penberthy isn't vital. Especially when he has lumbago. She's not a heavy boat, and yawls are awfully convenient, Mrs. Romilly--aren't they, Addie?" "Rather," agreed Adrian ecstatically; his hands shook a little with the thrill of the moment. Crow's grey eyes, so like her father's, seemed to shine with an inner light. "Well, then, that's all settled. No, don't thank. Dad hates Messenger being on the moorings, just wasting. Hullo, here's Pamela, just in time to join in this jubilee. I say, Pam, why didn't you stop when I called you?" Pamela slipped into her chair, took an egg, realized the amazing news from a few words of Crow's, looked from her mother's happy face to Adrian's, then attended to Mollie's question. "How do you mean--'stop'--stop when?" "Why, just now--when I was coming down the bay drive from Crown Hill, I was nearly at the end lodge, and you came down the road from Hawksdown, went to the edge of the cliff above Penberthy's and stared down into the cove. I called out to you, but you wouldn't answer, you must have heard." Everybody looked at Pamela, who went on eating her egg slowly. "It was my wraith," she said, "it wasn't me." "Jolly solid wraith," declared Mollie, laughing. "Well, but where did I go?" demanded Pamela, half laughing. "I mean, where did you think I went?" "Don't know, my dear; I lost sight of you. It's for you to say where you went." Pamela shook her head, and helped herself to marmalade. "Well, it wasn't me," she repeated. "'I', Pamela dear, 'I', please," put in Miss Chance urgently. And everybody laughed. |
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