Part 7

"Or," said Hughie, pausing in his work, "you could blaze a trail on the bushes. That's easy enough--tiny little breaks in the twigs--and leaves stuck on the ends of them. I would."

"Yes," agreed Pamela thoughtfully, "if I go again I will. Well, anyway I had to hide, because two women came from the house and went to the end of the garden. One was Mrs. Trewby--looking as yellow as marmalade--and the other was that maid Baker. Lady Shard had her for years, and she married the London butler. Her name is Mrs. Chipman now. Do you remember her, Midget?"

"She came to tea with Mrs. Jeep when she was dressed in black. I hated her," said Hughie, "she says silly things to people about being mischievous. She calls it 'mischeevious'. She doesn't understand anything."

"She'd talk the hind leg off a donkey," said Pamela with contempt. "I should think the butler was very thankful when he died and could get away from her voice--it clacks. I couldn't remember her at first, and I was so busy remembering that I forgot to notice what she said--it was all about people, though--you know how that kind of person talks. They went back past me to the house, and then the Chipman female began shouting for her dog, and I was so fearfully afraid of being caught that I fled along the path over the wall and came home."

"How did you know she was calling the dog?" asked Hughie, opening the paper bag and looking into it with interest. "How do you know she wasn't calling the other girl?"

"Couldn't have been; she called 'Countess, Countess, Countess', just how people call dogs, and that sort of person usually call dogs by that kind of name; and the dogs are usually big, fluffy ones which never do what they're told. Oh, it was a dog right enough, I'm sure. Well, that's all. It isn't a very bright prospect is it, Midget?"

"Not very," allowed Hughie; "what time is it, Pam?"

Pamela, consulting a wristlet watch, said it was about twelve. It must be, she concluded, because her watch was a quarter to one. "I calculate it to be over half an hour fast towards the end of the week," she told him, "then I begin fresh on Sundays. It's a bother, because you forget and are sure to be late for breakfast. However, it can't be helped."

"Don't tell anybody I'm here," Hughie requested, finishing the chocolate and smoothing out the bag. Paper bags came in usefully at times.

"Not Mother, do you mean? She may ask."

"I don't mind her, but not the others, Pam. It's impossible to sew properly when people come bothering about and asking questions."

Pamela promised, and departed light-footed.

In the corridor she met her mother, who promptly asked where was her youngest son.

"He's all right, Mummy--sewing, in the cave," said Pamela, "and he doesn't want anyone to know."

"All right. _I_ shan't tell," said Mrs. Romilly, smiling. Then she asked about the yawl, and the plans of the older pair about fetching her from Salterne.

Pamela related what she knew, so far as it went. In a day or two the tide would serve better, as there would be a later ebb in the afternoon.

"The fact is, Miss Chance would rather like to make a shopping expedition to Salterne the same day--and couldn't she come back in the boat?" asked Mrs. Romilly, innocent of all this involved--as mothers so often are.

The silence that ensued was so full of meaning, that Mrs. Romilly answered it as though her daughter had spoken.

"I think, darling child, that you ought--all of you--to make things as nice for Miss Chance as you can. There are no regular lessons just now, because of Addie being sent home, and Crow finishing up at Easter; besides, it will soon be Whitsuntide now; but I think we ought to try and make it as pleasant for her as possible, don't you? She is always most kind."

"Oh, yes, awfully kind," agreed Pamela hastily, "but Mother, are you sure she likes going on the yawl? You know she'd be rather a responsibility for Addie and Crow; she doesn't understand a boat, she stands on the gunwale and expects the boat to wait as if it were a stone step! She truly might get drowned rather easily, you know, and what _could_ they do, if she fell overboard?"

"I see," murmured Mrs. Romilly thoughtfully, "yes, I see. Well, she might come back by train. I'll talk to her about it. At the same time, if she really wishes to go by sea, I'm sure it will be all right."

To this Pamela said nothing, but she formed an inward resolve that she would have nothing to do with this expedition.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*"Little Friend of all the World"*

On a certain evening, a couple of days or so after this, the sky cleared beautifully, and the sun went down with grand promise of fine weather again.

Miss Chance was correcting French exercises in the library when Adrian and Christobel entered, very hot and triumphant--the Bell House lawns were mown to perfection, and to-morrow would suit in all ways for the fetching back of the yawl.

"It must be done to-morrow," Adrian threw himself with a crash on the springy sofa, "_must_ be--we can't leave the _Messenger_ at Salterne any longer. She must be on her moorings by this time to-morrow."

"I hope you will have a fine day, then," said Miss Chance, placing papers aside in a neat heap, "you had a terrible storm the day of your last expedition--terrible. I always think though that thunder and lightning and such terrors must be sent for some good purpose--to teach us something."

"They teach you not to leave your oilskins behind," suggested Adrian from the floor.

"Oh, hush, dear boy--is that quite nice?" said the excellent woman in a shocked voice--and then changing the subject with rather laboured vivacity she went on:

"Really I wish dear Pam would concentrate more. She is having so few lessons now that she ought to be giving of her very best. One would think her mind was entirely distracted. I told her so, and her reply was _most_ unconvincing--she said if she had twelve times as much to do she would do it twelve times as well! Most unreasoning."

"I don't agree with you, my dear Floweret," said Adrian, "I agree with Pam. If you are in for a fearful grind--well, there you are--you grind; you get acclimatized, so to speak, like people living on the west coast of Africa. After a bit you thrive on the beastly thing--in fact revel in it. Whereas if you make a snatch at it--well, there's a hopeless failure."

Good Miss Chance gave a crackling laugh; she was devoted to Adrian, especially when he slapped her on the back and called her the Floweret, or "my good Blossom"--in cheerful allusion to her pretty name. She plunged into argument with zest therefore.

"The west coast of Africa," she said, "is not nearly so subject to pestilence and dangerous malaria as it used to be. Advancing science has taught us how to deal with these things--and what has it to do with French exercises! I am sure you cannot be thinking reasonably. What else can be expected from your position, which is exactly the opposite to what was intended for the use of a sofa."

"I know," said Adrian, "I am aware of that, Miss Chance. But I never was a Conservative. My opinions might be classified as Republican-Imperialist. Let me reason with you. If the legs are on the sofa, and the head is on the floor, blood flows freely to the brain, and it swells with astonishing rapidity. Result, a vigorous crop of ideas. I'm full of them at this moment--my brain is, that's to say. They are sprouting so rapidly that I shall be able to impart to you information on many subjects in a brace of jiffs."

Miss Chance was about to plunge into further depths, when Christobel intervened politely.

"Don't listen to him, Miss Chance, he is talking the worst kind of piffle--suppose we go to bed. Addie, get up, your head was never intended for a carpet-cleaner. Come along and say good-night to Mum, she's gone up because she had a headache."

Crow stood up and stretched. Adrian, after a violent effort to get on to the sofa by muscular effort alone, came on to his feet in the ordinary way, and proceeded to shake himself into his garments with some regard to appearance.

"Now I wonder," said Miss Chance, gathering all her properties into order, and replacing some in drawers, "I wonder whether you two would give _me_ a lift to-morrow. I want a day's shopping in Salterne, or some hours anyway--why shouldn't I go in with you--and sail out?"

There was one short pause strenuous with meaning! Then Crow, as usual, met the difficulty.

"If you want to shop, Miss Chance, it wouldn't fit in, you see we should have to go to the harbour and get the yawl out--and home. I am sorry, but really it would be difficult to get time for shopping, wouldn't it, Addie?"

"Well, well, we will discuss the matter in the morning," said Miss Chance, not in the least offended. She certainly was a "goodhearted soul," as Crow impressed on Adrian going upstairs.

"She may be," he declared desperately, "but her good heart won't be much use in the boat. She'll most likely be drowned, and we shall be responsible."

The depths of gloom are speedily reached.

Mrs. Romilly was sitting in an arm-chair before a little fire. She said she was cold after all that rain. She was dressed in a loose gown of the colour matching her eyes, and her lovely hair--just like Pamela's--was hanging round her like a shawl.

"I'll brush that," said Christobel firmly.

Adrian sat down on the fender-stool with his back to the fire and looked dejected.

"Is your head bad--or better, Mummy, dear?" asked Christobel, proceeding to the business of brushing. "Addie and I have been talking to Miss Chance, or we should have come sooner."

Mrs. Romilly said her head was better, also that she was very pleased they'd been talking to Miss Chance; finally she wanted to know if anything had been said about the sail from Salterne.

"If you go, and when you go," she concluded, "she wants to go in with you--walk to Five Trees, I mean, and sail home."

"I don't think she'll enjoy it much, Mother," ventured Christobel.

"Why not, dear--_you_ do?"

"Yes, but you see we don't mind knocking about, and wet, and spells of discomfort--she might be sick, most people are."

Mrs. Romilly was not blind to the trend of feeling.

"I don't see why she shouldn't have a try," she suggested mildly, "if she is ill, or hates it, she needn't go again. After all, poor thing, she never has been."

"Well, Mother, you see it was Sir Marmaduke's affair before this, wasn't it? And such a crowd with Penberthy and Mollie--as he didn't ask Miss Chance, we couldn't force her in, could we?"

"Well, there won't be a crowd now," persisted Mrs. Romilly, "even if you all go--only five."

"Only five!" Christobel looked at Adrian over her mother's head, she said the two words with her lips--soundlessly--and smiled.

But Adrian would not smile.

"If she'd been with us the other day, in the thunderstorm, she wouldn't have wanted to go again," said the boy darkly, "she'd have been in fits."

"But, darling, I thought you said it was lovely?" this, from his mother in an expostulating voice.

Christobel warned, with raised eyebrows, and headshakes.

"So it was when the storm was over," said Adrian, refusing to see the signals, "but she wouldn't have enjoyed the process of working through it. Of course we did," he added quickly, "we enjoy anything, no matter how beastly--but when it comes to being drenched, and battered, and shaken up, Miss Chance mightn't. And you see, Mum, we can't put her ashore--that's flat. If she comes, she must come. I can't undertake to land people."

"You landed Hughie one day."

"That was a dead calm."

"Well, but supposing there is a calm to-morrow?"

"If there is we shall go straight back to Salterne, that's all--and sleep on the boat," announced Adrian desperately; "surely Miss Chance would find it pretty uncomfortable to have to sleep on the yawl with four other people, and not even a toothbrush among the lot."

The unfortunate part of this episode was that it did not achieve its object, but only succeeded in making Mrs. Romilly firmer on the contested point. She did not believe in the discomforts Adrian had mentioned--which were perfectly true, of course--because they had been kept from her before.

She thought the young ones did not want Miss Chance to go--they certainly did not, but the reasons put forward were strictly facts.

She was sweet and sympathetic, but her mind was made up.

"Please make it as nice and easy for her as possible, dear children," she said; "I depend on you, Crow; after all she has never yet been on the yacht."

There was no more to be said of course. Christobel gave way without another word. Adrian was silent, but when they were saying "good-night" he suggested quite amiably:

"We'll give the Floweret as good a time as we know how, Mum, and by the way, it's only fair to remember it isn't our fault she's never been out in the _Messenger_--she's always been away in the holidays when we did all the sailing--and Sir Marmaduke was here."

Mrs. Romilly protested that she knew all this. The yawl had never been at their service in term-time before--Adrian being absent.

"Perhaps this is the beginning of good times," she said; "perhaps she will make a first-rate sailor."

Brother and sister looked at each other speechless, when they got outside. Then Crow whispered:

"Are we downhearted?" and sped away to her room, head turned over her shoulder with her lips forming a very decided "No--o--o."

Adrian stood at his window presently looking out at the sweet breathless night. There was no air, the stars were clear. "If it's a calm she'll be sick," he thought, "poor old Blossom"--and peace descended on his soul.

So the matter was settled, and, in order to give Miss Chance time for her shopping, the young Romillys went by an earlier train from Five Trees. They did not mind that at all. Adrian wanted to get to his beloved _Messenger_--the sooner the better.

The party consisted of four--because Hughie was included. Pamela simply declined. She wouldn't say why or wherefore. She looked at the others during breakfast remarking that four was an even number.

"All agog to dash through thick and thin," she murmured, "Crow can shop with Miss Chance and Hughie can go with Addie to the yawl. Three people jostling each other in front of shop windows is never comfortable, and I hate sitting on a hot deck at anchor. Home is nicer."

They all went off gaily, Miss Chance carrying a string bag besides her bag-purse, to Crow's annoyance. She could not bear "walking with a string bag," she said. However Miss Chance could not be parted from it. The necessary food was to be bought in Salterne, and they were to start back after lunch, and come home with the tide.

It sounded perfectly charming, not a hitch. Mrs. Romilly was well pleased. She and Pamela had lunch together, and the peace of the house was balm. The day held fine--very fine. About two o'clock there was about as much air as you would expect under a vacuum bell.

Pamela called her mother's attention to it.

"Oh, I expect they've got some wind even if we haven't," said Mrs. Romilly; "I shan't worry, and, Pam dear, tea at half-past four, for you and me--and after that will you go up to Clawtol and get some eggs from Mrs. Ensor? A dozen or two dozen even--we eat such a lot now Addie has taken to demanding hard-boiled ones for the yacht. If I can't get enough from Clawtol, we must try the Badgers at Champles to-morrow or next day."

Pamela did not mind in the least. She had a plan in fact. Why not come back by Woodrising? A basket of eggs would prove her business. She need not do anything--at the same time she felt she could not rest till she obtained some knowledge of her "double". Having settled that the girl did not exist, she had been shaken out of that security by Christobel's surprising questions and confusion of her identity. It was not possible to pass it over. Fate had sent her another free day, clear of "family"; she must have one more attempt at Woodrising.

She and her mother followed the thought of _Messenger's_ return with interest.

"If there had been a good wind they might have reached the lighthouse by now," said Pamela, spreading her bread and butter with a thankful heart, "as it is----"

"What? 'As it _is_'" asked Mrs. Romilly.

"Well, Mummy dear, no wind. What can they do? They'll be coming down the estuary about now--perhaps crossing the bar. Miss Chance won't feel the swell till they get really out--a good way."

"Are they bound to feel the swell?"

"Mummy, they are. I can assure you it's the sort of heaving that makes one try hard _not_ to think of bacon grease. If you do, you're sorry."

"Poor Miss Chance," said Mrs. Romilly, and laughed.

Pamela looked at her with eyes that were grey-green--sometimes they were blue, sometimes grey--it depended on the sky and the atmosphere.

"I'm rather afraid," she remarked, "that a bit of bad luck is coming to those poor ones. There is a mist. You know how it begins. Bits of ragged chiffon seem to float past one, going nowhere in particular. There isn't a breath of air, and yet a cold kind of draught has arrived."

"I _am_ sorry," said Mrs. Romilly, with feeling, "but a fog won't prevent their getting home. If they keep close in, the cliffs are so very obvious."

Pamela made no comment on this; she simply said it certainly would not prevent her walk to Clawtol for the eggs, while through her mind ran the idea that nothing could be better than a good thick white mist--such as they got in perfection at Bell Bay--for her mystery hunting expedition.

She kissed her mother and went, feeling joyous and independent. Her plan was cut and dried, so to speak, all settled--and when plans are like that they are very apt to turn topsy-turvy, and land people where they least expected to be.

Pamela went the usual way, across the lawns, out by the wicket that led to the beach, and very slowly up the steep cliff road past Crown Hill lodge gates and on up to Hawksdown. A sea fog has the effect of producing a feeling of loneliness. It cuts you off, and it makes voices and distant noises sound different. She went on till she reached the summit, and arriving there, went along cautiously towards the cliff edge, to see if the _Messenger_ might be within sight.

The land on top of the Beak was very wild, desolate even; as it sloped very slightly downward to the cliff edge it behoved a wanderer to go cautiously. The Beak was not perpendicular. It could be climbed by an expert, or even an agile, clear-headed person like Pamela, but as she said to herself, "It was not the sort of thing you'd pick out to do, unless you had a very strong mood on."

She thought that as she looked over, and out to sea. No sail was within her vision. The water was visible, but through a fluff of thick white haze, that moved with the ceaseless shift of a kaleidoscope. Very dazzling. It made her giddy to watch the curious floating rags of it--coming, coming, ever thicker. If the yawl were close she could not be seen.

Of course it will be understood that the bluff of a headland is not a narrow point. It is a long stretch of wild high land that juts out to sea. There are such things as actual peaks sticking out to seaward, but these are rock, sheer, bare rock, to be found--some at any rate--in the Channel Islands, where you see most kinds of rocky headland in every weird shape.

But the Beak on which Pamela stood was a very blunt beak. The lighthouse lay perhaps half a mile to the south--invisible from the top--and Bell Bay was certainly half a mile to the north; all between was wild cliff trending outward like a huge bent elbow.

Pamela sat down on a gorsy hump, and looked towards Ramsworthy and Netheroot sands. She could not see them because of the fog. Nor could she see any sail. It was profoundly lonely, except for the sea-birds which kept up a constant wailing cry. They had noticed a human being appear on the scene, and instantly rose in whity-grey clouds, crying and screaming, circling round and round uneasily. When nothing happened they settled down, and presently there was silence again--complete silence except for one bird, that wailed distressfully at short intervals. From the sound, Pamela thought it was young--or very old--or wounded. It was not quite like the others. However, it was impossible to distinguish, as when it cried all the others rose up and began again.

She sat there perhaps ten minutes, then she went off back to the road, and presently, at the turning, away down to the farm.

Mrs. Ensor was leaning over the gate with the baby in her arms. She greeted Pamela with some satisfaction and said she had plenty of eggs. They went in together to the dairy, and Mrs. Ensor, putting the baby down, proceeded to pick out eggs by dates pencilled on them. Meanwhile she talked.

"Suppose you don't happen to have met with our Reube--which way did you come, Missie?"

Pamela explained.

"I'm afraid he's more like to be Ramsworthy way or, for all that comes to, Folly Ho. Mischeevious young monkey he is to be sure," she sighed, but smiled also with conscious pride in the "mischeevious" one. "For ever up to something--and for _looks_, why there--you'd think he only wanted a pair o' wings to fly to Heaven."

"He's a dear little boy," said Pamela, "I like Reuben; he's only six, though, isn't he?"

Mrs. Ensor said he was six, but had "double the years of naughtiness in him". It appeared that he had detached himself from the party of children coming from Ramsworthy school, said he'd got enough dinner left to do for his tea, and departed all alone.

"There wasn't one of them with 'thority to make him do as he was told you see, Missie," said the anxious mother, "he knows I want him for all sorts. He's ever such a help. But there, once in a while off he'll go; he never come for his tea, because he know'd I should catch him."

Pamela sympathized secretly with "young Reube". When she said good-bye, she promised to look out for him, and urge upon him to return home speedily. Mrs. Ensor was very grateful.

"That's a weight off me, Missie," she declared. "Six ain't no age when it comes to that, and these sea mists do seem to worrit anybody, sort of squeezing you in."

Pamela departed, carrying her eggs carefully, and pursued her way towards Crown Hill, planning to cut through the park by a foot-track they were allowed to use, and go down into Bell Bay at the back of the valley, thus returning via Woodrising "according to plan". The last thing she saw of the farmer's family was a general action, so to speak, amongst the children and animals in the "muck yard". Into this Mrs. Ensor dived, dispersing the contending arms, and restoring order.

"I'm glad I shan't have to be a farmer's wife," thought Pamela, "it's funny how happy they are." She remembered Reube; then she sat down on a felled log by the edge of the road to think, for a curious conviction had awakened in her mind and, as she stopped, seemed to fill every bit of her brain. Most people understand that feeling of _certainty_ about a thing they know nothing about. It comes of itself and stays. Nothing will argue it away, yet there is no reason why it should be there.

Now the conviction that had taken possession of Pamela's mind was this:

"Young Reube" was in serious trouble on the rugged point of the Beak. And the queer intermittent cry, that she had noted as distinguished from the other bird cries, was the despairing voice of the child calling faintly.