Chapter 20

The Highway Woman

Easter came as a blessed pause in the rush and turmoil of school life. The round of work at Kingfield High had seemed even more arduous to Lesbia in the Sixth than it had been in VA. The form was supposed to be grinding for the Matric, and though only its brightest specimens, Regina, Carrie, and Kathleen, and two wobbly candidates, Aldora and Cissie, were to be offered up as victims to the educational sacrifice, it meant that everybody, clever, mediocre, or dull, had to toil through the same textbooks and write identical exercises. Miss Pratt, who had gone up with the Sixth from VA, considerably to Lesbia's sorrow, constituted herself a kind of intellectual razor to sharpen the wits of the form, and had scant mercy on those who fell short of her standard. Lesbia sometimes, squashed flat by a sarcasm, felt she was metaphorically placed on a stool with a dunce's cap on her head. She tried to keep pace with the matriculation candidates, but her swimming brains often got confused, and, as she was a venturesome guesser, she was occasionally guilty of coming out with "howlers".

Everybody seemed to welcome this particular Easter, even "the blessed Damozel", who, despite her poetic appearance, was the form's champion worker. The hard grind had perhaps accentuated her resemblance to Rossetti's heroine, for a slight paleness etherealized her, the intellectual concentration made her great grey eyes shine as the chief feature in her face, and her hair, which fortunately never seemed to darken, was still "yellow like ripe corn". Regina was really growing very pretty, and though she had not yet dropped her jerky angular manner, she was much less gauche than she had been a year ago, and promised to develop into an interesting personality.

"She's the sort of girl who may possibly do _anything_ after she leaves school," commented Calla one day, when the girls were discussing absent members.

"Yes. With those brains it's just what she takes it into her head to concentrate on," agreed Laura. "She _might_ make a hit on the stage."

"No, no! Not with those queer manners."

"But don't you see she's always posing? It's the very effort to be something outside herself that makes her so odd and peculiar. She's feeling after an ideal, and if she ever strikes it she'll be a huge success."

"If in the meantime she doesn't marry a curate," put in Kathleen.

"A curate, child?"

"Yes; Regina's exactly the sort of girl who would!"

"_I_ prophesy she'll go to college, take a tremendous good degree--wrangler or double first or something of that sort--and be head of a high school."

"No, she won't. I know it seems her ordinary course, but she's not an ordinary girl. She'll wangle something different and unusual. She ought to marry a member of Parliament, not a curate--though I believe if she did she'd soon make him a bishop--I could just imagine her, very handsomely dressed, at a Mansion House ball, dancing with a foreign ambassador. Cave! Here she comes--with the air of a princess. Who's she copying at present I wonder?"

The little group dispersed, giggling, as Regina entered the room and seeking out Lesbia drew her chum away. She was fond of private and confidential chats, but this one had a special point to it. The Websters were going to spend Easter at their country cottage, and invited Lesbia to go with them.

"You were such a sport at Dolmadoc last summer. We all say we want you to come again," insisted Regina.

Lesbia, with a dutiful demur about deferring to Mrs. Patterson, jumped--nay clutched--at such a gorgeous chance. She had been in much alarm lest she should be sent to Tunbury again to take charge of Terry for the Easter holidays, or packed off to spend them with Aunt Newton, who wrote periodical letters suggesting that her great-niece might leave school and take the place of the depressed companion who had at last plucked up courage and gone to a more congenial post. Dolmadoc, with its fresh mountain breezes and glorious views, seemed the very spot to blow away school cobwebs and to lay up a store of fresh energy for the coming term. Every corner of it would be like an old friend.

So the Wednesday before Good Friday found Lesbia with the Webster family in a crowded train bound for North Wales, jammed tightly between two tourists, with her feet on a portmanteau and Una seated on her knee, but smiling through all discomforts as she caught the first glimpse of the grey hills from the carriage window.

Dolmadoc, in the early spring, was a different landscape from what it had been in its summer dress, and she had to make its acquaintance afresh. Very little foliage was yet out, but the bare woods held lovely tints of amber and purple and gold in their naked branches, and the moss carpet was greener than ever. Here and there primroses spangled the banks, and bushes of blackthorn--perhaps the most delicate and beautiful of all blossom--raised white stars against the flecked blue of the sky. The higher mountains were covered with snow, and the wind was keen and fresh. It was not possible to sit about in the garden, as they had done in August, but walks through the brisk air were a joy. They could tramp twice as far without fatigue. It was delightful to ramble round to all their old haunts, to revisit the waterfall, to climb to the top of Pentrevis, to scramble through the thick fir wood on the hill, or--in rubber boots--to go into the marshy meadows near the river. They had a special errand here, for the little wild daffodils grew in quantities on the low-lying fields and were greatly in request for Easter decorations. The whole of the Webster family, armed with baskets, went on an expedition to gather them. They passed, by permission, through a farmer's yard, then made a bee-line across several meadows, climbing fences and hurdles, till they reached a particular stretch where the stream flowed into the river. This favoured triangle was yellow with the daffodils, and although busy hands could pick and pick it seemed to make little difference to the wealth of bloom spread around. Lesbia loved the Lent lilies with their short trumpets and faint delicious fragrance, so redolent of the country. She revelled in all the spring flowers at dear Dolmadoc, the great crown imperial lilies, with the tears inside their dropping heads, the blue primroses in the cottage garden, the white violets under the wall, the purple aubretia coming out on the rockery, and the clumps of yellow cowslips that bordered the pathway. They seemed so much cleaner and fresher than the flowers in town gardens or parks, she liked to lay them against her cheek, and would sometimes go down on her knees just to be near them where they grew. Old half-forgotten fairy tales would come flooding back in the company of the flowers, and all her most pronounced Celtic instincts seemed to crowd to the top.

Lesbia had a chance of exercising her artistic faculties on Easter Saturday. The Websters always helped to decorate the church, and this year the vicar's daughter was away, so they had been asked to undertake pulpit, font, and lectern. They appointed their visitor chief authority, and worked under her directions. With so much beautiful material in the way of flowers, Lesbia thoroughly enjoyed herself, and evolved a pretty scheme of decoration. She outlined the pulpit with ivy and bunches of wild daffodils, tying large branches of blackthorn and catkin-covered hazel to the candle-brackets; the lectern had a background of green and a great sheaf of crown imperial lilies, while the base of the font was a garden of green moss, with primroses peeping through in little clumps.

Other members of the congregation had been busy putting flowers along the window ledges and twisting garlands of ivy round some of the pillars, till the church looked a fragrant mass of lovely blossom, dressed fitly for its great festival of Easter day.

"I'll come and make a sketch of it next week," thought Lesbia; "that little bit with the font and the open door and the view down the valley would be simply a picture, especially if I put Una sitting on the step with her lap full of primroses. I can feel just how it ought to look, if I can only paint it. The light and shade is exactly right in the afternoon. Oh dear! I wish I could spend my days in painting. I'd rather dab away at a canvas than do anything else in the world!"

The Websters were long-suffering towards Lesbia in allowing her leisure to sketch, and even in sitting as her models, but they rebelled against the devotion of more than a due portion of her time to painting. They were in the mood for walking, and nearly every day wanted to start off with picnic baskets and to eat their lunch somewhere on the hills. It was certainly better for Lesbia to take exercise than to sit sketching in such weather. She groused, but submitted to the inevitable, and enjoyed herself very much when once she had made the plunge and started forth. The Stripling, who was taller than ever, still favoured practical jokes, and was wont to wax argumentative if anybody disagreed with him. He had many wordy tussles with Regina, and even did a little brain-fencing with Lesbia. He liked to air some rather outrageous opinion and stick to it, as if he were conducting the opposition in a debating society. On one occasion Lesbia, halting by a cross-roads sign-post upon the moors, remarked casually what a mercy it was there were no highwaymen nowadays to pounce like hawks on unwary travellers. Derrick instantly bristled to the defensive.

"I don't know," he began aggressively. "I think there's a great deal to be said for highwaymen. It was a sporting way of getting a living. And it made travelling far more interesting than it is now. There was some fun in riding with your pistol cocked. Besides, it brought out people's courage. We're a soft lot nowadays when it isn't wartime. A man was a man in the eighteenth century. He knew how to take care of himself. I think some of those famous highwaymen were very fine fellows. They'd the spirit of the age in them. People's blood is as dull as ditch-water in the twentieth century."

"Oh, indeed. I wonder how you'd like a highwayman darting suddenly down upon you, Mr. Derrick, and saying 'Hands up'?"

"I'd be equal to him if he did, no fear," replied the Stripling grimly.

Lesbia did not trouble to pursue the argument, for the very good reason that she was suddenly possessed with an idea, such an excellent and brilliant idea that she chuckled softly to herself over it. She kept it dark from Derrick, but confided it to Regina at the first opportunity. Her chum's explosions made the Stripling prick up his ears.

"What are you two after?" he asked, with suspicion.

"Oh, nothing for small boys," choked Regina.

"You've always got some silly joke."

"Well, we're going to keep this one to ourselves at any rate."

"Little things please little minds!" scoffed the Stripling.

"Right-o! You won't get it out of us that way."

What Lesbia proposed was that she should dress up in a landgirl's costume which she had seen in a cupboard at the cottage, take one of the old pistols that hung in the hall, go into the lane that evening, and lie in wait for Derrick, who would be cycling back from Cefn station where he always went to buy an evening paper at the bookstall. The plan seemed most feasible. The lane was narrow, it would be almost dark, and she hoped to be able to pull him off his bicycle before he discovered the joke.

They watched him start as usual for Cefn, then rushed upstairs to begin the toilet. The land costume fitted Lesbia very well. She had always longed to try it on, and danced about in it now to her own admiration and Regina's. She put on an old cap of Derrick's, corked a moustache, and borrowed the pistol. It was a "flint-lock", a most suitable weapon for a highwayman, and made a beautiful spark when the trigger was pulled. They calculated the time which Derrick generally took in going to and from the station, then went into the lane and hid behind some bushes. It was twilight, the sun had set, and stars were coming out in the sky. Presently they heard the familiar sound of approaching cycle wheels. A red lamp came glimmering towards them.

"Now," whispered Regina, pushing her chum forward.

Lesbia sprang from the bush, presented her pistol, snapped the trigger with the best spark it had yet made, and seizing the machine by the handles tipped its owner neatly off on to the grass.

"Hello! What's all this about?" cried an unfamiliar voice, in much deeper tones than those of the Stripling. The pistol dropped from Lesbia's outstretched hand. Oh horrors! It was not Derrick after all whom she had assaulted, but a stranger. The unknown object of her violence picked himself up before she had time to run away, and, grasping his bicycle, peered through the darkness into the faces of the two girls, for Regina had joined her chum.

"I've come to see Mr. Webster. Is he at home?"

A pair of very ashamed and crestfallen maidens apologized, and explained their "rag". Lesbia scooted away to wash off her moustache and change her attire while Regina led the visitor into the cottage. Much to their dismay, he was invited to supper. He was trustworthy, however, and did not betray them, though his eyes twinkled when Mrs. Webster performed the introduction "Mr. Ford--Miss Ferrars". He sat next to Lesbia at the supper table. He made no reference at all to highwaywomen, but looked amused and friendly.

"I wonder if by any chance you happen to be a daughter of a Mr. Charles Ferrars whom I used to know long ago?" he asked presently.

"Charles was my father's name," answered Lesbia in astonishment.

"Then it must be the same, for you're so like him. Used he to live at Hanbury? So did I. We were partners together for a short while. Dear me! That's ages ago now!"

"It's sixteen years since he died," said Lesbia gravely.

"So much as that. Time flies indeed. You must have been too young to remember him I suppose. A handsome man, and a great favourite with everybody! It makes me feel quite middle-aged to see his daughter almost grown-up."

Lesbia had heard so little about her own father that it was interesting to meet someone who had known and remembered him. She treasured the brief incident on that account. It seemed a link with the dim far-away past, when she too had had father and mother of her own to love her and treasure her, instead of being an orphan with no home but the house of a distant cousin, and nothing to look forward to in the future but earning her own living in a way which she would probably find quite uncongenial.