Young Mrs. Loring was making her way slowly at Stoke Revel Manor, and Mrs. de Tracy, though never affectionate, treated her with a little less indifference as the days went on. "The Admiral's niece is a lady," she admitted to herself privately; "not perhaps the highest type of English lady; that, considering her mixed ancestry and American education, would be too much to expect; but in the broad, general meaning of the word, unmistakably a lady!"
Mrs. Benson, though not melting outwardly as yet, held more lenient views still with regard to the American guest. Bates, the butler, was elderly, and severely Church of England; his knowledge of widows was confined to the type ably represented by his mistress and he regarded young Mrs. Loring as inclined to be "flighty." The footman, who was entirely under the butler's thumb in mundane matters, had fallen into the habit of sharing his opinions, and while agreeing in the general feeling of flightiness, declared boldly that the lady in question gave a certain "style" to the dinner-table that it had lacked before her advent.
For a helpless victim, however, a slave bound in fetters of steel, one would have to know Cummins, the under housemaid, who lighted Mrs. Loring's fire night and morning. She was young, shy, country bred, and new to service. When Mrs. Benson sent her to the guest's room at eight o'clock on the morning after her arrival she stopped outside the door in a panic of fear.
"Come in!" called a cheerful voice. "Come in!"
Cummins entered, bearing her box with brush and cloth and kindlings. To her further embarrassment Mrs. Loring was sitting up in bed with an ermine coat on, over which her bright hair fell in picturesque disorder. She had brought the coat for theatre and opera, but as these attractions were lacking at Stoke Revel and as life there was, to her, one prolonged Polar expedition, with dashes farthest north morning and evening, she had diverted it to practical uses.
"Make me a quick fire please, a big fire, a hot fire," she begged, "or I shall be late for breakfast; I never can step into that tin tub till the ice is melted."
"There's no ice in it, ma'am," expostulated Cummins gently, with the voice of a wood dove.
"You can't see it because you're English," said the strange lady, "but I can see it and feel it. Oh, you make _such_ a good fire! What is your name, please?"
"Cummins, ma'am."
"There's another Cummins downstairs, but she is tall and large. You shall be 'Little Cummins.'"
Now every morning the shy maid palpitated outside the bedroom door, having given her modest knock; palpitated for fear it should be all a dream. But no, it was not! there would be a clear-voiced "Come in!" and then, as she entered; "Good morning, Little Cummins. I've been longing for you since daybreak!" A trifle later on it was, "Good Little Cummins bearing coals of comfort! Kind Little Cummins," and other strange and wonderful terms of praise, until Little Cummins felt herself consumed by a passion to which Mrs. de Tracy's coals became as less than naught unless they could be heaped on the altar of the beloved.
So life went on at Stoke Revel, outwardly even and often dull, while in reality many subtle changes were taking place below the surface; changes slight in themselves but not without meaning.
Robinette ran up to her room directly after breakfast one morning and pinned on her hat as she came downstairs. Mark Lavendar had gone to London for a few days, but even the dullness of breakfast-table conversation had not robbed her of her joy in the early sunshine, made more cheery by the prospect of a walk with Carnaby, with whom she was now fast friends.
Carnaby looked at her beamingly as they stood together on the steps. "You're the best turned-out woman of my acquaintance," he said approvingly, with a laughable struggle for the tone of a middle-aged man of the world.
"How many ladies of fashion do you know, my child?" enquired Robinetta, pulling on her gloves.
"I see a lot of 'em off and on," Carnaby answered somewhat huffily, "and they don't call me a child either!"
"Don't they? Then that's because they're timid and don't dare address a future Admiral as Infant-in-Arms! Come on, Middy dear, let's walk."
Robinette wore a white serge dress and jacket, and her hat was a rough straw turned up saucily in two places with black owls' heads. Mrs. Benson and Little Cummins had looked at it curiously while Robinette was at breakfast.
"'Tis black underneath and white on top, Mrs. Benson. 'Ow can that be? It looks as if one 'at 'ad been clapped on another!"
"That's what it is, Cummins. It's a double hat; but they'll do anything in America. It's a double hat with two black owls' heads, and I'll wager they charged double price for it!"
"She's a lovely beauty in anythink and everythink she wears," said Little Cummins loyally.
"May I call you 'Cousin Robin'?" Carnaby asked as they walked along. "Robinette is such a long name."
"Cousin Robin is very nice, I think," she answered. "As a matter of fact I ought to be your Aunt Robin; it would be much more appropriate."
"Aunt be blowed!" ejaculated Carnaby.
"You're very fond of making yourself out old, but it's no go! When I first heard you were a widow I thought you would be grandmother's age,--I say--do you think you will marry another time, Cousin Robin?"
"That's a very leading question for a gentleman to put to a lady! Were you intending to ask me to wait for you, Middy dear?" asked Robinette, putting her arm in the boy's laughingly, quite unconscious of his mood.
"I'd wait quick enough if you'd let me! I'd wait a lifetime! There never was anybody like you in the world!"
The words were said half under the boy's breath and the emotion in his tone was a complete and disagreeable surprise. Here was something that must be nipped in the bud, instantly and courageously. Robinette dropped Carnaby's arm and said: "We'll talk that over at once, Middy dear, but first you shall race me to the top of the twisting path, down past the tulip beds, to the seat under the big ash tree.--Come on!"
The two reached the tree in a moment, Carnaby sufficiently in advance to preserve his self-respect and with a colour heightened by something other than the exercise of running.
"Sit down, first cousin once removed!" said Robinette. "Do you know the story of Sydney Smith, who wrote apologizing to somebody for not being able to come to dinner? 'The house is full of cousins,' he said; 'would they were "once removed"!'"
"It's no good telling me literary anecdotes!--You're not treating me fairly," said Carnaby sulkily.
"I'm treating you exactly as you should be treated, Infant-in-Arms," Robinette answered firmly. "Give me your two paws, and look me straight in the eye."
Carnaby was no coward. His steel-grey eyes blazed as he met his cousin's look. "Carnaby dear, do you know what you are to me? You are my kinsman; my only male relation. I'm so fond of you already, don't spoil it! Think what you can be to me if you will. I am all alone in the world and when you grow a little older how I should like to depend upon you! I need affection; so do you, dear boy; can't I see how you are just starving for it? There is no reason in the world why we shouldn't be fond of each other! Oh! how grateful I should be to think of a strong young middy growing up to advise me and take me about! It was that kind of care and thought of me that was in your mind just now!"
"You'll be marrying somebody one of these days," blurted Carnaby, wholly moved, but only half convinced. "Then you'll forget all about your 'kinsman.'"
"I have no intention in that direction," said Robinette, "but if I change my mind I'll consult you first; how will that do?"
"It wouldn't do any good," sighed the boy, "so I'd rather you wouldn't! You'd have your own way spite of everything a fellow could say against it!"
There was a moment of embarrassment; then the silence was promptly broken by Robinette.
"Well, Middy dear, are we the best of friends?" she asked, rising from the bench and putting out her hand.
The lad took it and said all in a glow of chivalry, "You're the dearest, the best, and the prettiest cousin in the world! You don't mind my thinking you're the prettiest?"
"Mind it? I delight in it! I shall come to your ship and pour out tea for you in my most fetching frock. Your friends will say: 'Who is that particularly agreeable lady, Carnaby?' And you, with swelling chest, will respond, 'That's my American cousin, Mrs. Loring. She's a nice creature; I'm glad you like her!'"
Robinette's imitation of Carnaby's possible pomposity was so amusing and so clever that it drew a laugh from the boy in spite of himself.
"Just let anyone try to call you a 'creature'!" he exclaimed. "He'd have me to reckon with! Oh! I am so tired of being a boy! The inside of me is all grown up and everybody keeps on looking at the outside and thinking I'm just the same as I always was!"
"Dear old Middy, you're quite old enough to be my protector and that is what you shall be! Now shall we go in? I want you to stand near by while I ask your grandmother a favor."
"She won't do it if she can help it," was Carnaby's succinct reply.
"Oh, I am not sure! Where shall we find her,--in the library?"
"Yes; come along! Get up your circulation; you'll need it!"
"Aunt de Tracy, there is something at Stoke Revel I am very anxious to have if you will give it to me," said Robinette, as she came into the library a few minutes later.
Mrs. de Tracy looked up from her knitting solemnly. "If it belongs to me, I shall no doubt be willing, as I know you would not ask for anything out of the common; but I own little here; nearly all is Carnaby's."
"This was my mother's," said Robinette. "It is a picture hanging in the smoking room; one that was a great favorite of hers, called 'Robinetta.' Her drawing-master found an Italian artist in London who went to the National Gallery and made a copy of the Sir Joshua picture, and I was named after it."
"I wish your mother could have been a little less romantic," sighed Mrs. de Tracy. "There were such fine old family names she might have used: Marcia and Elspeth, and Rosamond and Winifred!"
"I am sorry, Aunt de Tracy. If I had been consulted I believe I should have agreed with you. Perhaps when my mother was in America the family ties were not drawn as tightly as in the former years?"
"If it was so, it was only natural," said the old lady. "However, if you ask Carnaby, and if the picture has no great value, I am sure he will wish you to have it, especially if you know it to have been your mother's property." Here Carnaby sauntered into the room. "That's all right, grandmother," he said, "I heard what you were saying; only I wish it was a real Sir Joshua we were giving Cousin Robin instead of a copy!"
"Thank you, Carnaby dear, and thank you, too, Aunt de Tracy. You can't think how much it is to me to have this; it is a precious link between mother's girlhood, and mother, and me." So saying, she dropped a timid kiss upon Mrs. de Tracy's iron-grey hair, and left the room.
"If she could live in England long enough to get over that excessive freedom of manner, your cousin would be quite a pleasing person, but I am afraid it goes too deep to be cured," Mrs. de Tracy remarked as she smoothed the hairs that might have been ruffled by Robinette's kiss.
Carnaby made no reply. He was looking out into the garden and feeling half a boy, half a man, but wholly, though not very contentedly, a kinsman.
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