Chapter 11

Mooring his boat at the landing, Mark sauntered up to Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, and having tapped lightly at the door to let Mrs. Loring know of his arrival, as they had agreed he should do, he went along the flagged pathway into the garden, and sat down on the edge of the low wall that divided it from the river. Just in front of him was the little worn bench where he had first seen Robinette as she sat beside her old nurse with the tiny shoe on her lap. It was scarcely a fortnight ago; yet it seemed to him that he could hardly remember the kind of man he had been that afternoon; a new self, full of a new purpose, and at that moment of a new hope, had taken the place of the objectless being he had been before.

Everything was very still; there was scarcely a sound from the village or from the shipping farther down the river. Lavendar fancied he heard Robinette's clear voice within the cottage; then he started suddenly and the blood rushed to his heart as he listened to her light steps coming along the paved footpath.

"Here you are!" she whispered. "Let us not speak too loud, for Nurse was just dropping asleep when I left her. I've put a table-cover and a blanket over 'Mrs. Mackenzie' to keep her from quacking. Mrs. Prettyman has not been very well, poor dear, and is in bed. We've just talked about the lovely new home she's going to have, and the transplanted plum tree; small, but warranted to bear in a year or two and give plums and jam like this one. I left her so happy!"

She stopped and looked up. "Oh! can any new tree be as beautiful as this one? Was ever anything in the world more exquisite? It has just come to its hour of perfection, Mr. Lavendar; it couldn't last,--anything so lovely in a passing world."

She sat down on the low wall, and looked up at the tree. It stood and shone there in its perfect hour. Another day, and the blossoms, too fully blown, would begin to drift upon the ground with every little shaking wind; now it was at its zenith, a miracle of such white beauty that it caused the heart to stop and consider. Bees and butterflies hummed and flew around it; it cast a delicate shadow on the grass, and leaning across the wall it was imaged again in the river like a bride in her looking-glass.

Robinette sat gazing at the tree, and Lavendar sat gazing at her. At that moment he "feared his fate too much" to break the silence by any question that might shatter his hope, as the first breeze would break the picture that had taken shape in the glassy water beneath them.

"I feel in a better temper now," said Robinette. "Who could be angry, and look at that beautiful thing? I've left dear old Nurse quite happy again, and I haven't yet offended Aunt de Tracy irrevocably, and all because you persuaded me not to be unreasonable. All the same I could do it again in another minute if I let myself go. Doesn't injustice ever make people angry in England?"

Lavendar laughed. "It often makes me feel angry, but I've never found that throwing the reins on the horses' necks when they wanted to bolt, made one go along the right road any faster in the end."

"I often think," said Robinette, "if we could see people really angry and disagreeable before we--" She hesitated and added, "get to know them well, we should be so much more careful."

"Yes," said Mark, bending down his head and speaking very deliberately, "that's why I wish you could have seen me in all my worst moments. I'd stand the shame of it, if you could only know, but, alas, one can't show off one's worst moments to order; they must be hit upon unexpectedly."

"I don't believe thirty years of life would teach one about some people--they are so _crevicey_," said Robinette musingly. She had risen and leaned against the plum tree for a moment, looking up through the white branches.

Lavendar rose and stood beside her. "Thirty years--I shall be getting on to seventy in thirty years."

A little gust of wind shook the tree; some petals came drifting down upon them, like white moths, like flakes of summer snow, a warning that the brief hour of perfection would soon be past ... and under it human creatures were talking about thirty years!

XXI

CARNABY CUTS THE KNOT

That afternoon, Carnaby was having what he called "an absolutely mouldy time," and since his leave was running out and his remaining afternoons were few, he considered himself an injured individual. Robinette and Lavendar seemed for ever preoccupied either with each other or with some subject of discussion, the ins and outs of which they had not confided to him.

"It's partly that blessed plum tree," he said to himself; "but of course they're spooning too. Very likely they're engaged by this time. Didn't I tell her she'd marry again? Well, if she must, it might as well be old Lavendar as anyone else. He's a decent chap, or he was, before he fell in love."

Carnaby sighed. This effort of generosity towards his rival made him feel peculiarly disconsolate. He had fished and rowed on the river all the morning; he had ferreted; he had fed Rupert with a private preparation of rabbits which infallibly made him sick, the desired result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for himself how the land lay.

"Why is Waller R. A. so keen on the plum tree?" he had enquired.

"He wants to make a quartette of studies," answered Lavendar. "The Plum Tree in spring, summer, autumn, and winter."

"What a rotten idea!" said Carnaby simply.

"Far from rotten, my young friend, I can assure you!" Lavendar returned. "It will furnish coloured illustrations for countless summer numbers of the _Graphic_ and _The Lady's Pictorial_, and fill Waller R. A.'s pockets with gold, some of which will shortly filter in advance into the Stoke Revel banking account, we hope."

"I'm not so sure about that!" said Carnaby; but he said it to himself, while aloud he only asked with much apparent innocence, "Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage or the land without the plum tree, I suppose?"

"Certainly not," Lavendar had answered. "The plum tree is safeguarded in the agreement as I'm sure no plum tree ever was before. Waller R. A.'s no fool!"

Digesting this information and much else that he had gleaned, Carnaby now climbed to the top of a tree where he had a favourite perch, and did some serious and simple thinking.

"It's a beastly shame," he said to himself, "to turn that old woman out of her cottage. Cousin Robin thinks it's a beastly shame, and what's more, Mark does, and he's a man, and a lawyer into the bargain."

Carnaby thought remorsefully of a pot of jam which old Mrs. Prettyman had given him once to take back to college. What good jam it had been, and how large the pot! He had never given her anything--he had never a penny to bless himself with; and now his grandmother was taking away from the poor old creature all that she had. "It's regular covetousness," he thought, "and that infernal plum tree's at the bottom of it all. Naboth's vineyard is a joke in comparison, and What's-his-name and the one ewe lamb simply aren't in it." He grew hot with mortification. Then he reflected, "If the plum tree weren't there, Waller R. A. wouldn't want the cottage, and old Mrs. Prettyman could live in it till the end of the chapter." A slow grin dawned upon his face, its most mischievous expression, the one which Rupert with canine sagacity had learned to dread. He felt and pinched the muscle of his arm fondly. (_Mussle_ he always spelled the word himself, upon phonetic principles.)

"I may be a fool and a minor" (generally spelt _miner_ by him), he said, as he climbed down from his perch, "but at least I can cut down a tree!"

He became lost to view forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged, furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. _Whirr_, _whirr_, _whirr_, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly--"_this is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that holds it_!"

"You be goin' to do a bit of forestry on your own, Master Carnaby, eh?" suggested the grinning owner of the grindstone.

"I am; a very particular bit, Jones!" replied the young master, lovingly feeling the edge of the tool, which was now nearly as fine as that of a razor.

"You be careful, sir, as you don't chop off one of your own toes with that there axe," said the man. "It be full heavy for one o' your age. But there! you zailor-men be that handy! 'Tis your trade, so to speak!"

"Quite right, Jones, it is!" replied Carnaby. "Good-afternoon and thank you for the use of the grindstone." He was already planning where he would hide the axe, for he had precise ideas about everything and left nothing to chance.

Carnaby went to bed that night at his usual hour. His profession had already accustomed him to awaking at odd intervals, and he had more than the ordinary boy's knowledge of moon and tide, night and dawn. When he slipped out of bed after a few hours of sound sleep, he put on a flannel shirt and trousers and a broad belt, and then, carrying his boots in his hand, crept out of his room and through the sleeping house. He would much rather have climbed out of the window, in a manner more worthy of such an adventure, but his return in that fashion might offer dangers in daylight. So he was content with an unfrequented garden door which he could leave on the latch.

The moon, which had been young when she lighted the lovers in the mud-bank adventure, was now a more experienced orb and shed a useful light. Carnaby intended to cross the river in a small tub which was propelled by a single oar worked at the stern, the rower standing. This craft was intended for pottering about the shore; to cross the river in it was the dangerous feat of a skilled waterman, but Carnaby had a knack of his own with every floating thing. As he balanced himself in the rocking tub, bare-headed, bare-necked, bare-armed, paddling with the grace and ease of strength and training, he looked a man, but a man young with the youth of the gods. The moon shone in his keen grey eyes and made them sparkle. A cold sea-wind blew up the river, but he did not feel its chill, for blood hot with adventure raced in his veins.

Wittisham was in profound darkness when he landed, and the moon having gone behind a bank of cloud, he had to grope his way to Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, shouldering the axe. The isolated position of the house alone made the adventure possible, he reflected; he could not have cut down a tree in the hearing of neighbours, and as to old Elizabeth herself, he hoped she was deaf. Most old women were, he reflected, except unfortunately his grandmother!

Soon he was entering the little garden and sniffing the scent of blossom, which was very strong in the night air. He could see the dim outline of the plum tree, and just as he wanted light, the moon came out and shone upon its whiteness, giving a sort of spiritual beauty to the flowering thing that was very exquisite.

"What price, Waller R. A. now?" thought Carnaby impishly. "The plum tree in moonlight! eh? Wouldn't he give his eyes to see it! But he won't! Not if I know it!" The boy was as blind to the tree's beauty as his grandmother had been, but he had scientific ideas how to cut it down, for he had watched the felling of many a tree.

First, standing on a lower branch, you lopped off all the side shoots as high as you could reach. This made the trunk easy to deal with, and its fall less heavy, and Carnaby set to work.

"She goes through them all as slick as butter!" he said to himself in high satisfaction. The axe had assumed a personality to him and was "she," not "it." "She makes no more noise than a pair of scissors cutting flowers; not half so much!" he said proudly. Branch after branch fell down and lay about the tree like the discarded garments of a bathing nymph. The petals fell upon Carnaby's face, upon his hair and shoulders; he was a white figure as he toiled. Frightened birds and bats flew about, but he did not notice them. His only care was the cottage itself and its inmate. If _she_ should awake! But the little habitation, shrouded in thatch and deep in shadow, was dark and silent as the grave.

"She must be sound asleep and deaf," thought the boy. "Yes, very deaf." He paused. The first stage in his task was accomplished. Shivering and naked, one absurd tuft of blossom and leaves at the tip--the murdered tree now stood in the moonlight, imploring the _coup de grâce_ which should end its shame.

"Jolly well done," said the murderer complacently. He stretched his arms, looked at the palms of his hands to see if they had blistered, and addressed himself to the second part of his business. Thud! thud! went the axe on the trunk of the tree, and the sweat broke out all over Carnaby's skin, not with exertion but with nervous terror.

"If that doesn't wake the dead!" he thought--but there was no awaking in the cottage. Its tiny window blinked in the moonlight, and Carnaby thought he heard the drowsy quack of a duck in an out-house. But the danger passed. Thud! went the axe again. The slim severed shaft of the tree was poised a moment, motionless, erect before it fell. Then it subsided gently among its broken and trodden boughs, and Carnaby's task was done.

XXII

CONSEQUENCES

Early that morning before the sun had risen, when the light was still grey in the coming dawn, Robinette was awakened by a bird that called out from a tree close to her open window, every note like the striking of a golden bell. She jumped up and looked out, but the little singer, silenced, had flown away. Instead, she caught sight of a figure stealing across the lawn towards the side door which opened from the library. Even in the dim light she could distinguish that it was Carnaby, Carnaby with something in his hand. What he carried she could not quite make out, but the sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up above his elbows in a fatally business-like way, and he walked with an air of stealth.

"What mischief can that boy have been up to at this time of day?" thought Robinette as she lay down again, but she was too sleepy to wonder long.

She forgot all about it until she saw Carnaby at the breakfast table some hours later. Sometimes the gloom of that meal--never a favorite or convivial one in the English household, and most certainly neither at Stoke Revel--would be enlivened by some of the boy's pranks. He would pass over to the sideboard, pepper-pot slyly in hand, and Rupert, whose meal at this hour consisted of grape-nuts and cream, would unaccountably sneeze and snuffle over his plate.

"Bless it, Bobs!" his tormentor would exclaim tenderly. "Is it catching cold? Poor old Kitchener! Hi! _Kitch!_ _Kitch!_" (like a violent sneeze) and the outraged Rupert would forget grape-nuts and pepper alike in a fit of impotent fury. But this morning the dog fed in peace and Carnaby never glanced at him or his basin. Robinette, looking at the boy and remembering where she had seen him last, noticed that he was rather silent, that his cheeks were redder than common, and that under his eyes were lines of fatigue not usually there.

"What were you doing on the lawn at four o'clock this morning?" she began, but checked herself, suddenly thinking that if Carnaby had been up to mischief she must not allude to it before his grandmother.

No one had heard her. The meal dragged on. Robinette and Lavendar talked little. Miss Smeardon was preoccupied with the sufferings and the moods of Rupert. Mrs. de Tracy alone seemed in better spirits than usual; she was talkative and even balmy.

"The work at the spinney begins to-day," she observed complacently, addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an old copse and the planting of a new one--an improvement she had long planned, though hitherto in vain. "The young trees have arrived."

"But where is the money to come from?" enquired Carnaby suddenly, in a sepulchral tone. (His voice was at the disagreeable breaking stage, an agony and a shame to himself and always a surprise to others.) His grandmother stared: the others, too, looked in astonishment at the boy's red face.

"I thought it had all been explained to you, Carnaby," said Mrs. de Tracy, "but you take so little interest in the estate that I suppose what you have been told went in at one ear and out at the other, as usual! It is the sale of land at Wittisham which makes these improvements possible, advantages drawn from a painful necessity," and the iron woman almost sighed.

"There won't be any sale of land at Wittisham,--at least, not of Mrs. Prettyman's cottage," said Carnaby abruptly.

"It is practically settled. The transfers only remain to be signed; you know that, Carnaby," said Lavendar curtly. He did not wish the vexed question to be raised again at a meal.

"It _was_ practically settled--but it's all off now," said the boy, looking hard at his grandmother. "Waller R. A. won't want the place any more. The bloomin' plum tree's gone--cut down. The bargain's off, and old Mrs. Prettyman can stay on in her cottage as long as she likes!"

There was a freezing silence, broken only by the stertorous breathing of Rupert on Miss Smeardon's lap.

"Repeat, please, what you have just said, Carnaby," said his grandmother with dangerous calmness, "and speak distinctly."

"I said that the cottage at Wittisham won't be sold because the plum tree's gone," repeated Carnaby doggedly. "It's been cut down."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen it." Carnaby raised his eyes. "I cut it down myself," he added, "this morning before daylight."

"Who put such a thing into your head?" Mrs. de Tracy's words were ice: her glance of suspicion at Robinette, like the cold thrust of steel. "Who told you to cut the plum tree down?"

"My conscience!" was Carnaby's unexpected reply. He was as red as fire, but his glance did not falter. Mrs. de Tracy rose. Not a muscle of her face had moved.

"Whatever your action has been, Carnaby," she said with dignity--"whether foolish and disgraceful, or criminal and dangerous, it cannot be discussed here. You will follow me at once to the library, and presently I may send for Mark. A lawyer's advice will probably be necessary," she added grimly.

Carnaby said not a word. He opened the door for his grandmother and followed her out; but as he passed Robinette, he looked at her earnestly, half expecting her applause; for one of the motives in his boyish mind had certainly been to please her--to shine in her eyes as the doer of bold deeds and to avenge her nurse's wrongs. And all that he had managed was to make her cry!

For Robinette had put her elbows on the table and had covered her eyes with her hands. As he left the room, Carnaby could hear her exclamation:--

"To cut down that tree! That beautiful, beautiful, fruitful thing! O! how could anyone do it?"

So this was justice; this was all he got for his pains! How unaccountable women were!

Lavendar awaited some time his summons to join Mrs. de Tracy and her grandson in what seemed to him must be a portentous interview enough, trying meanwhile somewhat unsuccessfully to console Mrs. Loring for the destruction of the plum tree, and exchanging with her somewhat awe-struck comments on the scene they had both just witnessed. No summons came, however; but half an hour later, he came across Carnaby alone, and an interview promptly ensued. He wanted to plumb the depth of the boy-mind and to learn exactly what motives had prompted Carnaby to this sudden and startling action in the matter of the plum tree.

"Had you a bad quarter of an hour with your grandmother?" was his first question. Carnaby, he thought, looked subdued, and not much wonder.

The boy hesitated.

"Not so bad as I expected," was his answer. "The old lady was wonderfully decent, for her. She gave me a talking to, of course."

"I should hope so!" interpolated Lavendar drily.

"She jawed away about our poverty," continued Carnaby. "She's got that on the brain, as you know. She said that this loss of the money--Waller R. A.'s money, she means, of course--is an awful blow. She _said_ it was, but it seemed to me--" Carnaby paused, looking extremely puzzled.

"It seemed to you--?" prompted Lavendar encouragingly.

"That she wasn't so awfully cut up, after all," said Carnaby. "She seemed putting it on, if you know what I mean." Lavendar pricked up his ears. Mrs. de Tracy's intense reluctance to sell the land recurred to him in a flash. To get her consent had been like drawing a tooth, like taking her life-blood drop by drop. Could it be that she was not very sorry after all that the scheme had fallen through, secretly glad, indeed? It was conceivable that this was Mrs. de Tracy's view, but her grandson's motive was still obscure.

"Why did you do it, Carnaby?" Lavendar asked with kindness and gravity both in his voice. "You have committed a very mischievous action, you know, one that would have borne a harsher name had the transfers been signed and had the plum tree changed hands."

"But then I shouldn't have done it--you--you juggins, Mark!" cried the boy. "I've no earthly grudge against Waller R. A. If he'd actually bought the tree, it would have been too late, and his beastly money--"

"You need the money, you know," remarked Lavendar. "Remember that, my young friend!"

"It would have been dirty money!" said Carnaby, with a sudden flash that lit up his rather heavy face with a new expression. "You and Cousin Robin have been jolly polite when you thought I was listening, but _I_ know what you really thought, and the kind of things you were saying to one another about this business! You thought it beastly mean to take the cottage away from old Lizzie in the way it was being done, and sheer robbery to deprive her of the plum tree without paying her for it. I quite agreed with you there, and if I felt like that, do you think I could sit still and let the money come in to Stoke Revel--money that had been got in such a way? What do you take me for?" Lavendar was silent, looking at the boy in surprise. "Oh," continued Carnaby, "how I wish I were of age! Then I could show Cousin Robin, perhaps, what an English landlord can be! I mean that he can be a friend to his tenants, and kind and generous as well as just. As it is, Cousin Robin will go back to America and tell her friends what selfish brutes we are over here, and how jolly glad she was to get away!"

"Mrs. Loring will carry no tales, I am sure," said Lavendar. "But tell me, my dear fellow, did you imagine that Mrs. Prettyman would be a gainer by your action?"

"Well, why not?" answered the boy. "Didn't you tell me yourself that Waller R. A. wouldn't look at the cottage without the tree? What's to prevent the old woman living on where she is? Do you think there'll be a rush of new tenants for that precious old hovel? Go on! You know better than that!"

"But the tree, Carnaby, the plum tree!" cried Lavendar. "My young Goth, hadn't you a moment's compunction? That beautiful, flowering thing, as your cousin called it; could you destroy it without a pang?"

"The _tree_?" echoed Carnaby with unmeasured scorn. "What's a tree? It's just a tree, isn't it?"

"A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more!"

quoted Mark, despairingly.

"Well; and what more did he expect of a primrose, whoever the Johnny was?" asked the contemptuous Carnaby.