Part 2

The evening was so still that the far-off mutter of the everlasting tide on the rocks came up to her. She lifted her head and sniffed the faint salt breath of the wind, and in that instant caught the throb of a motor. She checked and listened. Then went on again quickly. There was no doubt about it, a motor was coming up the long hill, out of the valley shadows. Then it must have gone to Bell Bay, for she was convinced it was the same car.

In a minute or two it passed her, going back to Salterne. The same car--big and dark, with powerful lights. The luggage was gone from the top where it had been placed, protected by a low fenced enclosure. Pamela saw all that at a glance, but her attention was centred on the occupant of the car--there must be someone inside there still, because she could see an electric lamp alight within the carriage. She stopped at the roadside, waiting for it, and as it went by fixed all her attention on the person who was reading a newspaper by the light of the brilliant lamp on the wall.

She saw the face distinctly--clean shaven, the powerful heavy features so often associated with great lawyers. He was reading intently, and his soft hat was pushed backward from his eyes. Pamela opened her lips in a little gasp of astonishment. The last person in the world she had thought of!

It was Sir Marmaduke Shard. Alone. But he had not been alone when the car passed her the first time.

Pamela stared after the receding car till it was lost in the dusk; then she went on again at her best pace, very much surprised, for it would really seem that the great Sir Marmaduke had actually brought someone to Bell Bay, left them behind somewhere, and gone back to Salterne. It really was exciting, because there was nowhere to come to except his own house, and had he been going there he would surely have chosen the direct road.

Moreover, to leave again at once, like this! Pamela could find no answer to the riddle.

When she reached home, nobody questioned her lateness, because they were all, so to speak, rather busy being low-spirited--a condition that nearly always takes people's attention off others.

Poor Adrian was very sorry for himself; very sorry indeed; and there was much excuse for him. It seemed likely that there would be no more sailing in the beloved _Messenger_.

Christobel, on her part, was passionately sorry for Adrian. She understood fully what such a blow meant to him who found more delight in sailing than in anything else in life.

Mrs. Romilly was grieving for both of them, but as usual was most absorbed in trying to think of a way out of the wood, and how to substitute something that would do--nearly as well.

Finally, there was Miss Violet Chance--nicknamed the "Floweret" in happier moments, by the way--who paralysed Mrs. Romilly's efforts and made matters worse by bright endeavours at dispersing the cloud.

"After all," said the Floweret, "what _is_ a yacht? Surely we can find something quite as jolly! What about rounders? Wouldn't it soon be good weather for croquet?" She suggested to Adrian a collection of moths, and asked him where he had put the stamps he had been so proud of the year before last?

Adrian said:

"I've got them all, thank you, Miss Chance," in a voice that went to Jim Crow's heart, because the suppressed torture in it was so acute.

Because, then, this gloomy company was assembled in the drawing-room, Pamela found no one about, and going straight to the dining-room proceeded to make a good tea; and Hughie, hearing her come in, entered on the tips of his toes, sat down at a distance on the big leather sofa, curled up his toes under him--till he looked like a small soapstone "god"--and waited patiently.

"Why aren't you in bed?" asked Pamela, as she helped herself to some fresh cocoa brought in for her.

"It isn't eight," said Hughie.

"My dear child, it's ten past!"

"Well," Hughie glanced at the clock unashamed, "they've forgotten me, you see. That's why I came out here, for fear they should remember."

"Miss Chance won't forget," warned Pamela with conviction.

Hughie set that aside.

"They are in a state of miserableness, so nobody is remembering things," he said, "it's rather beastly, Pam, they can't sail the _Messenger_ any more----"

"Who can't?" interrupted Pamela sharply, pausing with a glass of potted meat in her hand.

"All of them--Mollie, and Jim Crow, and Addie, and the worst is that Addie will be cross most of the time now, which is a fearful pity; he won't help me do my rigging, because it will remind him of the yawl. It's most unlucky for everybody."

"Why can't they sail the _Messenger_ any more?" asked Pamela, going on with her supper. The thought flashed through her mind that the sudden and brief appearance of Sir Marmaduke was going to be explained simply.

"Because the gardens at Crown Hill are in a mess," Hughie went on with slow emphasis, "they are in a _fearful_ mess, and everything is growing too fast, and Mr. Jordan can't do it, and there aren't any men, because they're mostly dead in the War. Miss Ashington says Penberthy has got to go in the gardens the whole while. Not a minute on the sea--and you know they can't go without Penberthy, Sir Marmaduke won't let them."

"Beastly hard luck," said Pamela firmly.

"I expect it's Fate," Hughie suggested thoughtfully.

"Why can't they have Peter Cherry from Woodrising?" said Pamela, ignoring fate.

"It isn't any good asking me," answered Hughie, "because, how can I tell? But anyway Woodrising is simply bursting with weeds, and the more there are, the more they come. He must stay and pull them out, and plant greens for Mrs. Trewby. She eats greens, she told Mrs. Jeep she _has_ to. He can't possibly go to Crown Hill, and Miss Ashington is worried about the garden, Mollie says she is."

The door opened and Miss Chance looked round the edge of it.

"Ah, _there_ you are, little runaway!" she said with her usual sprightliness, "I've found you."

"I wasn't lost, Miss Chance. I was only talking to Pam," remarked the little runaway, letting himself drop over the back of the sofa in an ingenious and complicated manner.

Miss Chance turned her attention to Pamela.

"You've come back, dear," she suggested, "I hope it's all right about the Stores' cases; Mrs. Jeep will be so glad to have them."

Pamela explained her accident, mentioned that she had been obliged to walk back, and gave the message from Five Trees, namely, that the cases had not come, but should be sent on at once when they did. She added that she was just going in to tell her mother. She said everything she could think of to forestall the inevitable questions, and good Miss Chance swept Hughie away to bed, remarking that it was late, but that the days were getting longer, and the summer would soon be here.

"That's what will make it harder for poor old Addie, about the yawl," thought Pamela, as she got up from the table, and departed for the scene of woe. She was very glad that Hughie's information had "put her wise", as the folk of the far west say--it would have been so galling for Adrian if she had plunged in, and asked what the matter was to start off with. That was Pam's way of looking at it.

So she gave the story of her mishap; said she would have to send the bicycle to Salterne, it must go in on Saturday by Timothy Batt's cart; gave her message about the stores, and made talk of a mildly distracting nature.

Adrian was gloomily turning a magazine; he looked up.

"It's all knocked on the head about our sailing, Pam," he said, "pretty rotten! Fancy having to see the old _Messenger_ moored out there the whole blessed summer, and have nothing but our dinghy to go out in! It's enough to make a person of sense commit suicide."

"Hughie told me something when I got in," said Pamela with sympathy, "I was awfully sorry; he said Penberthy is wanted at Crown Hill. Of course the gardens are too much for Jordan--there used to be three men."

Adrian muttered something biting about gardens generally.

Christobel broke in.

"Mollie told us--she is most horribly disappointed herself--it cuts off her fun too, but she says the gardens must come first, as Lady Shard hates seeing things go--as they are; and men are so scarce, they want every creature they can get on the farms, of course. Oh dear, I wish one could get at Sir Marmaduke, he's always nice about the yawl."

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" suggested Pamela.

Both the others began to answer together in their eagerness; then Christobel dropped out, and Adrian went on.

"How can we, my good child? We can't exactly write letters to him asking him to hand over his yawl to us! As for talking, we shan't meet till goodness knows when--August at earliest."

Pamela suggested cautiously that Sir Marmaduke usually came for week-ends in the summer.

"Well, he may have, once in a way," allowed Adrian gloomily, "but he won't do it this year. Not a dreg of hope. He hasn't been down, and he's not coming. Government has put him on one of these hundred and fifty thousand commissions about miners' bath-rooms, or railway men's sofa cushions! It makes one ill. I wish the whole lot were at the bottom of Vesuvius. We can burn wood, and drive coaches, and go back to decent life. Anyway there it is. We can't get at Sir Marmaduke. Penberthy has got to do gardening----" his voice ceased in a sigh that was a positive groan.

"One would almost think you three--I mean Mollie and Crow and you--would do as well without Penberthy," said Pamela, "Penberthy does nothing ever but talk, does he? Mollie is as good as any man, she's pretty well trained her muscles on the land--and all that----" this was an allusion to the heroic efforts of Miss Shard on the Ensors' farm at Hawksdown during the holidays of two war years at least.

"Of _course_ she could, Pam," Christobel interrupted hastily, noting Adrian's rising irritation, "but you see Mollie won't be here either."

"Mollie not here!" Pamela's face of startled dismay was satisfactory to the distressed pair.

"You see," said Adrian, "things have pretty well tumbled about our ears this afternoon! Well, the bottom has been knocked out of the whole show."

Pamela looked from one to the other, she did not ask another question, but her expression did, so Christobel answered:

"Mollie is going up to town this week-end to see her mother about crowds of things. She believes they've taken a cottage on the river just for--well, airing themselves. Mollie says Crown Hill is too far to come for week-ends; it is a long way, we know. If they have a cottage they can live out of London, and he can go up--I mean Sir Marmaduke can; he can't get down here, Mollie says--not yet anyway. The only person who will be here much will be Miss Ashington, and she'll look after things for Lady Shard, who says she can't possibly live here and leave Sir Marmaduke in London; besides she wants to present Mollie."

"Present Mollie!" echoed Pamela with awe. The world was simply changing swiftly.

Mrs. Romilly folded the paper she was reading, and said in her even, restful voice.

"I should have liked to have presented Crow at the same garden-party as Mollie, but it isn't convenient this year, so we must wait till next summer."

"When Hughie and I are at school," suggested Pamela, a little smile quivering round her firm lips.

Her mother's eyes smiled back sympathy.

"It's unlucky for Mollie and Crow not to be together," she said, "but of course Lady Shard wants Mollie and of course she can't leave Sir Marmaduke alone, so we others must e'en put up with it all. Something will turn up presently. I feel it in my bones," said Mrs. Romilly, "and meanwhile don't let's cross bridges before we come to them. I _know_ nothing will be as bad as one fears, it never is."

She looked at Adrian, who made no response.

"Let's hope," said Crow.

"Has Mollie gone?" asked Pamela, suddenly thinking of an explanation for the motor-car. She put her foot in it, of course.

"My good girl, do have a grain of sense," begged Adrian, "how could she be gone, when she was out on the _Messenger_ with us till nearly seven o'clock?"

"She goes to-morrow," explained Christobel, "not finally of course. She comes back about Tuesday--she's got to pack and take up things Lady Shard wants, you see. Then she'll go for good--I mean for about six weeks--after that."

Pamela made no comment. She was trying to fit that car piled with luggage into this sudden development of Bell Bay doings. Hitherto, the great K.C. and his wife had been to and fro constantly winter as well as summer. Miss Ashington--commonly called "Auntie A.", as her name was Adelaide Ashington--had been in residence nearly always. She was Lady Shard's sister, and a person positively made up of schemes--which never seemed to come off, and were, as a rule, dropped in favour of something more arresting. At present, the farming problem was her hobby, and she was full of an idea for milking cows once a day at eleven o'clock in the morning, so that land-girls need not get up so early, and farmers could do with less labour. The trouble, though, seemed to be that the cows would not agree to this excellent plan. However, Auntie A. did not despair of bringing them also to a sense of duty, and meanwhile she stayed at Crown Hill doing no one any harm, which was something to be thankful for.

It appeared then a settled question that the Shards would not come to Bell Bay until summer was well nigh through. Penberthy would no longer be available, and the lovely yacht would be on her moorings--useless to the Romilly party. It certainly was a sorrowful outlook for Adrian. As Christobel said afterwards to Pamela: "If Addie had never been able to use the yawl almost like his own it wouldn't have mattered." But he had; and of course nothing could make up for it.

Pamela thought that week-end was one of the most dismal she had ever spent. Indeed it was so gloomy that she forgot about the motor-car mystery and surprising visit of Sir Marmaduke; all her mind and efforts--hers and Crow's--were spent in trying to devise a new and interesting way of passing time. Mrs. Romilly was willing to fall in with any plan, even to the extent of hiring a sailing-boat of a size suitable. She was ready to suppress her own feelings in the matter--they would have been distinctly anxious--and let Adrian go to Salterne and find something; an open boat with a sail.

However, on Monday, Adrian, as his manner was, shook himself free of this weight of care and announced that no one was to bother about him and his needs. The dinghy--which was bigger than the average dinghy carried by an eight-ton yacht, and which belonged to the Romillys--would do well enough for fishing, he said. And for the rest, he had made various appointments with John Badger of Champles--the farm on the Down above Bell House--connected with rats and young rabbits.

"Besides the lawn must be kept decent," he concluded; which was his way of saying that the ancient gardener, "Hennery" Doe, could not be left to bear what Mrs. Jeep called "the blunt" of the Bell House gardens.

So content was restored, and Mrs. Romilly wrote to her husband that "the children were perfectly sweet"; they were certainly of the kind that has a sense of responsibility very much awake.

On that day--Monday--Miss Lasarge came down to the Bell House, stayed to tea, and was a joy to everybody--especially Hughie, who adored her--but it struck Pamela that she was a little less talkative than usual; perhaps even a little absent-minded. She went away early and said she had gardening to do.

Nobody noticed this but Pam, and she, sitting at her window in the evening looking straight across the sea-wall, the rocks, and the tide rippling out over the golden sand, decided that the Little Pilgrim was in love with Major Fraser. "Why don't people settle things comfortably and be done with it," thought Pamela vexedly. "They are both nice, and they could live at Fuchsia Cottage."

On Tuesday morning, so early as the nine-o'clock breakfast hour, came a surprise.

It had been raining in the night, and was still drizzling, with an inclination to clear up, when Mollie Shard burst upon the scene in an atmosphere of wet wind and scent of salt.

She had not had breakfast. It appeared that Auntie A. was not down, and as Miss Shard had something to communicate that refused to be kept back till conventional hours she had left Crown Hill, in a "trench" coat and no hat, racing down to the Bell House to see her friends, and tell her tale.

Everybody was down and beginning, except Pamela, and the conversation was a perfect rattle of questions and answers.

"Suppose," said Mrs. Romilly, "you let Mollie tell us what she has been doing."

Mollie explained that what she had been doing was entirely uninteresting. It was only what she expected--a little house on the river near Weybridge. "Yes, the usual little cottagey thing--with a lawn." Mollie liked it, and anyway it had to be because Dad couldn't leave London for ages. "It'll have to be put up with," said Mollie, "one must look forward to better times," but it seemed that was not the matter that was causing all this bubble of excitement and beam of smiles.

"Addie, I've got a message for you and Crow from Dad. Very special. You can have the _Messenger_ to play with, till he wants her."

"_We_ can!" gasped Christobel.

Adrian murmured "My hat!" and flushed red all over his tanned face.

"Yes. That's why I came bursting down, because why shouldn't we go out to-day? Do let's. I've got to do reams of packing, and I'm vowed to go back with the goods, next Monday. Mother lets me off till Monday. Well, anyway Dad says he sees that Crow and Adrian can manage the yawl just as well as he can, and he trusts her to you--only he says if you wreck her you'll have to give him another--that's all. Of course he knows Penberthy isn't vital. Especially when he has lumbago. She's not a heavy boat, and yawls are awfully convenient, Mrs. Romilly--aren't they, Addie?"

"Rather," agreed Adrian ecstatically; his hands shook a little with the thrill of the moment. Crow's grey eyes, so like her father's, seemed to shine with an inner light.

"Well, then, that's all settled. No, don't thank. Dad hates _Messenger_ being on the moorings, just wasting. Hullo, here's Pamela, just in time to join in this jubilee. I say, Pam, why didn't you stop when I called you?"

Pamela slipped into her chair, took an egg, realized the amazing news from a few words of Crow's, looked from her mother's happy face to Adrian's, then attended to Mollie's question.

"How do you mean--'stop'--stop when?"

"Why, just now--when I was coming down the bay drive from Crown Hill, I was nearly at the end lodge, and you came down the road from Hawksdown, went to the edge of the cliff above Penberthy's and stared down into the cove. I called out to you, but you wouldn't answer, you must have heard."

Everybody looked at Pamela, who went on eating her egg slowly.

"It was my wraith," she said, "it wasn't me."

"Jolly solid wraith," declared Mollie, laughing.

"Well, but where did I go?" demanded Pamela, half laughing. "I mean, where did you think I went?"

"Don't know, my dear; I lost sight of you. It's for you to say where you went."

Pamela shook her head, and helped herself to marmalade.

"Well, it wasn't me," she repeated.

"'_I_', Pamela dear, '_I_', please," put in Miss Chance urgently. And everybody laughed.

*CHAPTER III*

*In which Hughie is Ill-used*

Some days after that joyous breakfast--Mollie being deeply engaged in the arduous duty of packing--the Romilly crew took out the white yawl in force.

Jim Crow was admittedly skipper. She was the eldest, and had a "sailing" bent undoubtedly. Captain Romilly, in training his family to understand the true inwardness of boats, had discovered the natural gift in his elder daughter. Adrian loved it--and loved the sea, but he was going to be a soldier in due course; Crow and Hughie were following faithfully in the Romilly record.

On this warm still evening--for the day was drawing to a close--_Messenger_ floated lazily on a heaving oily sea. The sky was full of brassy clouds that seemed to have a copper lining; these, drifting, with scarcely perceptible movement, from the north and east, formed rather a serious barrier to getting home, because, given a good strong tide running out also, what is the cleverest yacht to do?

Earlier in the day, with mainsail set as well as mizzen, with big jib ballooning out in fine style, in fact, looking exactly what a well-kept yawl should look, _Messenger_ had gone away down to the southwest straight before the wind and with the tide. The skipper had acted on a sound principle in this; but she was not very sure of her tides, and, having decided that the tide should be in their favour for the homeward run, was now disturbed and puzzled to find it had not turned yet--and the hour was six o'clock or after.

"Of course," said Pam, leaning with her head back against the deck-house, "of course that was where old Penberthy came in. He didn't do anything. He was fearfully lazy, but he was a perfect clock for tides."

"So shall we be, soon," murmured Adrian peacefully from under the brim of a battered hat, "but anyway what does it matter! We shall be home some day. Great Scot, isn't this A1!"

"It would be if I wasn't afraid Mother would worry. It's our first day without anybody, you see----" Christobel suggested this in an apologetic tone.

"My good Crow--what do you call anybody, might I ask? Old Pen was simply luggage. And Mollie is only one more hand, naturally. I mean she couldn't effect a rescue if we went to smash, could she?"

"Of course not, but Mother----"

"Mother is full of sense," said Adrian with decision, as he sat up and looked about appreciatively. "I never in all my life saw anything more perfect than the colours on the old Beak and Bell Ridge. I wouldn't have missed this evening for--well--really, Crow, what does time matter? It's as calm as a plate."

That was true, but the skipper's eye glanced uneasily towards the dipping sun.

Hughie, sitting as usual like a small image of contemplation in a comfortable corner of the well, had said nothing, but listened to the argument.

"If I was at home I could say to Mum there's no wind," he suggested.

"But you're not at home; the Floweret can say so," said Adrian.

"She won't. She'll say 'dear Mrs. Romilly, don't be anxious'," remarked Hughie with grave assurance.

It was so very true that the elders looked at each other and laughed.

Then Christobel said humbly:

"It's all my fault. I made sure the tide turned in our favour at five o'clock. That seemed to give us heaps of time to pick up moorings and make all snug by half-past seven."

"For any sake, Crow, don't be in a repentant mood," urged Adrian, "the tide is keeping a pleasant surprise up its sleeve. At present it's pretending it never comes in at all! Keep it in a good temper whatever happens. It will get tired of the merry jest in two jiffs and remember how jolly and warm the little bays are all along; then it'll go home in a hurry! Oh, I say--what a coast this is! I don't believe you can beat it round England anywhere."

Adrian thus refused to be roused into worry, but Pamela was sorry for Crow. Crow had such a terribly tender conscience! She pulled herself together and sat upright with a decisive little movement.

"Give me the dinghy," she said, "and I'll go ashore and carry a message. Then, when you get back, the boat will be in the cove all right to take you off. There's no difficulty about it--it's as simple as--as anything."

"Pam, it's three miles! You can't possibly----" Christobel objected.