Chapter II: Part 2

'To Kensington,' laughed Marion. 'How your thoughts do run on Courts, Elise!'

Victoire's black eyes snapped at the speaker. She was a dark-skinned, vivacious woman, bearing the look of the French peasant without the heavy features that mark that class. Her devotion to her _enfant_ was of an absorbing nature, and came nearer that of confidante than waiting-woman. Marion she treated with a servile deference that was far from the honest humility of the Cornish serving folk.

If Marion had probed her thoughts she would have known that she thoroughly disliked Victoire. But Marion had accepted Elise for her friend in her childhood's days, and (until her aunt had somewhat unsettled her mind) had remained loyal in spite of the drawbacks of the French girl's temperament and character, and for her sake had tolerated Victoire. Frankly, Elise had puzzled her, but Victoire had puzzled her a hundred times more. She refused to discuss her with her own thoughts. And of course Victoire, being a shrewd woman, was aware of the feeling that lay behind Marion's manner towards her. As a result, she became increasingly servile, constantly trying to remind Marion that this person in her household was the poorest of French servants, and that Marion was mistress and heiress of a great house and name.

'But, Madame, how truly excellent!' she cried. 'Madame will certainly go?'

'Yes, I think I shall go,' said Marion quietly.

As the Admiral's curious glance shot towards Elise, he caught a look that passed between his ward and her maid. As the latter left the room the Admiral stepped out on to the terrace.

'How delightful for you, Marion,' said Elise again, as the old man's stumping tread sounded on the stones.

Marion was staring absently out of the window. After Elise's words had died away she became aware of them echoing in her brain, all blurred and mixed up with the magic sound: London. Waking from her day-dream Marion spoke, her fingers on a straying branch that climbed up the woodwork of the casement. 'It is now a long time since you yourself were in London. You have never said much about it. Did you see any of the gay sights while you were waiting for my father to come and fetch you?'

The Admiral's tread sounded coming nearer. There was no reply from the girl in the other window seat. Marion was aware of a slight movement, and then a peculiar stillness, as if her companion was forcibly restraining further motion. Marion glanced over her shoulder and then swung round. On Elise's face was a strange hunted look which gave way to a sorrowfulness that sat strangely on her girlish features. Startled and puzzled, Marion was groping for the right word to say, when the Admiral's figure darkened the window. At the same moment Elise dropped her scissors; and when she was settled in her seat again her face wore its usual expression. The thought crossed Marion's mind that the look had been caused by a sudden homesickness and memory of distant days--France; of her dying father, perhaps. Again her heart softened to the girl.

'What did we do?' said Elise, biting her thread. 'Oh, we did not do much.'

'Come, Marion,' called the Admiral, 'are you so wrapped up in your dreams you have forgotten me already?'

Marion slipped out. It was the nightly habit of the two to wander in the garden after supper. She found her father revolving plans for her immediate departure, and, her thoughts leaping forward to meet the future, the consideration of Elise's affairs left her mind.

For close on an hour the two paced to and fro, and then, finding that Elise had retired, Marion went to her own room. Her sad mood of the earlier part of the evening had disappeared, her apprehensions flown. A bright vista shone before her wherein no mist of doubt was suffered to live. She found the housekeeper, who had combined her own duties with those of waiting-woman, standing by the dressing-table, ready to brush her hair.

'Curnow,' she said as she closed the door, 'you will never guess what has happened. Just try.'

Meanwhile down in the garden the Admiral was solemnly stumping the length of the terrace. The light went softly out of the sky and gleamed on the face of the Channel far below. The scent of the furze, in full bloom, came up from the headland, and over the trees behind the house a slip of a new moon showed.

The serenity of the evening was lost on the old sailor. He was musing on two problems, puffing at his pipe.

What had Elise been doing alone down at Polrennan, on the other side of the water, to-day? That was the only spot whence Poole's cottage, hidden by the winding valley from the sight of Garth, could be seen. And why were she and Victoire so anxious to get rid of Marion?

The night had fully come, and the house was in darkness before the Admiral turned indoors.

*CHAPTER IV*

*ROGER TREVANNION*

There is something of peculiar brightness in the dawn of the day following an evening of good news. Old folk and young alike confess to the drowsy joy of that hour, and when the person in question is a girl of seventeen, who has never even crossed the county border, and is now bound for London and moreover lives in an age when to travel thither from Cornwall is as great an adventure as a journey to the East Indies would be some half dozen generations later, then truly there is an unearthly radiance in that first morrow's dawn.

Marion turned lazily on her pillow, dimly aware that something unusual had happened. For a few seconds she lay inert, then heaved a great sigh of content. She remembered. She threw her arms out on the coverlet and smiled. Springing out of bed, she drew back the window curtains and opened the lattice.

A short time later a figure in a white cotton gown, with blue ribbons in her hair, stole lightly downstairs.

It was Marion's loved duty to make the toast for her father's morning tankard. A confused sound of voices came from the kitchen as she crossed the hall, and ceased suddenly as she opened the kitchen door. Two of the serving girls and a milking maid were there; it was easy for Marion to see from their faces that she had been the subject of their chatter.

'Marnin', Mistress Marion!' came in chorus. The girls stood and stared in a stupid sort of way, their great rosy hands wedged on their hips, sleeves and petticoats tucked up for work.

'Us 'as just heard, Mistress Marion, as you be a-gooin' away to London,' said one of them, after a pause. They stared afresh.

'Us ain't niver zeen afore a lady as wor a-gooin' to London, Mistress,' respectfully remarked the milking maid.

A ripple of laughter ran over Marion's face as she stood, her back to the girls, cutting a piece of bread at the trencher. Evidently she was to be a nine days' wonder. For that matter, she had the promise of being a nine days' wonder to herself. 'Is it I?' ran her thoughts. 'Is it really I?' And if the domestics stared now, what would they do when she came back with new gowns and laces, and her hair dressed in a new way; and, she hoped, that indefinable something in her manner that had made them gape at Mistress Keziah, and peep out of doorways at her, their fingers on their lips?

Until her going was decided on, she did not know how much her aunt's talk had awakened a desire to see the world of men and women. Now she was going to see it, as Elise had said--plays, music, the Court. She smiled as she trimmed her piece of bread. Then the voice of one of the wenches roused her to a forgotten sense of duty.

'A bain't niver----'

'Zora,' said Marion, swinging round, 'it is past five o'clock. I can hear Spotty now calling to be milked. You must remember that the cows don't know I'm going to London.'

'Ees fay, so un do sure, Mistress Marion. A told Spotty meself. First thing a did, Mistress. I says to she, I says: "Do ee know Mistress Marion be a-goin' to London?" And her kind of said: "'Er bain't, now, sure!" her did. I allus tells Spotty. A told un when Simon Jibber come a-court----'

'Zora, go at once to your work! Millie and Sue, if you haven't anything to do, I must inquire of Mrs. Curnow of your duties.'

There were no hearers left for the end of Marion's sentence, and it was fortunate for them, for with her last words in came the housekeeper from the dairy, carrying a great bowl of clotted cream.

Her father's toast made, her own breakfast of bread and milk partaken of, Marion set herself to the little duties of the day. Elise, she learned from the housekeeper, was in the throes of one of her periodic headaches, concerning which, it must be confessed, our fair Marion was rather unsympathetic. The young mistress of Garth had never known what it was to be ailing. For all her delicate cheeks, she was as healthy and robust as Zora herself. She got slightly impatient about Elise's migraine, and when the sufferer emerged from her retirement, full of the petulance that generally succeeded her attacks, Marion, in her mental poise of perfect health, did not find it easy to make allowances. Indeed, the only quarrels that rose between them, the only swift, straight-out blows Marion had ever been known to give, seemed to be reserved for these occasions.

Marion went dutifully to her friend's room, and talked with her a few minutes, feeling as usual her impatience arise at Elise's martyr-like tones. Presently, saying she must confer with the housekeeper about the dinner, she went below again.

Dinner was at twelve o'clock, as was the custom of the day, and supper came at five or six. At nine o'clock the household was abed, for it was considered a shameful thing not to be up with the sun. These two meals being the sole fare for the day, were of a generous order, and Marion thought it nothing unusual when the housekeeper told off on her fingers the items for dinner: a dish of prawns, a marrow-bone pie (and the good things that went into that pie!), a pair of fat fowls, a fore-quarter of lamb, and a sirloin of beef; a spiced pudding with brandy sauce, a gooseberry pie, and some little tarts made with conserve, that Victoire had introduced to the household.

Having satisfied herself that the cooking was in a satisfactory way, Marion went into the still-room, to see to the straining of her gooseberry wine. About ten o'clock she mounted to her own chamber and shut the door. A serious business was now afoot. The early joy of the morning had subsided to an under-current of secret pleasure, but even that bade fair to be destroyed when she turned out the contents of her clothes chest. Her going had been settled by the Admiral for Thursday. To-day was Tuesday. There was no time even for Victoire's skilful fingers--and Victoire was better than most sempstresses or tailors--to make her another gown. Marion turned over the laces that had been her mother's, the ribbons that were her sole ornament. Her best embroidered bodice she looked at with a dissatisfied air, and then sought her father, who was casting up accounts at his desk.

'Father,' she said somewhat ruefully, 'I had no idea what a great many things I haven't got. I don't know what Aunt Constance will think of such a niece.'

The Admiral considered his daughter at length. ''Tis certainly a problem, but I should not mind laying long odds Aunt Constance will find her niece fair to middling. For the rest, her father is taking her, and he has a purse heavy enow to stand a new gown, I trow. Now take your hat and come across to the far pasture with me. I hear Sukey's got a fine calf.'

Dinner time passed, and still Elise did not leave her chamber. Marion went again to her door, and finding she was asleep sought her own room. She seated herself at her chamber window, a piece of lace and a mending needle in her hand.

It had been an eventful week, a week unequalled in her simple life; it had opened with the bustle of her Aunt Keziah's departure; a prodigious bustle that, for the lady had elected to travel in state, with six horses to her coach, a couple of out-riders and her page on the step. Marion and Zacchary had ridden on either side the chariot as far as Lostwithiel, and Marion felt she would always have an affectionate memory of the fine old head thrust from the coach as she had turned her chestnut homeward. Coming back, the house had seemed for the first time somewhat lacking. Wearisome as her demands on her niece's liberty had been, the old lady had nevertheless brought an added interest to the girl's quiet life, and, as she had intended, successfully sown the seeds of unrest.

The next day Marion had met Roger on the headland, and later saved him from the folly of championing Jack Poole. Then had come the letter, the dazzling, bewildering prospect of her aunt's house in far-away London opening inviting doors to her. How Roger had scoffed at the idea! Marion smiled and sighed in the same breath. She felt great uneasiness at the thought of leaving Roger, so headstrong and foolish, to act as he chose, to mix himself up with all the rebel factions of the county if the fancy pleased him.

She stitched away at her lace, a look of unusual gravity on her face. Her thoughts had now wandered to Elise; and in spite of the kindly feelings Elise's later behaviour had evoked in her, she could not dispel the sense of foreboding her words at supper had aroused. Nor could she quite forgive her. Roger had been the playmate and sole companion of her childhood for many years before Elise came to Garth. The bond of the boy-and-girl intimacy was of a far stronger nature than the tie of friendship between herself and Elise. In fact, if Roger had not gone away to school and left her sorrowing and lonely, it is probable that the friendship between herself and the French girl would never have ripened at all.

Memories of her childhood days with Roger came up from the early years; the thought of his unswerving loyalty, when she had done things he did not like and he had taken the blame himself; of the boats they had builded together and sailed on the duck-pond; of the hours he had sat by her in the window seat, when she was learning her stitches, and talked and told her stories--always of the sea; of the battles they had had concerning the riding of the colts--'You see, Mawfy,'--she could see him now, a clumsy, thick-set figure of a boy, his sturdy legs planted apart--'you haven't got a brother except me, and your father's no good at riding now, poor old man, so I've got to look after you. And I shan't let you ride Starlight till I've tried him better. If he's going to throw somebody--and he looks like it--I'd rather he threw me than you. I know just how to fall on a place where it doesn't hurt. And you don't. It's no good saying you do, or anything of that sort. I just shan't let you ride Starlight.'

Then, when she had argued and sulked: 'You look much nicer when you're smiling, Mawfy. You've got such a funny face.'

'My hair lies down, any way!' was her unfailing retort on personal questions, 'and I don't look like a heathen black-a-moor.'

Marion laid down her needle, with tears not far from the smile in her eyes as she remembered. In Roger's black thatch of hair there had always been a lock somewhere about the crown stiff as a broom handle, which defied all efforts at persuasion on the fond mother's part. One day Marion had taken a piece of dough from Curnow's kneading-pan, and plastered it in a thick cake over the unruly patch. The dough had hardened and refused to be removed, and Roger had gone about many days wearing this tonsure. In the end (the day being Saturday, and the question of church arising) Marion had worked at the stiff cake and brought it off, plentifully set with hairs, at the sight of which her own tears had dropped.

'Never mind, Mawfy,' Roger had said, between his yells, 'I don't really mind. And perhaps you'll be pretty some day. But I don't care if all my hair stands up. I knew a sailor who wore all his hair standing up. Harder than mine.'

'Oh, Roger, Roger!' said Marion softly, her needle suspended as she stared out over the garden. 'What a dear child you were!'

Then, uncomfortable fact, Roger had grown up. Each time he had come back from Blundell's he had been different: rougher, noisier, not knowing what to do with his strength that was coming on him, given to saying and doing awkward things; with a loudly voiced scorn for girls (in Elise's presence) that disappeared when the two were together; for Marion was Marion, and, like his mother (and no other) set apart in his boyish thoughts.

And all through his growing youth, toughening every year just as an ivy stem toughens and becomes a tree trunk, ran that one desire to be a sailor. Thwarted, it had merely bent another way, and grown stouter for the opposition. That the thwarting was not good for the boy, Marion knew instinctively, as her father knew from experience, and failed not to say so to Mrs. Trevannion. 'You're wrong, Ma'am,' he had said, striking the stones of the Manor porch with his stick. 'Roger's got a sailor's blood, and he'll go to sea. If you won't let him go, he'll run away.'

'No,' said the lady quietly, 'he won't do that. He has promised.'

The old Salt Eagle glared under his pent-house brows. 'Women are queer folk. To make a lad promise that, and continually bid him to wait, knowing all the time you have not the slightest intention of ever letting him go! You will have only yourself to thank if he flings himself hot-headed, in desperation, into some political bother. We live in sorry times, and the country's seething underneath like one of yonder Dartmoor bogs beneath its cap of green slime. And a boy who is discontented is easily drawn into trouble. And now I'll bid you good day, Ma'am.'

And so the old sailor had stumped off, with sorrow in his heart under his rage. He had never had a son, but had fate been kinder to him, he would have been proud of a boy like Roger Trevannion.

Her father's fears were Marion's also, and in the light of experience had been amply justified. That 'miserable rising,' as the Admiral described the Monmouth Rebellion, had stirred the green smooth surface of the bog of unrest, and the black depths still bubbled. The Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys had come out to the West to hold his 'Bloody Assize,' the punishment meted out by Kirke's Lambs after the battle of Sedgemoor not being deemed sufficient. Jeffreys, doing his work of extermination of the rebels, with one ear listening to the desires of his own foul heart, and the other bent on distant Whitehall, whence James II. smiled approval and murmured encouragement, saw to it that his work was well done. His spies were everywhere, from the White Horse of the Danes in the Mendips to the fishing coves of Land's End. And the net he cast in this way was of the finest mesh. Cornwall was mainly Protestant, and it was more on the grounds of dislike for a monarch who insisted on the observance of the Catholic religion, than allegiance to the youth who led the Protestant rebellion against him, that some of their numbers flocked to Monmouth's standard. The Westerners had had ample cause to rue the day before ever Judge Jeffreys set out on his tour of death. The rebellion had failed, their young lads dying with it in the marshes of Sedgemoor; and Monmouth, their hero and hope, had fled for a coward, and earned the reward of his deeds. And now their lusty cries of: 'God bless the Protestant Duke!' had given way to the silence of unreasoning fear. The country folk had not time to dry their eyes for their sons who would never return, before they were opened wide in horror at this new danger for those who were left. The danger menaced (and touched) high and low alike. Men talking in taverns or at the cross roads on the events of the rising, talking, as they thought, with friends, were haled up the next day and hanged, for the love they bore to Monmouth. It was not necessary even, in some cases, that they should speak the word that showed they were against the Catholic king; a look sufficed; they hanged just the same. Here and there a man who was suspected was found rich enough to pay the Lord Chief-Justice the price of his life. But not many were so fortuned; and before the assize in the West was over, men had learned to distrust their lifelong friends, and to be afraid, going home at night, of their own shadows; and women stilled their crying children with the merest whisper of Jeffreys' name.

Jeffreys had returned to London with his triumphant tale of some hundreds hanged, and many more sold as slaves to the Plantations, and for such loyal service to the Crown had been made the Lord High Chancellor of England.

It had been mainly owing to the Admiral's influence and well-known loyalist views that Garth had escaped suspicion; escaped, that is to say, with the exception of Jack Poole, who, working in a shipwright's yard at Lyme when Monmouth landed, and with plenty of enthusiasm to spare for any cause, such as smuggling or rioting, that ran against authority, joined the lads of Lyme, was taken (not in action) by the loyalists, clapped into jail at Bodmin, and now, in Bodmin again, was awaiting his trial.

Roger had taken no part at all in the rebellion, but his sense of loyalty to his friends would always outride his discretion, as Marion had proved. And she might not always be there to stay his folly.

She sighed, and was laying her work aside, when a quick step sounded on the terrace, and there was a ringing hail.

'Marion, are you there? Curnow said she thought you were above.'

Marion looked out at her casement. Roger was standing just below looking out at the moment on the shrubbery where two of the stable dogs were trespassing. The youth was, as usual, hatless, and the black head was in reach of Marion's fingers as she leaned out. Roger was aware of a sudden tug near the crown of his head.

'Aie! Aie!' he said, swinging round. 'I thought you'd forgotten that. It still stands up--always will.' The brown eyes looked up affectionately. 'Do you remember that dough cake?'

'I had just been thinking of it, and how I cried when the hair came out. It certainly looks queer, Roger. Let us hope you will begin to grow bald just there first.'

'Most probably I shall grow bald all round it, and leave it upstanding. Never mind. I say, Mawfy, I've----'

'Don't speak so loudly,' said Marion in sudden contrition. 'I had forgotten, Elise has a headache.'

Roger made a slight grimace. 'Put on your habit, and come for a ride,' he said softly. ''Tis my last chance. I hear you are going Thursday. And to-morrow I must go down country about some sheep.'

'Good,' said Marion. 'I will only be five minutes. Will you ask Zacchary to saddle the grey?'

As they rode out of the courtyard and turned their horses towards the downs, Marion gave one of her sudden chuckles. 'Do you remember Starlight,' she said, 'and the fights we used to have about my riding him?'

'I remember. He was a vicious brute. I was always glad I bullied you on that score. What has made you remember Starlight?'

'I had a thinking fit this afternoon,' said Marion, 'and all sorts of things came back to me. Things we did when we were children.'

'Ay,' said Roger. 'Do you remember----' And the two went off together on a journey of reminiscences that lasted them, with breathless intervals when the ground tempted a gallop, for close on an hour. The memory of that ride lived long with Marion; in talking of their childhood they had become children again.

On a windy ridge some dozen miles from the house they paused to breathe their horses. Marion looked across the land, all touched with tender green, to the distant Channel.

'I wish Aunt Constance had asked me to visit her at any time but the spring,' she said suddenly. 'And I can't conceive how I shall endure many weeks without the smell of the sea.'

It was the first mention of her approaching journey. The merry, boyish look went out of Roger's face. 'I hate the idea of your going,' he said moodily. 'Who is going to look after you in London, and see that you don't ride Starlight?' A smile came and went, but there was a lingering sadness in his eyes.

'There won't be any chance of riding, I suppose,' said Marion.

'And I hate London, too,' added the young countryman. 'All the troubles in England are brewed first of all in Whitehall.' He looked hard at his companion for a moment, and then back to the distant sea. 'How long are you going to stay?' he asked abruptly.

'I don't know,' said Marion lightly. 'A long time--years perhaps.'

Roger's brows drew together. 'And you have never seen your Aunt Constance. What is Sir John Fairfax like? Who is going to look after you?' he said again.

'I don't know--Roger!' Marion turned in her saddle to face him. 'The point is much more: who is going to look after _you_!'

Roger smiled. 'I do need leading strings and a pinafore, of course.'

Marion's glance ran affectionately over the young giant. 'But really, you know, Roger, I have been rather unhappy about you since the other day at Poole's cottage. If it hadn't been for me, you'd have been in Bodmin gaol now.'

'As well there as anywhere,' replied the youth, his gaze out to sea.

'The nearest road to a vessel of your own lies not through Bodmin gaol. See, Roger, will you promise me to--to be careful?'

The brown eyes looked steadily into the grey ones.

'Careful of what?'

'Why--not to get mixed up in some foolish affair for which you really care nothing.'

Roger roused himself with a laugh. 'I think you have got from the Admiral that trick of turning the tables. Here I was just going to ask you the same thing.'

'_I'm_ not likely to bestir myself about political affairs, sir.'

'I hope not. But seriously, Mawfy, I do not like the whole affair--your going, I mean. Your father cannot stay long with you, and then you will be with strangers. Will you promise to let me know if you should be in any need?'

Marion smiled indulgently, then sobered, and looked broodingly across the land again. 'Oh Roger!' she cried impulsively, not thinking at all of herself, only conscious of the little boy grown big at her side. 'I could wish it were all over, and I were back again. I'm afraid for you. Something is going to happen. For days I've had a foreboding. I always know when a storm is coming, and in the same way I know now----'

She pulled herself up. It was not her way to talk at random of her innermost feelings.

'Nonsense, nonsense!' said Roger briskly. 'Nothing ever happens unless you let it. You had a foreboding when I went to Blundell's. And what happened? Nothing! Oh yes--Elise came.'

They looked at each other in silence. Then Roger smiled. 'Come, Mawfy, 'tis my last half hour.'

He gathered his reins. 'I'll race you to the first pasture.'

*CHAPTER V*

*'MY LITTLE NIECE'*

Great festivities were afoot in the house of Lady Fairfax in Kensington. The rooms glittered in the light of hundreds of candles set in sconces on the wall; torches were blazing in their iron sockets at the outer door; beyond the garden was a boisterous confusion of coaches and chairs, the chairmen wrangling with the footmen and pages for a place by the gate; and linkboys, their lights aloft, dodged to and fro, casting gibes on their betters and showing an ability born of long practice in evading their blows.

From time to time the doors opened, and footmen bawled for my lady's or my lord's coach. A certain decorum, at these moments, marked the behaviour of those without the gates. Room was made for the vehicle in question, page boys and footmen ran to their posts, my lord or my lady left the house, entered the coach and drove off. And behind them, like water in the wake of a ship, the noisy groups closed in again.

To be bidden to one of the gatherings of Lady Fairfax was a coveted honour. Just how Lady Fairfax came to be the rallying point of a certain section of the Court society, no one knew. She was envied, feted, flattered, caressed. She walked into the Queen's drawing-room as if it had been her own chamber; she would leave the side of the most exalted personage in order to speak to a humble acquaintance, and there would be no change in her manner. She scolded and smiled as she pleased, and, such was the gift of the gods to her, with impunity. Like the Admiral her brother, she made her own course in the world, and next to a good friend she liked best an honest enemy. For the others, whose smile hid a snarl, she had nothing but disdain.

Concerning Sir John Fairfax, a good deal of whispering ran to and fro, mainly from Whitehall and St. James's to Kensington. Exactly what post he held no one knew; that he was party to the secret diplomacy of the Court every one suspected. He was an old sailor, and in the course of his voyages had contrived to gather a vast information about the ports and defences of alien coasts. Moreover, in various parts of the world he had friends whose loyalty was unquestioned.

A great many people were curious as to the nature of the long conversations, without which few days passed, between Sir John Fairfax and my Lord Churchill; but the matter of their parleys was revealed to no one, least of all to Sir John's wife. He was a smallish, grey, wizened man, with a singularly sweet smile; he had a gentle voice and an unfailing courtesy; his wife adored him, principally because he was the one person in the world whom she could neither hector nor coax into doing something he did not wish to do.

Lady Fairfax went from group to group in her rooms, a gracious figure in her gown of black velvet stitched with silver, a scarf of Malines lace across her shoulders, her grey hair dressed high. No one had ever succeeded in defining her charm; she was one of those middle-aged women who made young girls discontented with their youth, and beautiful women dubious of the power of their beauty.

As Lady Fairfax entered one of the card rooms, and looked from group to group, a couple of young gallants sprang from a window seat where they had been in close converse. Seeing them, their hostess beckoned with her fan, and withdrew.

'What means this?' demanded my lady as the two, with deep bows, stood before her. 'Why are you leaving beauty unattended? Do not the feet of the dancers call you? Fie on you, my lord! And you, sir! Your father had known better.'

'It is but for Lady Fairfax to command,' replied the nobleman with another bow and an air of mock resignation.

'But my father, madam,' retorted the other, who was, as a shrewd eye would see, a favourite with his hostess, 'had doubtless greater attractions offered him.'

'Doubtless, doubtless!' smiled the lady. 'There is, however, a story I may tell you some day. Well now, young man, will you find my husband for me? Stay--what is that noise below?'

Some commotion was arising in the hall, and Lady Fairfax, being then at the head of the stairs, went slowly down, her beautiful hand catching the folds of her dress, the young men at her side.

'Say that again, thou girt fool!' a voice with a strong West Country accent was shouting, 'and thou'lt rue the day.'

There was the sound of a lusty smack, and a footman, with his hand to his cheek, bellowed for his ally within. The West Country voice rang out again, and there was the crack of a whip.

'Be this the house of Lady Constance Fairfax or no? And if 'tis, where's her to?'

The speaker, hatless, muddy, his neck-cloth torn, stared about; his knotted fist and weapon menaced the servants who had hastily approached. A few guests had strolled into the hall, and were looking curiously on. The men accompanying my lady on the stair became aware of a start, and an exclamation. Lady Fairfax dropped her robe and ran down.

'Zacchary,' she said, the group gathering round the countryman falling away at her approach, 'surely 'tis thou, Zacchary!'

The old groom's distressed face changed at the sound of the voice he had not heard for twenty years. He dropped on one knee, and groped for the lady's hand. Then rising, a look of devotion in his eyes, he surveyed her from head to foot.

'I don't allow, Mistress Constance,' he said, scratching his head, 'that you'm changed. But you'm mighty different all the same. But'--his tone altered--''tis the young mistress, my lady. Her's without in the coach yonder, and Peter on the step, and they sons of Belial in the road bean't for letting the coach go by.'

'What! My little niece!' Lady Fairfax turned hastily to the young man at her side. 'I pray you, Master Beckenham, see to this matter without; and you, my lord, if you would look in the rooms above for my husband----'

She needed not to finish her sentence. Master Beckenham followed Zacchary out into the square.

A coach had drawn across the road, a little distance from the entrance. The equipage belonged to my Lord Fetterleigh, who was playing cards within, and the coachman was making it quite clear that until he chose he would not move his coach, his lord taking precedence of the gentlemen whose vehicles were before the gates. As for that outlandish travelling waggon beyond there (his cheek was still smarting from the valiant Peter's whip), it could wait until it was chopped up for---- The harangue was cut short. 'Move thy horses, thou vile wretch!' thundered a voice. 'I will acquaint thy lord of this.'

The light of the torches fell on the face of the newcomer. The coachman, with a qualm, gathered up his reins, and Master Beckenham in his elegant buckled shoes and smart attire slipped in between the hedge and the rear of the coach, and followed Zacchary down the road.

To the accompaniment of Zacchary's heartfelt remarks (sounding to the Londoner like the whinny of a horse) on the vileness of Kensington compared with Cornwall, Beckenham made his way to the country coach. He felt a certain curiosity to see the 'little niece.' A few nights ago, visiting Lady Fairfax's box between the acts, he had heard her telling how she had bidden her brother's little maid to come and stay with her a spell, that she might teach her how to set her toes when she grew taller. Lady Fairfax had never seen the child, because of the disagreement between her brother and herself about her upbringing. Here the curtain had risen, and my lady's complacent recital was stopped. Duly reporting this matter to Madam his mother (one of Lady Fairfax's honest enemies), Mr. Beckenham had been greatly diverted. For that lady and a bosom friend, counting the years on their fingers, with side glances for the unconscious victim in the box, had estimated the age of the 'little niece' as already somewhere in the shadows of the late twenties. Saying nothing, Mr. Beckenham had bided his time, and it pleased him to have an opportunity of satisfying himself on the point.

The loiterers in the road had formed a sturdy group round the vehicle he sought. The coachman on the box, not liking to leave his post, was circling his whip over the heads of the nearest, and adding comments when Peter, bodyguarding on the step, failed for breath. The link boys roared with delight. Such amusement did not often come their way. And even the watch, with his lantern and staff, had stopped in his chant of 'Ten o'clock, and a fine windy night,' to listen to the voices whose tones made him at once contemptuous and envious.

Mr. Beckenham doubled his elbows, and calling: 'Make way there! Make way!' in a voice of unmistakable authority, soon succeeded in reaching the door of the coach, Zacchary lumbering at his heels. Honest Peter, in the act of drawing the back of his hand across his overworked mouth, noted his approach, and his eyes brightened.

''Ere be Zacchary and a gentleman, Mistress Marion. 'Ere a be.'

'Lead the horses to the gate,' commanded the young gentleman. 'Hand me your whip, my man.'

With alacrity Peter tendered his weapon, and Mr. Beckenham, thus armed, took up the position of page on the step of the Penrock coach. The loiterers fled before the hissing lash.

At the gate, Mr. Beckenham opened the coach door with a low bow, and offered his hand to the fair occupant. The light of the flambeaux fell on the two faces confronting each other. Marion's hat had fallen off, her gleaming hair fell in disorder about her face. Nervously she looked at the young man as she took his proffered assistance, and murmured a word of thanks. 'Terrified out of her wits,' summed up the youth. 'How on earth comes she to be travelling without an escort?' And a strong indignation against some unknown person seized him.

Meanwhile Lady Fairfax, standing within the doorway, had been peering from time to time out into the night. She was again explaining to the group of guests in the hall that her little niece was coming from Cornwall to visit her. Her brother was doubtless with her in the coach, and had sent Zacchary to the door. Her brother was, unhappily, lame. And Zacchary, poor man, only being accustomed to see one horse at a time, was a little flustered.

Behind the speaker stood a small grey-haired man, whose smile broadened into a chuckle as his wife's 'little niece' hove in sight.

When Marion stepped into the house, Lady Fairfax for once in her life was speechless. About a figure almost as tall as her own a riding cloak was roughly gathered. The collar fell away from the throat, and the folds of the garment were held by a slim hand to the shoulder. At the scene in the hall, Marion shrank back a second, then stood still.

'My little niece! Is it possible!'

Marion allowed herself to be embraced and drawn into the house. She was vaguely aware of a gentleman with a kind smile, who patted her and called her 'my dear'; of glittering jewels and gay dresses in the background; of the throb of music in the rooms above; of the silent figure of Mr. Beckenham standing at her elbow. Then she looked again at the face before her, and the anger and dismay she had felt at the manner of her arrival melted. In her aunt's eyes she saw her father's. Her face relaxed, and she smiled.

'Did you not expect me then, Aunt Constance?'

'What a voice!' murmured a woman at the back of the hall.

Lady Fairfax gathered the slight form in her arms. 'My little maid!' she crooned. 'My little maid!' Then, holding her at arm's length: 'But--I am speechless! How came you to travel so? But stay. First some food, and you shall tell me.'

She led the girl into a little room off the hall, and while Sir John went himself for wine and cake she took off the cloak and shoes, and held the fair face between her hands. 'My little maid!' she said again. 'I had forgotten you must have grown. Tell me, sweet, one word. Is your father ill? Why is he not here?'

'He is not hurt,' said Marion. 'He----'

'Drink this, my dear,' said a kind voice, and Marion, looking up, saw her uncle at her side. A feeling of warmth and comfort stole over her. 'And I thought I had fallen among thieves,' she faltered.

Meanwhile the men and women who had witnessed the arrival of the 'little niece' were talking about her in the rooms above. As the conversation drifted on to the girl's family, a gentleman strolled up to the group. Underneath the languid pose of the courtier of the day, a shrewd eye would have seen the hardened soldier. 'Did I hear you say Penrock?' he drawled.

'The same. She's the daughter of Admiral Penrock--the old Salt Eagle of the fifties.'

The questioner disappeared and passed downstairs, and with the privilege of old friendship lifted the tapestry curtain and walked into the little room. Sir John and Lady Fairfax sat on either side their guest before the fire. The girl was eating as she talked.

'Come in, Sampson!' called his host, 'and speak to our little niece here. Marion, my dear, here is an old soldier who fought alongside your father before you were born.'

Marion, whose back was towards the newcomer, laid down her spiced cake and turned in her seat, prepared to see a burly, weather-worn figure. Instead, she was aware of a slight, pale-faced man, dressed with an elegance she had never before encountered, making a low bow. For a second she was startled, then gravely held out her fingers.

'I could not wait one other minute,' said the guest, his languid air falling away somewhat, 'before I had done myself the honour of paying my respects to the daughter of the bravest, loyalest gentleman it has ever been my fortune to know.'

The tears dimmed Marion's eyes, and she could not find a word to say, but she smiled up suddenly into the gaunt face; and the man standing there, who had seen two generations of beauty go by, felt a stirring in his dry old heart.

Here my lady broke in. 'Tut, tut, Colonel! I will not have my niece weep, even at your praise. But for yonder stupid rising still brewing trouble, we should have had my brother with us. Marion has just told us the story. Go on eating your cake, my dear. Take a chair, Colonel. So. Just as the coach was leaving Bagshot, who should come up but the King's Commissioner with a couple of officers behind him, riding hard for the west with urgent duty for my brother, who is magistrate in his parts. My niece, here, knows nothing of the mission but that it was of such urgency, with the Lord Chancellor's will behind it, that the Admiral must needs take another coach and ride back to Cornwall. The two officers escorted my niece here the rest of the way till noon to-day, when there was but the fields of Kensington to cross, and they were doubtless thinking of their dinner at St. James's. The coachman then lost his way, the dolt! and found himself in Chelsey. 'Tis only by good fortune my niece arrived in safety. But'--the lady pressed another kiss on the girl's cheek--'here she is! And she's going to stay a long, long time. Perhaps for years.'

Marion was aware of a vague echo, a vision of a youth on horseback on a windy ridge that smelt of the sea: all of it somewhere in another world and another life she had lived in the long ago. She sighed. For a few minutes the talk went on, the girl paying no heed. Then Lady Fairfax, gathering her lace shawl, rose and dropped a curtsey to Mr. Sampson.

'And now for bed,' said she. 'I will see you all anon.'

*CHAPTER VI*

*A LADY-IN-WAITING*

It is said that the unexpected generally happens, and the truth of this was borne home to Marion during her first week in Kensington. She had looked (not without a thrill of delight and fear blended) for an immediate plunge into the excitements of the capital. Instead, she found herself, partly by accident and partly by design, passing from hour to hour and day to day in a state of almost complete seclusion. The accident that led to this state of affairs was due to Lady Fairfax's being a favourite attendant of Her Majesty; Her Majesty elected to find herself ailing on the Wednesday--the day after Marion's arrival--and Lady Fairfax's presence seemed to be the one factor that made the Royal indisposition bearable. Aunt Constance could only spare rime for an embrace and a half-hour's gossip with her niece before her coach was announced to carry her to court. She came home late in the day with the news that change of air was prescribed by the royal physician, and on Friday the Queen's household must move to Hampton Court; and should that atmosphere not prove beneficial, they might go yet further, to Tunbridge or Bath. Lady Fairfax had risked the displeasure of her august mistress and prayed for leave of absence, only to learn that the arrivals of 'little nieces' from our duchy of Cornwall do not find a place in the calendar of events at Court. When our health is improved (it was hinted) we may perhaps find it agreeable to dispense somewhat with our lady-in-waiting. Until then--as Lady Fairfax allowed herself to say, the unfortunate aunt must 'grin and bide.'

So much for the 'accident' that led to Marion's seclusion. The 'design' was due to the cherished plans her aunt had formed--vaguely before her arrival, very actively on the night of her coming--for her niece's success. Lady Fairfax was delighted with her young guest. She was proud of this addition to her family treasures; a veritable jewel, she fondly said. But the jewel must be well set before being displayed to the public eye. To the inquirers visiting the house in Kensington or seeing her abroad, Lady Fairfax smilingly said that her niece had had a trying journey, and must have her beauty sleep--several days' beauty sleep, in fact (during which time it was decreed that my lady's tailor and sempstress should be hard driven). No word of this was hinted to Marion. She accepted the fact of her aunt's duties at Court as an ordinary event, and spent her time wandering about the great house and garden; noting the grandeur of the entertaining rooms, the numerous liveried servants, and the ordered stateliness of everyday life. Her windows looked out on Kensington Square, where she had glimpses of carriages coming and going, of chairmen setting down their burden at the gates, of men and women of such dress and deportment that Marion thought they must surely be the princes and princesses out of some fairy tale.

Kind Sir John Fairfax was concerned for the young lady under his roof. She seemed to him to be moping.

'Everything is for the best, on the whole,' declared his wife. 'I am truly grieved to leave her so much, but that would not be a loss if you would bear her company a little oftener. You forget the change this life is to the child. What is Garth? A wigwam in a forest. She must needs find her feet before she can run. And run she shall not till she be dressed. Romaine is altering a gown for everyday usage,' the lady went on, 'and then as soon as Her Majesty's _malaise_ allows her to free me, we will have a few visitors some quiet night that I may see how she dances. Young Beckenham will not be sorry of the chance, and Sampson, I'll be bound, for all his languid airs, will be glad to make a leg again in a minuet. Then,' Lady Fairfax smiled demurely, 'in another week or two a ball in the honour of the coming of my niece to Kensington. And if you don't like the fuss and the pother of the ball coming on, dear lad, why, get you to Whitehall and talk secrets with my Lord Churchill.'

'You are riding this hobby of her gowns to death!' grumbled Sir John. 'It is bad for the girl. She'll think that nothing matters but fal-lals. And she is too much alone. Can't Her Majesty spare you an hour this evening to take her to a play? Need she be dressed for her first play?'

The lady neatly dropped a kiss on the end of her husband's nose. 'That's for that!' she smiled. 'You have given me an idea. Not to-night, but Monday (Her Majesty has promised me Monday) our little niece shall go to the play. She shall wear her white muslin frock and a rose in her hair; and not a woman in the theatre but will be sick at the thought of the pots on her dressing-table.'

Sir John looked at his wife in despair, then laughed outright.

'Upon my word, Connie,' said he, 'you'd have made a fine general. You lose no chances. You make every hummock into a bed for a culverin. I give it up!'

'But even you,' serenely concluded his companion, 'will agree that she cannot walk into Her Majesty's drawing-room in a muslin frock.'

To do Lady Fairfax justice, she had no intention of burdening Marion with fal-lals, for although in those days women wore most elaborate robes, it was not considered necessary to have a new one for each ball, play, or party they attended. Moreover fashion was a sleepy, slow-moving dame, only rising to bestir herself once in a decade--and not, as is her present habit, setting a new step every year, and making her followers miserable if they fall behind in the march. A ball dress was a veritable 'creation,' made with infinite pains and pride, every stitch carefully put in, the embroideries a triumph of patience and skill (and eyesight), as indeed was all the needlework of those leisurely days, before machine-made imitations undermined its value. Dresses were worn by their owners year after year, and very often a valued gown was personally bequeathed to the next generation.

Lady Fairfax had carefully hidden the slight disdain she had felt for Marion's belongings when her French sempstress, to whom she had sent an urgent call, came early on the second day after Marion's arrival. Indeed Marion's eyes had watched her aunt narrowly, and the kind-hearted woman had guessed her nervous shrinking when Madame Romaine lifted from her trunk the simple garment made by the Plymouth tailor.

'But, dear heart,' Lady Fairfax had allowed herself to remark, 'where is your mother's lilac embroidered gown? Did not your father give it to you?'

'He never thinks of dress,' faltered Marion, feeling that she and her father were being found blameworthy, 'and--I don't think he could bear to see even me wearing my mother's bodices.'

Lady Fairfax's eyes softened, and a memory came to her of the fair lady of Garth in that one winter when she flitted across the stage of London before she 'buried herself' in the west.

The Frenchwoman meanwhile was sniffing in the recesses of Marion's trunk. 'I have not smelt so great a sweetness, Mademoiselle, since I was a small little one--so--playing in the garden of my uncle in Avignon, a thousand years ago!'

'All my mother's things still smell sweet,' said Marion to her aunt. 'She made her own waters, and grew lavender and roses and all sorts of flowers specially for them. I cannot make them near so well. Mistress Trevannion says my mother was very beautiful, too. But Father will never talk of her, except,' added Marion disconsolately, 'to say I do not in the least resemble her.'

The eyes of mistress and sempstress met over the golden brown head. Marion at the moment was busying herself with another small trunk, and took from it a japanned box.

'I had almost forgotten this, Aunt Constance,' she said. 'Father gave it to me in the greatest hurry, just when Curnow was fastening the boxes. If I had not known his ways, I should have thought he had been angry. But it was just that he did not want me to ask any questions.'