CHAPTER VIII

New Owners

We leave the well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky; The roofs that heard our earliest cry, Will shelter one of stranger race. _In Memoriam._

MR. RUSSELL and Gerald sat out a couple of hours later on the smoking-room verandah. Politics and county news had been discussed during dinner; but now, as dusky silence began to steal over the sweet-scented garden in front of them, Gerald lost his reserve and spoke freely to his old friend.

"You can't think what a relief it will be to me when this day is over. I wish I had gone up to town, but I had so many things to arrange this morning, and then I wanted this talk with you, so I have been hanging about all the afternoon trying to kill time!"

"Yes, I think you would have been better away. Now, about this farm. I hope you are going to take it. You will be doing me a service, for I want a good tenant. It seems to have fallen vacant at the right time."

"It is a generous offer of yours, but I do not know whether it is quite wise to live on in this neighbourhood. I am not proud; it isn't that, for I've lost the estate through no fault of mine, and I'm not ashamed of any honest work. I mean to be a working farmer if I take your place, and I don't care who knows it!"

"It isn't very near the Manor; it's a good eight miles away from it. I don't think you would find it too close."

"It isn't that."

Gerald was looking out into the garden with an unfathomable expression in his eyes. He did not speak for some minutes; then his question sounded rather irrelevant,—

"How long are Mrs. Stuart and her daughters going to stay here?"

"They came for the summer. Why, Gerald, are they the attraction?"

"Good heavens! No!" exclaimed Gerald, almost fiercely. "Rather the reverse. I want time to get over this. If only you would let me defer my taking your farm till the autumn, I think I would go off to Norway in Tom Deane's yacht. He wrote inviting me again yesterday."

"The very best thing you could do," said Mr. Russell, looking at him gravely; "and I think I can tide over the next two months, by keeping on the farm hands, and making my bailiff overseer."

"Thank you."

There was a silence. Then Mr. Russell said,—"Gerald, I hope you are heart whole."

Gerald threw his head back with a little laugh, but it was a forced one.

"It will be a bad business if I'm not. A man in my position is out of the running."

"Not my little Betty?"

Another silence; then, very slowly,—

"I owe you a grudge for taking me over that evening and introducing me—"

"My dear fellow!"

Mr. Russell could say no more; he seemed lost in thought.

"I'm only human," Gerald said, with an effort; "and the plain fact is that I cannot stand meeting her so often."

"I found her weeping over your troubles this afternoon," said Mr. Russell, unguardedly.

Gerald's gaze of astonishment and concern made his friend add hastily,—

"She weeps over everybody. That is one thing she has kept from her childhood—a tender, sympathetic heart. She takes everything in dead earnest—her pleasures, and others' sorrows."

Then, after further thought, he added, "I would give a good deal to see you two brought together; but circumstances are against you at present, and you are wise to go away before she sees too much of you. She has the making of a splendid woman in her, and would be as happy in a farmhouse as in a palace."

"Is she fitted to be a farmer's wife?" exclaimed Gerald. "Do you think I could contemplate it for a moment?"

"I think her mother would very strongly object. Mrs. Stuart is ambitious for her daughters. No, you are right. It is best not to contemplate it at all."

Gerald felt unreasonably provoked by his friend's calmness. He curbed his irritation, however, and began talking about his projected yachting trip.

Betty was not mentioned again; but when the friends had parted for the night, Mr. Russell paced his room with anxious brow.

"I don't half like her interest in him. My poor little Betty! May God preserve you from real trouble coming into your life! It will go hardly with you, if you are not heart whole!"

Betty had arrived home that afternoon, to find Molly in a great state of excitement.

"Oh, Betty, it was a pity you did not come! Every one was there, and fancy! Who do you think has bought the Manor? General Dormer! And Frank was at the sale!"

Betty expressed her astonishment. The Dormers were very old friends of theirs. Frank and Ella had played with them when children, and they had all grown up together.

"But, Molly, the Dormers have their lovely place in Berkshire; why do they want another?"

"Berkshire doesn't suit Mrs. Dormer; she is always ill there, and they are selling it. They know the Fitz Humes here; and it was Mrs. Fitz Hume who told them about the Red Manor. The general came down to see it a week ago, and he settled it all within a very few days. Mother says she can't think why he didn't buy the library as it stood, but I believe he couldn't afford it. Frank told me as much. Frank was delighted to see us. Mother has asked him to dinner to-morrow. He is staying at a country inn, and isn't very comfortable. He has a lot of business to do for his father, and he will be here for a week or two."

"And will they be moving in at once?"

"Yes, in about a month's time. Isn't it delightful? I'm longing to see Ella. It makes me wish that we were going to stay on here altogether."

"I shall hate seeing them in the Red Manor!" Betty exclaimed vehemently. "It doesn't properly belong to them. People have no business to buy old family places and settle in them, when they have no love for, or associations with them."

"But," said Molly, mysteriously and eagerly, "I have been thinking it all out; and Mr. Arundel must fall in love with Ella, and marry her. I shall try and make up the match."

"Don't be so stupid, Molly! What good would that do? The Manor will belong to Frank, not to Ella, after General Dormer dies."

"Oh, Frank must have another place somewhere. I think it can be managed. It could be in a story-book, and people say that facts are stranger than fiction—"

Betty turned away impatiently from her sister, and went to the drawing-room, where her mother was resting.

"Did you buy any books, mother?" she said.

"I was rather disappointed," her mother replied; "there were several old savants down from town, and the most valuable were beyond my means. Mr. Russell bought the greater part of them. I have that illustrated copy of Chaucer we were looking at, and one or two very old editions of Shakespeare and Froissart's 'Chronicles.' It went to my heart to see that library demolished; and I suppose Molly has told you that General Dormer has bought the property?"

"Yes."

"Such a pity! For not one of them have any literary tastes. Of course, they have just let the library go. The collection of two or three generations will now be scattered. I am glad to think that Mr. Russell has taken the best part of it."

Betty took up the old vellum volume of Chaucer, and walked to the window with it in her hand. The quaint woodcuts interested her, and she turned the well-worn pages, wondering whose hand had scored pencil lines here and there. She read the description of the knight in the Canterbury pilgrims, and her heart quickened at the words,—

A knighte there was, and that a worthy man, That from the tyme that he first beganne To ryden out had lovèd chivalry, Truth and honoure, freedom and courtesie.

In the margin was written in round schoolboy hand:

"My father. Gerald Arundel."

Further down, against the words,—

And of his port as meek as is a maid, He never yet no vilanie ne'er said, In all his lyfe unto no manner wight, He was a very perfait gentle knighte!

upon the margin was written,—

"A gentleman's model.

"G. A."

It was the same handwriting, but was dated ten years later.

Betty looked at it with eager interest, then, with flushed cheeks, she murmured to herself,—

"It is a portrait of himself; 'A very . . . gentle knighte.'"

Then, putting the book down, she left the room, for she felt in no mood for talking.

Frank Dormer was very much at the vicarage during the few weeks that followed. He was a barrister by profession, but as yet was not a very busy one, and had a great deal of idle time on his hands. Mrs. Stuart liked him in fact, there were few who did not, for he was one of the bright sunshiny spirits in the world who carry a fresh breeze with them wherever they go, and his life about town had not spoilt his simple straightforward nature.

"Betty," he demanded one morning, coming into the breakfast-room where the two girls were sitting together, "I want you to make your mother bring you over to the Red Manor to a picnic tea this afternoon. I want you and Molly to advise me about a cartload of furniture arriving down. We will have tea on the terrace."

"You won't get me to go," said Betty stoutly. "I don't want to see the place again."

Molly looked up from her pile of manuscript.

"How do you spell inextinguishable?" she asked.

"Who is it?—A man or a woman?" asked Frank deferentially.

"It is 'the inextinguishable lightning fire in his eye,' that's how it comes!"

Frank and Betty burst out laughing.

"Give it to him, Molly. 'The inexpressible roll of murderous thunder that escaped from his soul!' Oh, what rot you waste your time over! Can't you stop her from such folly, Betty? She lives in a world of unreality all her days. She has not heard my invitation. Here! Give me your productions!"

He made a feint of snatching some of her papers. Molly stood at bay, making a pretty picture with her flushed cheeks and disordered hair, as she began to remonstrate.

"Frank! I will never forgive you! You are like a great schoolboy. No one told you to come here in the morning and interrupt us when we are busy!"

"Busy, are you? Here is Betty twirling her thumbs on the window-seat, and counting the flies on the window-panes! And you wasting your ink and paper on love-making between imaginary puppets with 'inextinguishable sparks of fire in their eyes'! You want a little real love-making to come into your life, then you would throw away this rubbish."

"Now, Frank, you are going too far!"

The placid Molly was roused at last, and Frank looked at her hot cheeks in surprise.

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to be too hard on you! Now I must cry forgiveness, or you won't come to tea with me; and you are my only hope, for Betty is obdurate."

Peace was soon made, for no one was ever angry with Frank for long. Betty asked him if he had met Gerald yet.

"Oh yes; he came over yesterday to superintend the removal of a small organ. I believe his mother used it, and he is having it taken to the farm where he is going to settle. It's rather out of place there, and I believe he does not play a note of music himself, so I think it is very stupid of him making such a fuss over it. He is having some other bits of furniture taken over too. He seems a nice friendly, cheerful kind of fellow. I feel rather sorry for him."

"Well," said Molly, putting on a most mournful look, "he is a hero going through the darkest hour of his life; but it is not going to last. And I have a plan for him by-and-bye."

"You're a silly goose!" exclaimed Betty. "He wouldn't thank you for your plans, nor any one else whom they concern."

"I must be off," announced Frank. "Molly, take my best respects to your lady mother, and ask her to bring you over."

Molly left the room.

Betty went to the sideboard and took a plate of pears off it.

"Here, Frank, will you have one? I am going to."

He assented boyishly; Betty sat on the low window-sill and commenced paring hers. As she did so, she swung her feet lightly to and fro, and began singing under her breath,—

"If I but knew how the lilies brew Nectar rare from a drop of dew."

Frank looked at her contemplatively.

"Betty, you're improving in looks."

"Thank you," said Betty, laughing. "I know you think there is great room for improvement. You used to call me 'Froggie,'—I remember."

"Yes, because of your big eyes and your jumping ways. You were never still a minute."

"I'm not often still now," Betty said. "I hate it. I always want to be on the move."

"Molly wants to be shaken up with you! Betty, tell me like a sister, has Molly any one after her?"

"What do you mean? You speak as if she is a cook! 'Any one after her!' It sounds quite vulgar."

"Don't fence round the bush. I want to know."

"And why should you want to know? You are most impertinent this morning."

"You are a little spitfire!"

"And you are impudence personified!"

Betty and Frank always engaged in a war of words, which meant very little. When Molly came down from her mother's room, and said that Mrs. Stuart would be glad to help Frank in any way, he rose to go.

"Good-bye, Molly. I wish I could get your 'hero' to meet you this afternoon, but he fights shy of the place. Betty, walk down the drive with me—do!"

Betty was nothing loth. She laughed and chatted as if she had not a care. She accompanied him through the village, and on the way they met Gerald Arundel, followed by his faithful hound Floy.

He did not stop, but only raised his hat and passed on. Betty thought he was looking tired and careworn, and her gay laughter died away.

"Looks glum, doesn't he? Poor chap! I wouldn't be in his shoes for something!"

Frank's tone was a little self-complacent.

Betty turned upon him in a fury.

"He has a good deal more in his shoes than you have! Money and a house and all outside show aren't much to lose! He doesn't count his wealth in the way you do; and I know which is the richest and the wisest and the better man of the two!"

Frank burst into his rollicking laugh.

"You and Molly are a pair! This exalted, ill-treated saint and hero ought to hear you fighting his battles! I am not worthy to enter into the lists with him. I must take a back seat, I see!"

"You are always so sure of yourself," went on Betty scathingly. "If you sometimes realised that you were inferior to men of brains and cultivated intellect, there would be some hope of you."

This was going too far.

Frank stood still in the middle of the road, and made her a grand bow.

"I am sure of one thing, my lady—that my presence is required no longer, so I will dismiss myself. Good morning!"

He walked away from her with offended dignity; but Betty, remembering her woman's privilege, called after him,—

"I never asked you for your-company; you asked for mine, and I shall tell mother and Molly how rudely you have treated me!"