Dick and Jerry arrived on the following morning in rampageous spirits. To get away from hot and dusty London to the cool, green country, from the discipline and restrictions of school to the benevolent and generous rule of Grannie's household, from plain bread-and-butter, stews, and solid puddings, to Martha's delicious scones and unlimited strawberries and cream—was enough to make any thirteen-year-old schoolboy radiantly cheerful. There was plenty to do at Chauncery, too; a first-class tennis-court and an aunt who played for her county; excellent golf and the same aunt nearly as good at golf as she was at tennis; a pony to be ridden or driven, several dogs and a new litter of puppies, and last but not least, Mollie, and the mystery of the Time-travellers to be talked over.
"Here we are, Grannie," Dick exclaimed superfluously, running up the front steps to where Grannie stood with a smile of welcome on her beaming face. "And jolly glad to be here, you bet your best Sunday bonnet. London is like a baker's oven. You look very fit, Grannie, and Jerry says Aunt Mary is too young to be my aunt; I believe he is spoons on her already—what ho! my Uncle Jerry! Come and be introduced." Dick gave Jerry's arm a tug, and Young Outram shook hands with a smile that won Grannie's heart at once.
Mollie had limped out of the morning-room with the help of a stout crook-handled stick. Dick gave her a brotherly peck, and Jerry looked at her commiseratingly. It was rather difficult to reconcile this pale, limping Mollie with the active young Time-traveller of yesterday.
"You're looking a bit like a mashed potato," Dick remarked critically. "You've been shut up in the house too much. It's time we came and hauled you out. I'll tell you what, Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle, we'll take her out for a drive in the trap this afternoon."
"We'll see," said Aunt Mary. "I am afraid you are too fresh, Dick. You might tumble her out in the exuberance of your spirits. Besides, it is going to rain—it is drizzling already."
"Pouf!" said Dick lightly. "What's a little rain! A little soft, wet rain will do her good. And Long John seems to have been eating his fat head off; he played no end of jinks coming along just now. I'll take him round to the stables—I want to see the puppies. Hop in, Moll. We'll bring you back in a queen's chair."
But Grannie insisted upon some light refreshment first. She was sure the boys must be exhausted after their two hours' journey from town. "And the best way to fight measles is to feed you up," she said, leading the way to the dining-room, where strawberries, cherries, biscuits, and a jug of creamy milk stood invitingly upon the table.
The boys consented to the feeding-up process without a murmur. When the plates were all empty they departed on a round of visits to the stable, tennis-court, tool-shed, and other haunts dear to the heart of boy. Aunt Mary firmly refused to allow Mollie to accompany them, even in the queen's chair they offered.
"You are tired already," she said to her niece, "and if you want to go for that drive this afternoon you must certainly rest first. Back to your sofa, Miss Mollie—away with you!"
So Mollie rested, with a book in her lap and her thoughts by turns far away and near home.
Later on she was carefully helped into the little governess-cart, with a list of messages to be done in the village, and another list of extravagant promises from the boys of the amazing benefits she was to derive from her outing with them. Long John had got over his first fine raptures, and was now willing to jog along the sweet country lanes at a steady and sober pace, suitable for the invalid he carried behind him.
"How jolly nice it does look after London," Jerry remarked, as a long branch of honeysuckle swept his cap on to the floor of the trap, where he let it lie unconcernedly. "After all—there's no place like old England. For looks, anyhow."
"Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground—in a fair ground— Yea, Sussex by the sea,"
Mollie quoted, as they came to a standstill at the top of a long incline. In the distance they saw the sea gleaming somewhat greyly under a brief spell of sunshine. All around them the trees and hedges sparkled with raindrops, green and cool and wet.
"They look like green diamonds," said Dick, letting his cap drop beside Jerry's and allowing the reins to fall loosely on Long John's back, as the pony edged to the side of the road and began to nibble the grass. "Rather different from the gold-diggings, isn't it?"
This remark set the ball rolling. "What do you think it was?" Mollie began.
"Blessed if I know," Dick answered, with a shake of his head, "blue magic of some sort. Unless we all dreamt it."
"No, it wasn't a dream," said Jerry thoughtfully. "It was simply psychical phenomena. I've heard of things just as queer. Awfully funny things happen in India. And look at the 'phantom armies' in France."
"Rot," said Dick briefly. "I think it was a kink in Mollie's brain, and she passed it on to me. We do, sometimes. Mother says all twins do. And your silly head was as empty as usual and you psychicked it from me."
"Rot," said Jerry, with as much decision as Dick. "I saw the blooming parrot as soon as you did, if not sooner."
"It wasn't rot," Mollie said decidedly; "whatever it was it wasn't rot. I think—" she paused for a moment to consider her words—"I believe it may have been just what Prue said it was. We travelled back in Time. It sounds impossible, but if you come to think of it lots of things that happen now would have sounded impossible to those children, or at any rate to Papa and Mamma. If Alice in Wonderland could have seen forty years ahead she would have found it quite easy to believe six impossible things before breakfast. There's submarines for one, and flying, and wireless, especially telephones, and the cinema. If we could have taken the Campbells to a moving picture of a submarine submerging, with aeroplanes flying round, and a lecture wirelessed from America coming out of a gramophone, and the music done with a piano-player, Time-travelling would not have seemed much more wonderful to them."
Dick shook his head again. "It's different," he said. "All those things might have seemed very wonderful and almost impossible, but they weren't quite impossible. Time-travelling is."
"But we've done it," said Mollie.
Nobody answered. There did not appear to be an answer to that statement.
"Have you ever heard," Mollie said at last, speaking slowly and looking at the boys with solemn eyes, "of a thing called Einstein's Theory of Relatittey—I mean Rela_tiv_ity—Rel-a-tiv-ity?"
"Old Bibs jawed us about it one day," Dick answered, "but he said no one could understand it except the chap himself and not always him. So he didn't expect us to, which was a good job for everybody."
"That's what Aunt Mary said; I heard her talking. That's why I read about it, because I'm fairly good at maths. She has it all pasted in a book. I had to skip most of it, but here and there I found bits. I took some notes," Mollie drew a penny notebook from her pocket. "One man says that, if the world travelled as fast as light, there would be no Time. All the clocks would stop, and we'd be There as soon as we were Here. Well now, that's just what we did. We were Here—and we were There. So our time stopped and Now was Then. See?"
"He says If. You couldn't live without Time. You must have Time to do things in or where would you be? You'd have to swallow all the meals of your life at one mouthful and you'd bust. What comes next?"
"Another man says," Mollie read impressively, "that any schoolboy—any schoolboy," she repeated, fixing a stern eye upon her brother, "can see that, if the velocity of light has a given value with reference to the fixed stars, it cannot have the same value with reference to its source when this is moved relatively to the stars."
"Gee-whiz!" said Dick. "Next, please."
"A man says that perhaps things measured north and south are different from things measured east and west. We travelled north and south. Perhaps we stretched back in Time all of a sudden, like elastic."
"Couldn't be done. Elastic stretches both ways. If you tried to move north and south both at the same time you'd go off like a Christmas cracker. Next."
"A man says that our ideas of space and time may be all wrong."
"Aunt Polly will agree with him if we stand here much longer," said Dick. "Next. Hurry up."
"You don't stop to think," Mollie said impatiently. "Try and think. Your head might just as well be a football. What I think is that if two un-understandable things are discovered about the same time they must belong to each other. Don't you see that?"
"They might," Dick said cautiously, "and then again they mightn't. I don't think myself that there's any use trying to understand things like Time-travelling and Relativity. People like us never will."
"I don't know that," said Jerry, who had been listening to the discussion in silence.
"There's lots of things just as hard to understand, only you take them for granted. Being alive, for instance. Look at Mollie fidgeting about, and Long John chewing and twitching, and the trees waving their branches, and you shaking your head as if it were a dinner-bell, which is about what it is—it's all life. Just as hard to understand as Relativity, and a jolly sight harder if you ask me. I can't say I understand Time-travelling, but—" Jerry broke off.
Mollie frowned thoughtfully. "We don't understand it yet," she said, "but in another forty years—"
They were all silent. Another forty years!
"We'll be fifty-three," Dick said at last. "A jolly funny looking lot we'll be. All sitting round staring at each other through specs, with white hair and no teeth worth mentioning. I'll have an ear-trumpet, and Mollie will wear a cap like Grannie's, and Jerry will be a blithering old idiot saying, 'Hey!' like General Dyson-Polks."
They had to laugh at this picture of themselves, and then Mollie began at the beginning and told the story of Prue's first visit. The boys were deeply interested. Their own experiences had merely been a repetition of the first—Hugh had appeared and, like the gentleman who dealt in Relativity, they were Here and they were There. "It has taught us something about Australia anyhow," said Dick; "that is, of course, if we saw the real thing. The next thing is to find out whether we did or if the whole show was just bunkum."
"What I should like to know," said Jerry reflectively, "is who the Campbells were, and how they got mixed up with your lot. They must have at some time, or your people wouldn't have those photographs."
Mollie smiled. She knew how they and the Campbells had got "mixed up", but she had never told the boys of her discovery; it was a little secret between her and a certain photograph that smiled down at her from the morning-room mantelpiece. She liked to think how the original would have laughed along with her.
"What I should like to know," said Dick, "is what that chap O'Rourke was doing in that field. What was his mysterious experiment, and how did Hugh's stone cut into it? That's what I want to know, and I don't suppose I ever will, now. I don't think we'll go back, not at present anyway. The show's over for this time. In fact I don't want to go; I'm too jolly well pleased to be where I am. Gee-up, you lazy brute,"—this to Long John, who apparently thought he had done enough work for one day and was nosing about the soft grass with contemptuous disregard for his passengers. He moved on unwillingly, and Dick took him briskly downhill.
In the village there were old friends to be greeted, and many inquiries for Mollie's ankle to be answered. Fresh crusty loaves were brought out by the baker, loosely wrapped in soft paper, and packed away under the seats. A large box, containing a peculiarly delicious make of sponge cake, was set on Mollie's lap, and a blue paper bag of sifted sugar was entrusted to Jerry's special care by a misguided grocer. Dick had a golf-club needing attention, which entailed a long and intimate conversation with the local carpenter, who was also a well-known local golfer, and the best hand at repairing clubs, Dick was convinced, in the whole of Great Britain.
It was getting on towards tea-time when Long John's head was at last turned homewards, and his feet covered the ground with cheerful and approving swiftness. A drizzle of rain fell, "Just enough to save us the trouble of washing for tea," Dick commented. "Do you think our white aunt can be induced to come and play golf after tea, Moll, or is she afraid of rain?"
"Good gracious, no," Mollie replied. "Aunt Mary goes out in all the weathers ever invented. She will love a round of golf; she hasn't played since I sprained my ankle. I wish I could come too. I wonder if I could hop round with my stick and look on. I do love to watch Aunt Mary drive; I learnt a lot from her last week before I sprained my ankle in that idiotic way."
The boys negatived this proposal. "You'd get a ball in the eye to finish you up with," Dick said. "We'll plan some picnics till you are better, and explore the country a bit and knock some fat off this animal—hullo!—what's that?"
A sudden twist in the narrow road had brought into view a motor bicycle, leaning dejectedly against the hedge, whilst its owner squatted beside it and tinkered at its mechanism—tinkered in vain apparently, for, as the boys drew up beside him to offer assistance, he rose to his feet and shook his head hopelessly.
"Can we help you?" Dick asked, eyeing the bicycle with interest. "I'm afraid we've got no tools here, but there is a smithy about a mile farther on and the chap there has a motor bike, so I expect he could lend you a hand."
"Thank you very much," replied the stranger, looking relieved. "I'll shove her along there and leave her. I am much afraid she's gone altogether phut for the time being, and will have to be trundled back to town by rail. Can you tell me if I am anywhere near a place called Chauncery?"
"Rather," Dick answered, with a grin. "That's our place. It's about half a mile up the next turning to the left."
"Indeed!" said the stranger, looking somewhat surprised and slightly dismayed; "I understood that it was occupied by Mrs. and Miss Gordon, not by anyone with chil—young people," he corrected himself hastily.
"So it is. But at present they've got us, owing to circs. We are Mrs. Gordon's grandchildren."
"Oh—I see! I hope that Mrs. and Miss Gordon are in good health?"
"Pretty bobbish, thank you," Dick was answering when Mollie interrupted:
"Can we give you a lift? We are on our way home, and I am sure it is going to rain hard presently."
"That is a very kind offer," the motorist replied gratefully, "and I wish I could accept it, as I am a trifle lame; but I can't very well leave my machine lying derelict by the roadside, and I fear that your hospitality cannot be extended to the old bus, I thought perhaps—if you would be so very kind—you might drop a message at the smithy you mentioned, and I will wait here until they send someone along."
But the word "lame" had roused all Mollie's sympathy. "How lame are you?" she asked. "Is it a wound? I am lame too—only a sprained ankle, but I should hate to walk from here to Chauncery."
"Of course you couldn't," the motorist said kindly. "I am not so bad as that. My wound healed long ago, but it has left rather a crocky foot behind. I could manage well enough, however, if someone from the smithy would come and push the bike."
"Tell you what," Dick suggested; "if you hop in and look after Mollie, Jerry and I will push the bike to the smithy; we'll be after you in two jiffs."
The stranger looked at Dick with a smile and a slight lift of his eyebrows. "You are very trusting, young man. Supposing I run away with the pony and the cart and the sister? What will you do then?"
"Stick to the bike," Dick answered promptly, "I have been wanting one most frightfully badly, and Father says I might as well ask him to give me the Isle of Wight. Besides—you said you knew Grannie and Aunt Mary."
"Well, I happen to be quite a safe person, so you're all right this time, but it wouldn't always do, you know," and the stranger gave his head a warning shake. "You are exceedingly kind. I only fear it would be rather a heavy job for you."
But this the boys denied strenuously. "If we stick, one of us will go and collect young Simpson and the other will watch the bike; but we'll be as right as rain—and we'd better hurry up." Dick left the trap as he spoke by the simple means of dropping over the side, and Jerry followed his example.
"I had better give you my name for Mr.—Simpson, did you say?—Major Campbell—Hugh Campbell."
There was a dead silence. If the stranger had said "George the Fifth of England" he could not have produced more effect. All three stared at him with their mouths open. "What's the matter with that?" he asked. "It's a very respectable name, and it really does belong to me. Perhaps I should give you my card." He put his hand in his breastpocket.
"Oh no," Mollie said rather breathlessly. "No—please don't mind—it's quite all right, only—you look so young."
"So what?" exclaimed Major Campbell, standing stock still with his hand in his pocket.
"I mean," Mollie explained nervously, "I mean—" looking at the boys for help, but in vain, "I—you—so young to be a friend of Grannie's" she ended feebly.
"You're a goose, Moll," Dick broke in. "We once knew a Hugh Campbell, but it was years and years ago, and he was ever so much younger than you—he was my age—and there must be thousands of Hugh Campbells."
"Years and years ago! Your age! And she says I look too young!" repeated Major Campbell in pardonable bewilderment. "How old do I look—five perhaps?"
Mollie blushed, and the boys giggled. "Look here," said Dick, "if we stand here till midnight discussing Major Campbell's age we won't get home to tea, and then Aunt Mary will send out a search party, and we'll look pretty asinine. Long John's getting baity, he'll bolt in a minute. Take the reins, Mollie. Don't eat all the strawberries, and tell Aunt Mary that cherry jam is my fancy. Come on, Young Outram."
Major Campbell saw the boys start before taking the reins from Mollie. Long John gave his head an impatient toss, and set off with the determination that he would not stop again for anybody till he was in sight of his stable.
A hundred thoughts chased each other through Mollie's mind. Of course this could not possibly be that Hugh Campbell. It would be altogether too queer. And yet—after all, nothing could be much queerer than the experience they had already had. Putting one thing and another together it did seem to be more than a coincidence that a Hugh Campbell should be on his way to see someone who had a green diamond set in a ring given to her "long, long ago". She stole a look at her companion as he sat opposite her, his eyes fixed on the road ahead and his thoughts obviously elsewhere. Hugh the inventor had not passed even thirteen years without gathering various little mementoes of his inventions in the shape of scars here and there, and these had not escaped the sharp observation of Mollie, the Girl Guide. There had been a tiny gap in his left eyebrow, the result of inventing a new pattern of firework—a crooked little finger on his left hand—a funny star-shaped mark on his right jaw. Some of these and other remembered marks might have been obliterated by time, but if even one remained she would recognize it. He had removed his hat and disclosed a head of closely cropped grey hair, which made him look older. Yes—there was the gap in his eyebrow and the crooked finger. Mollie felt certain that this was indeed the inventor.
"Have you ever been in Dublin?" she asked abruptly, forgetting for the moment that asking questions was forbidden.
"In Dublin?" echoed Major Campbell, bringing his eyes and his thoughts from the winding road and concentrating both upon Mollie. "Are you a thought-reader, Miss Mollie? For I was thinking of Dublin at that very moment. Yes, I have been there. Indeed, it was there that I first met Miss Gordon, at a ball at Dublin Castle. I was visiting some people she knew, and later on she joined us. My sisters were over here at that time too. Has Miss Gordon ever mentioned the O'Rourkes to you?"
"Yes," said Mollie, feeling absolutely giddy with excitement, "that is, no—not exactly——" she felt very confused—"I mean—was there a Desmond O'Rourke?"
"That's right," said Major Campbell, nodding his grey head, and apparently too wrapped up in his own memories to notice Mollie's confused answer. "Good old Desmond! Of course he was home then too. Dublin was a very different place in those days, and we had what you youngsters would call the time of our lives. It was a long time ago—long, long ago." He sighed, and his thoughts evidently wandered away again from his agitated little companion, which Mollie felt was a good thing, as, if he had been observing her closely, he would certainly have thought that the poor child was "not quite on the spot".
She was now quite convinced that this was really Hugh, the brother of Prudence and Grizzel. He showed no signs of remembering her, but, of course, she said to herself, what was only yesterday to her was forty years ago to this elderly man—and, besides, perhaps the Time-travelling was all hers and Prue's and he was never really in it at all. "Like Alice in the Red King's dream," she thought vaguely. She felt sure, too, that it was he who had given Aunt Mary the green diamond long ago, though why he had never married her was past Mollie's power of understanding. Grown-up people did—and left undone—the most incomprehensible things. In the meantime she felt that she would like to give her aunt some sort of warning of the surprise in store, otherwise Aunt Mary might be too much surprised. Mollie herself hated with all her might and main showing her feelings before people—but how to prepare Aunt Mary! That was the difficulty. She put all her Guiding wits to work, but nothing feasible suggested itself. There was no boy to send ahead with a message, and, of course, she could not send Major Campbell himself. How on earth could she get even the slightest warning conveyed.
The had begun to climb the hill which led to Chauncery gate; Long John's enthusiasm cooled a little, and he dropped into a jogging zigzag walk. Major Campbell was looking about him with interest, "Just the way I did," Mollie thought—and then the idea came.
"I'm going to signal to Aunt Mary that we are nearly home," she warned her companion, "so that she'll have tea ready," and, putting her hands to her mouth, she gave a long, shrill "cooo-eeeee!" "Now," she said to herself, "that should remind her of Australia and Desmond O'Rourke and green diamonds."
But Mollie's brilliant idea had not exactly the effect she expected. When the sound of that shrill cooo-eeeee penetrated to the morning-room, Aunt Mary did indeed think of Australia, but she also thought, naturally enough, that the children were in difficulties and needed her help. So, a few minutes later, Mollie and Major Campbell saw a slim figure, clad in a short skirt and jumper, running down the hill as fast as a pair of active feet could carry it.
"Oh, dear!" Mollie exclaimed, "Aunt Mary thinks something is wrong, and when she sees no boys and you here instead she will think it is wronger."
"That can't be Mary Gordon!" exclaimed Major Campbell. "She doesn't look much older than you!"
"It is, though," Mollie replied hurriedly, more flashes of genius scintillating through her brain. "Jump out and meet her, Major Campbell, and tell her we are all right."
This suggestion evidently met with entire approval, for Major Campbell, adopting Dick's tactics, was over the side of the cart and striding (with a slight limp) up the hill "Before you could say Jack Robinson," Mollie quoted, as she took the reins and tactfully directed Long John's attention to an extra juicy patch of grass. Between his greed and her excitement they nearly overturned into the ditch, but a kindly boulder saved them in the nick of time.
"I must say," Mollie soliloquized, "he is fairly old for Aunt Mary, though he doesn't look it even with that white hair. What will the boys say? I believe Aunt Mary has forgotten all about us—there they go! Up the hill without ever once looking at me. I suppose I may follow now. Gee-up, Long John. Don't you ever think of anything but eating?" (which was a little unfair of Mollie under the circumstances).
But if Aunt Mary had forgotten her family she very soon remembered it again, for she and Major Campbell were waiting at the gate when Mollie came up, and they all arrived at the front door together.
When Dick and Jerry came within sight of the house, the first thing to catch their eyes was Mollie at an upstairs window, and a pair of signalling flags going hard. The boys stopped short.
"My aunt!" Dick exclaimed appropriately. "What the dickens does she mean? Aunt Mary and that old chap! Get out! His hair is whiter than Father's. Aunt Mary has got the hardest overhand serve in Sussex. She doesn't want to get married, I'll bet my boots. Rot!"
"I don't know that," said Jerry. "I rather twigged that when he asked for her. I believe that old Johnny is Hugh. I think he is a jolly decent-looking chap, and white hair means nothing nowadays. And after you're forty I don't see that it matters what age you are." Jerry was encouraging a romantic tenderness for Prue and her brown curls, consequently he felt slightly superior to Dick.
The boys left the tell-tale scrunching gravel and trod gently on the velvety border of grass that edged the drive. They stole round the house like thieves, and found their way up to Mollie's bedroom. That young lady hopped round on one foot waving her flags triumphantly.
"I guessed it ages ago," she said, forgetting in her excitement that "ages ago" was only yesterday morning—it was really very difficult to keep pace with a Time that behaved so erratically—"Something Aunt Mary told me about having a green diamond made me wonder. That's why I knew him before you did. Now Hugh will be our uncle. My goodness!"
The tale of the Desmond O'Rourke conversation convinced even the unwilling Dick that Major Campbell was Hugh the inventor, but he still refused to share Mollie's conviction that there was a romance connecting him with Aunt Mary. "You girls are so jolly sentimental," he said impatiently. "Why should Aunt Mary want to go and get engaged to a chap old enough to be her father, or at any rate her uncle, just as I have arrived. I bet I play a better game of golf than he does, and even Bemister says my tennis has improved a lot this term."
"I agree with Mollie," said Jerry, trying to look romantic, "I thought so first go-off, as soon as he said 'Miss Gordon'; there's a look—"
"If it's the look you think you've got on just now it's a fairly imbecile one," Dick interrupted scornfully. "Perhaps you are in love with Mollie!"
Mollie, who was rather tired, was leaning back against her pillows, her bandaged foot lying on the bed and the other foot swinging over the side. Her short, blue-serge skirt was at its shortest and made no pretence at hiding her serviceable blue knickers, from which emerged a pair of useful girl-guidish legs, suitably clad in black merino stockings and lace-up shoes. Her bobbed hair was for the moment rough and tumbled, and she still held her flags spread out on either side of her. No one could have looked less romantic, and they all three had to laugh at Dick's suggestion. He cheered up slightly.
"Anyhow—now perhaps we can find out a few things—what the blood was, and how rich the diamond-mine made them."
"And if Grizzel made her fortune in jam," Mollie added, "and if Hugh ever invented an aeroplane."
"He's in the R.A.F.," Jerry remarked, "we saw it on the card he gave us."
This reminder cheered Dick up still more. If his favourite aunt had the bad taste to throw over a promising football nephew for anything so wishy-washy as a lover, it was consoling to know that the wisher-washer might include an aeroplane. "Perhaps he'll take us up one of these days if we behave nicely about Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle," he said hopefully; "that is, if there really is anything in Mollie's tosh. He looks an aged old party to be turning somersaults in the air, I must say."
The welcome sound of the tea-bell put an end to their discussion, and soon Dick was drowning his sorrows in strawberries and cream. It was rather a bad—or good—sign that Aunt Mary and the mysterious Major Campbell were absent, but on the whole it was a relief. Only a somewhat preoccupied Grannie was there to attend to their wants. No one spoke very much. There was a slightly depressing atmosphere about that tea, so carefully prepared by the missing aunt. The place where she usually sat looked extraordinarily empty, much emptier, Mollie thought, than it did when her aunt merely happened to be out. As soon as tea was over the boys went off to visit the puppies again; Grannie, still inclined to be silent and absent-minded, sat down to her knitting; and Mollie, feeling somehow more lonely than she had done before the boys came, wandered into the deserted morning-room. She picked up a book she had been interested in yesterday, but it had lost its flavour and she soon laid it down and went over to the window, where she stood looking out at the wet garden. It was raining in earnest now, not heavily but steadily; little pools were collecting in the gravel, rose-petals were dropping in showers, and the flowers in the herbaceous borders were beginning to look as if they had had enough rain for the present and would welcome now a chance to dry themselves. Mollie opened the window wide and seated herself sideways on the sill, heedless of the raindrops that blew against her face and blouse. For a long time she stared out into the rain, seeing not the well-kept garden before her, but the cypress-bordered path in that other garden.
The sound of the clock striking made her turn her head and look indoors. The room looked dark and dull. Aunt Mary's work-basket stood open on the table, with her work lying where she had flung it down when she ran out to meet Mollie. The jig-saw puzzle was tidied away, and the sofa cushions sat in a prim row on the sofa, with nothing about them to show how often a kind hand had tucked them in behind a young invalid's back. The volume of Shakespeare still lay on a side-table, and reminded Mollie freshly of Prue's first visit.
"I am being sorry for myself," she thought, "and of all the useless things—! I will go upstairs and change my frock and tidy my hair, and then write to Mother. And when the boys come in we must find something to do. It is simply horrid of me to be moping round because dear Aunt Mary is happy, especially as it is the very thing I was keen on yesterday. I feel as if I lived in the middle of one of Hugh's shadow-clocks," she sighed as she went slowly upstairs, "with Yesterday and To-morrow going round me all the time, and my own shadow falling on them both." This poetic fancy rather pleased her, and she decided to put on her best evening frock and fasten her hair with a rose velvet bandeau.
She was clasping a pale coral necklace round her throat when there came a tap at the door, followed by "May I come in?" and then Aunt Mary herself appeared. And such a radiant and smiling Aunt Mary that all Mollie's depression vanished in the twinkling of an eye. She hurried across the room and gave Mollie a hug.
"Why—how pretty you have made yourself, Mollie darling. That is sweet of you, for I want you to look your very best this evening. I have a most astonishing piece of news for you—why do you laugh, you naughty girl? I don't see how you can possibly have guessed, and I am sure Grannie didn't tell you."
Mollie laughed again as she returned her aunt's hug: "It was not so frightfully difficult to guess, after what you said about the green diamond ring yesterday—why, you have got it on! It is lovely, isn't it? I think it is just as beautiful—" Mollie stopped in some confusion, "I mean it is the loveliest ring I ever saw. If I ever get engaged I should like one exactly the same."
"I hope it will bring you a little more luck than it brought us to begin with," Aunt Mary said, with a sigh, looking down at the hand which lay in Mollie's. "It is ten years since I got it, and if you had asked me yesterday I should have said it would perhaps be another ten before I could wear it like this, but all sorts of wonderful things happened all of a sudden and here we are! But I cannot understand why you guessed anything yesterday, you funny child. I am sure I said very little."
"It wasn't what you said, it was how you looked. And you didn't hear yourself sighing, Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle. We were doing As You Like It at school before I got measles, and we learnt something about people in love, I can tell you!" Mollie nodded her head wisely. "I am not romantic myself like the girl who was doing Rosalind, but I'm not quite so blind as a bat is, and I came up with Major Campbell this afternoon."
"Dear me!" Aunt Mary exclaimed with a laugh, "you are getting dreadfully grown-up, Mollie. I hope you don't—that you don't think my dear old Hugh is really old, because he happens to have rather white hair. It is the heart that counts, and his blessed old heart is as young as yours. Now I must run and dress. Call the boys and tell them to come in and be nice to their new uncle. You have simply got to be friends."
Half an hour later three exceedingly tidy and rather prim young people were formally introduced to "Uncle Hugh", who surveyed them gravely through a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Mollie was not sure whether a twinkle she thought she saw belonged to the eyes or to the glasses. "I could almost believe that he remembers the Time-travellers," she said to herself. But if he did he gave no further sign of it, nor could the children see much trace of the boy Hugh in this keen-eyed, white-haired, brown-skinned stranger.
"I suppose you are detesting me with all your might," he remarked as they seated themselves. "You have all my sympathy. I should detest myself if I were you. But you have had her for a good many years, haven't you? It is high time that she flew off with me."
"Is she going to fly?" Dick asked with interest. "I could put up with getting married myself if my wife came in an aeroplane and took me for a jolly good flight. I could chuck her out if I didn't like her," he added, with a grin.
"The very first time I ever flew in my life," Major Campbell said, "was in a balloon, and I played at the game of chucking out, and got a fright which I am convinced caused my hair to turn prematurely grey. Would you like to hear about it?"
"Ra-ther!" Dick and Jerry replied together. (Now perhaps the mystery of the blood might be explained.)
So Major Campbell told them the story that they already knew nearly as well as he did himself—in fact, Mollie found herself on the point of correcting him upon one or two points. He told it well, better than he had done on that agitating occasion so many years ago, but—he did not divulge the mystery.
It was almost too tantalizing to be endured. Mollie had to keep repeating to herself "A Guide's Word is Always to be Trusted," as she reflected upon that most provoking promise extracted from her by Prue. It was so long ago, surely a question, one question, would not matter now. Unfortunately it was also, as Mollie expressed it to herself "so short ago" that she could remember Prue's words only too plainly: "You must not ask questions however much you want to." It is true that she had broken the rule once, but it had been in forgetfulness, not deliberately. Dick and Jerry were perhaps less picturesque in the manner of their vows, but they certainly had no intention of breaking them. It was Aunt Mary who unconsciously came to the rescue:
"And what was the blood that wasn't blood?"
"Oh, that! That was merely—that was merely——" Major Campbell stopped and began to laugh.
"Merely what? Be quick," said dear Aunt Mary, "we are longing to know."
"I am sorry—I hate to let you down, but it was only dye. Desmond had a notion that he could make a fortune with a native dye factory—vegetable dyes, you know. But it never came to anything. I think it is rather a pity he didn't persevere; he might have done something with it."
Dye! Well, of all the prosaic endings to a thrilling tale! And yet, when the children came to think of it, what else could it have been? They were annoyed at themselves for not thinking of such an obvious thing. Major Campbell laughed again when he saw the blank look on three faces.
"It's a poor end-up, isn't it?" he said. "Why did you force me into it? But there is still the stone, if you would like to see it. You will find it over there on the writing-table."
Dick fetched the stone—the identical stone they had last seen in Hugh's hand forty years ago. After all, the end was not so prosaic!
It looked little the worse for its adventures through Time and Space as it lay in Dick's hand. An inscription had been scratched in and inked over:
Hugh Campbell } August 4th, 1880. Desmond O'Rourke } Mary Gordon. 1910.
They looked at in silence for a minute.
"It reminds me of a tombstone," Dick remarked cheerfully, "if you wrote 'Wife of the Aboves' under Aunt Mary's name it would look jolly mysterious."
"Grand-daughter of one of the aboves would be more appropriate," Major Campbell said ruefully, smoothing the back of his grey head with one hand, while with the other he gave a gentle tug to a stray lock of Aunt Mary's pretty brown hair.
"Fiddlesticks!" Aunt Mary said briskly. "We'll get you a wig if you feel so badly about it, or perhaps Desmond would dye you a nice bright red. No—I'll tell you what would be really interesting—if you could write on your stone the names of all the people whose lives it dropped into that day. There are Desmond and Prue and their children" (Jerry looked up with a startled glance), "and their wonderful grandchild" (Jerry's eyes were round with dismay. Farewell, Romance!), "and Grizzel and Jack and their children, for Grizzel would never have met Jack if Prue hadn't married Desmond. And there's me, for if you hadn't got tangled up with the O'Rourkes we should probably never have met, even though our greats and grands were such friends. Then we may add Dick's name to our list, for I mean to have him out in Australia one of these days, and perhaps Jerry too—who knows! And Mollie may go green-diamond hunting among the young O'Rourkes—Brian would do nicely." Aunt Mary laughed mischievously at Mollie.
"That would be a sermon in stones and no mistake," Major Cambell said, with a smile. "We should require a regular palimpsest to hold them all. Think of Grizzel and all the pies she loves to have her fingers in—all those people on their fruit farm for instance, mostly people who have been down on their luck one way or another. And the young persons she has helped with what she calls their artistic careers. And Prue with her army of Girl Guides!"
"And all through one little stone," Aunt Mary said, taking the stone into her own hand and looking at it thoughtfully.
"I expect the green diamond had more to do with it than the stone, really," Mollie said dreamily, thinking to herself that if Desmond had not found the ring he would not have troubled to seek for the stone-thrower. She would have pursued this interesting line of thought had not someone at that moment trod upon her well foot, and someone else pinched an arm hard. These delicate attentions brought her back to reality and she felt that she had "dropped a brick" pretty badly. Aunt Mary looked puzzled, and Major Campbell's eyes twinkled—or was it his eye-glasses?
"The diamond may have been a temptation," he said, "but I hope it wasn't such a bribe as all that comes to. You have to remember that she might have stuck to the ring and thrown me over any time all these years."
Mollie breathed a sigh of relief. Her words had evidently been misunderstood—or had he understood and come to her help? She wished he would take off those glasses!
"Catch her!" Dick was saying indignantly, "Aunt Mary is a jolly good old sport! You don't know her half as well as I do if that is what you think."
[Illustration: THERE THEY WERE—OH, HOW MOLLIE LONGED TO KEEP THEM!]
"Don't I?" said Major Campbell, turning to look at Aunt Mary, who was beginning to show signs of embarrassment under so much scrutiny. He took off his eye-glasses, but immediately replaced them by a pair of large round tortoise-shell spectacles through which he gazed at her solemnly.
"What are you doing, Hugh? Take off those absurd things this moment," Aunt Mary commanded as the children laughed.
"I am looking at you through stronger glasses," he answered. "I thought perhaps I wasn't seeing you properly, but the better I see the prettier you look."
"My hat!" Dick exclaimed, "look at Aunt Mary blushing. She's the colour of a ripe red currant. I think it's time we did a bunk. Come on, you kids!"
Late that evening Mollie sat at the open window again, this time to watch for the boys, who had set out for a belated round of golf. The rain had ceased and the air was fresh and sweet, but the lingering twilight was darkened by clouds and the garden was veiled in a ghostly white mist. Mollie had been listening to talk of times old and new, and now Grannie had settled down to her nightly game of patience, Major Campbell was seated in a deep and roomy arm-chair, and Aunt Mary had gone to the piano.
"Play the old tunes you played me to sleep with," Mollie begged. "I think I like old tunes best of all."
"So do I, Mollie," said Major Campbell. "Do you remember Prue's old musical-box, Mary? It is still in existence. Prue always turns it out on the dear old pater's birthday and has a sort of memorial service—I'm glad he didn't live to see the war. He was such a softhearted, confiding old chap, and never could be induced to see the black spots in poor human nature—he was always ready with an excuse for any lapse from virtue. He never could screw himself up to the pitch of giving his children a thorough good rowing, though I am sure we often needed one badly enough."
Aunt Mary's fingers wandered vaguely over the piano for a few minutes, and then she began to sing:
"Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain hath bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me."
It seemed to Mollie that she could hear the silvery tinkle of Prue's musical-box again, and see Papa's kind blue eyes.
As she listened to the music and gazed into the misty garden, she saw, as she thought, the boys standing in the shadow of the black Cedar of Lebanon across the way. She leaned forward, wondering why they lingered there so silently. It was not easy to see in the on-coming darkness—surely there were three figures, and two of them looked like girls. Her heart gave a sudden jump—yes, she could plainly make out two girls and a boy. She slipped through the window and crossed the terraced drive.
* * * * *
There they were—dear Prue, with Grizzel clinging to one arm, and Hugh in the background—oh, how Mollie longed to keep them!
"I was thinking of you, Prue," she said eagerly, "I wanted you so much. If you could only stay!"
Prue shook her head, with a smile. "No, we have only come to say good-bye, Mollie. Your Time-travelling is over for this time, you won't come to our Time any more. Did you like it?"
"I loved it," Mollie answered fervently, not pausing to ask herself whether it was the Time or the children that she had loved. "If only it could be now, Prue, so that you could stay!"
But Prue shook her head again: "We've got to go. Perhaps some day we will meet again—Time-travellers often do. I think that's why—that's why——" she knit her pretty brows in the effort to express a difficult thought.
"Hush!" Grizzel said suddenly, "she is singing 'I shot an arrow into the air'; Mamma sings that and I love it. I want to listen; may we go nearer?"
They tip-toed across the gravel, and stood in the shadow of the lamp-lit window.
"I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth I know not where, For who has sight so swift and strong That it can follow the flight of a song?
"Long, long afterwards, in an oak I found the arrow still unbroke. And the song from beginning to end I found again, in the heart of a friend."
"I love that," Grizzel whispered. "Papa says you often do find the song long, long afterwards. I think it's something like casting your bread upon the waters, though I never could understand why they chose bread. I shouldn't think there would be much of it left after many days in the water. I like a song better."
Hugh had stepped nearer to the window, and was observing the interior of the room with curious eyes. "Who's the old buffer with white hair?" he asked.
Mollie began to laugh, but suddenly stopped. She looked from the boy to the man—so there were two Hughs! "He is a Time-traveller," she answered softly, "but he has travelled the other way, forwards, you know. He has invented a lot of things about flying."
"Has he!" exclaimed Hugh. "That old chap!" He leaned forward and gazed more intently at the white-haired man. "I wish I was him," he said wistfully!
"Cooo-eee!"
The call seemed to come from far away, muffled, perhaps, by the night air.
"They are calling us," said Prue. "We must go—come, Hugh. Good-bye, Mollie, goodbye."
* * * * *
"Where are you, Mollie, my child?" Aunt Mary had risen and was coming towards the window. Mollie turned to answer her.
"All right, Aunt Mary. I am here looking for the boys."
"Are the boys not there? I thought I heard voices." Aunt Mary leaned out and peered into the dark. "How dark it is—I can't see—I thought for a moment I saw someone there—here they are coming!"
"Cooo-eee! Where are you, Moll? We want you."
"It's Dick calling," Mollie said. "I'll go and meet them, Aunt Mary; it's only a step. Coming, Dick," she called back.
But she found it hard to walk on the wet gravel without her stick, and after sending another call to the boys stood and waited where she was, wondering why she had not felt her foot when she had gone to the other children. She stared into the shadows of the cedar, but the little figures had disappeared. "I love them," she murmured to herself, "and I can never forget this week, whether I ever learn to understand Time-travelling or not. I mean to learn ever so much about Australia and our other colonies, and about the immigrant ships Prue talked of. I am glad she is a Guider and that I am a Guide." She looked back to the lighted window, through which she could see Aunt Mary and Major Campbell standing together, then forward into the misty dark—she could hear the boys coming up the hill. "I loved Prue and Grizzel and their Time," she repeated, "and of course Aunt Mary is going to have a tremendously happy time now, but—I am glad that I belong to Dick and Jerry. I like our own Time best; it suits us. It's a good sort of Time for doing things, and it will be better before we are done with it, if we all Carry On.
"I'm here, Dick!"
THE END
*****
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