CHAPTER VIII

AN ENCOUNTER IN THE FELLS

ONE afternoon Anstice asked the little girls if they would like to ride over the Fells with her to Ramdale.

"I am going to see Louise," she said; "and it will be a lovely ride."

They were of course delighted to accompany her.

"Why can't I go too?" demanded Ruffie.

"It is rather too long for you, darling," Anstice told him. "You mustn't be unhappy at staying at home. To-morrow, if it is fine, it will be your turn. You and I will go off together, and Josie and Georgie stay at home."

"But there's always two of them, only one of me," objected Ruffie; "it isn't fair."

"I can't alter your number," Anstice reminded him.

"If only Dad was here!" sighed Ruffie. "Him and me are always happy together."

But in the end, he was comforted by Brenda saying she would take him up to Hocher's Farm on his pony, to have tea there.

Anstice and the little girls started directly after lunch. When they left the lanes, and struck across the soft springy turf, their ponies showed their signs of approval by being rather skittish, but the long uphill climb soon made them settle down into a steady walk. The keen mountain air, the sweetness of the young bracken and gorse, and the carpets of bluebells in sheltered dells, all brought a feeling of joy to Anstice. She was never happier than when riding or walking over the Fells, and she was almost sorry when Ramdale was reached. Josie and Georgie had never ceased their happy chatter, but as they came round the lovely little lake called Dameswater, and saw it set like a turquoise in a circle of emerald green, Josie exclaimed:

"I've never been here before! Is this where Louise lives? Fancy hating this!"

"Oh, but she doesn't! That was only an idea," said Anstice hastily.

As they approached the Vicarage, Louise spied them in the distance, and hastened out to meet them.

The horses were taken on by a boy who worked in the garden to the small hotel a short distance off, and then Anstice and the little girls went in and saw the Vicar, who was sitting up in his study looking very white and frail. The room was bright with flowers, and Louise showed them with pride, the garden in which she had toiled a year ago, now rewarding her with its blossoms, and early roses. Anstice sat down and talked to the old man. She had heard from Louise that his heart was weak after his illness, and that he had to be kept extremely quiet. The little girls ran out of doors to play about till tea-time. It was not till tea was over, that Anstice found an opportunity for a quiet talk with Louise.

She took her into the drawing-room, which she had improved in many ways since Anstice had seen it before. Some fresh chintz coverings and curtains, a rug or two on the drab carpet, and books and pictures scattered about, made it quite a cosy room.

"Now," said Louise, "I have such a lot to tell you that I don't know where to begin. I have made a fresh friend in Minna Ogilvy. She's the doctor's sister, and she lives with him at a farm about a mile away from us. She's such a sweet girl! She came here for her health; Dr. Ogilvy left a good practice in Liverpool for her sake. The doctors said she must live in the country, in good air. It was the only chance for her. I'm afraid she is not getting better. I don't think her brother thinks she will ever entirely recover. But you've no idea how bright and amusing she is! I have never laughed so much in my life as I do when I am with them. She is devoted to her brother, says his skill is wasted here, and that this desolate country gives no scope to him to use his talents, but that he is doing it entirely for her sake."

"I am so glad you have friends near you," said Anstice; "it must make a great difference."

"It does, an enormous difference! And I have no desire to go back to town. I couldn't leave Uncle Edgar at present. He is not able to take any services, and I have to arrange for locum tenens to come once every Sunday, and do a good deal of what uncle used to do. Then a great blow has fallen upon us. I have said nothing to uncle about it, for it may not come to pass in his lifetime, but a lot of engineers have been out here with a view to making our lake into a huge reservoir to supply one of the big northern towns with water. And to do this, they're actually going to submerge our dear little church, and the hotel, and perhaps this vicarage itself. They're going to raise the level of the lake by damming it up. I don't understand how they're going to do it, but this dear little quiet corner will be no more. I remember how I hated it, and only a year ago! It's a kind of judgment upon me, isn't it? Only of course it will take a long time to complete, and at present they're only at the discussion stage. They say the church will be moved elsewhere, but that won't be the same at all. I dare not let uncle know. He is not to be worried about anything, Dr. Ogilvy says."

Anstice was really distressed at this piece of news.

"I have never seen such an exquisite spot as this is," she said. "I felt it afresh to-day as we rode round the edge of the lake. It seems sacrilege to drown a church, and that a mediæval one. Are you sure it is true?"

"Yes, I spoke to the head engineer myself. The town corporation have bought thirty-six miles of it. Isn't it a shame? It makes me very determined to stay here as long as I can."

Their talk was interrupted by Dr. Ogilvy's appearance. He came to see the Vicar every few days, and this was one of his days. Anstice saw him before she left. He told her that the Vicar was failing rapidly, and that he doubted if he would outlive the summer. And then, before he went, Anstice noted something that sent her home much comforted as regards Louise. She could not mistake the look in the young doctor's eyes as he walked with Louise to the gate of the Vicarage, and stood there talking to her, before he took his departure. Anstice was quick to scent the budding romance, and rejoiced in her heart at the thought of happiness rewarding Louise's devotion to her uncle.

Yet a little sigh followed her pleasant musings; and she was suddenly roused from them by Josie saying:

"You're much duller, Steppie, when Dad is away than when he is home. You always seem shut up to thinking."

"Am I?" laughed Anstice. "I must open myself at once then, Josie! I don't like dull people. I never could bear them."

And after that she exerted herself, and the rest of the ride was a lively time with them all.

It was only two weeks later that Louise wrote to tell Anstice of her engagement.

"I don't know why God has been so good to me," she wrote. "If I had stayed in London I should have missed this joy. I little thought that I would meet my fate in this most lovely backwater. But I should never have married in town. I never saw anyone there whom I cared for, and I may honestly say who would have looked at me. There are such thousands of girls there, and most of them with a certain charm and grace to which I could never attain!"

"As for George, he's all that a girl could desire. He is good, really good, and clever, and brave and unselfish, and I'm a lucky girl to have such a husband in prospect. We are both perfectly happy, as you can imagine; and quite content in our surroundings. I do not mean to leave uncle. The sad thing is, that he may not be here much longer—George has prepared me for that. And he has his sister to look after. But nothing in the world matters when one loves! You must have felt this, and so can understand."

Anstice laughed, and sighed again, and then sat down and wrote Louise a loving letter of congratulation.

About a week later, she took Ruffie out on his pony to the lower Fells near the lake.

Josie and Georgie were having tea with Mrs. Fergusson. Her son was home for his Easter holidays, and he and the little girls were great friends.

Anstice loved having Ruffie to herself. He was full of quaint fancies about the Fells, and knew the names of all, and endowed them with separate personalities of their own. Having passed most of his small life on a couch indoors, this new freedom on the back of a pony who bore him miles away up to the heights which he had dreamed inaccessible to him, almost intoxicated him. His blue eyes blazed ecstatically, and he would frequently break out into song.

"We're getting nearer and nearer God," he announced to Anstice. "I wish I was either a lark or an airman, then I could get nearer still."

They were away in the heart of the hills now, and came out upon a carriage track which zigzagged up across a pass, through two steep ranges of Fells. And then they came upon a broken-down motor-car, and a lady, seated on a bank near, called out for their assistance. She was disappointed when she saw no man was with them.

"It is a bad break somewhere near the axle," she explained to Anstice. "My chauffeur has gone off for assistance. There is a farm we passed a mile or so off. I think it's a screw broken. Happily I am unhurt. I am trying to get through to a friend's house the other side of this pass. I would walk, but I'm suffering from gout."

She was a handsome-looking woman, with white hair and flashing dark eyes, but with an unhappy face, and she regarded Ruffie with great intensity.

"What a lovely little face! Who is he?" she asked abruptly.

Ruffie took off his cap with a gallant air.

"My name is Rufus Holme," he said. "I wish I could lend you my pony to ride, but I can't walk without him, and I'm too heavy for Steppie to carry."

She smiled at him. She had given an involuntary start when she heard his name, but quickly recovered her equanimity.

"Thank you for the wish," she said; then, turning to Anstice, she asked if there was any house within her reach where she could rest.

Anstice considered. "I think there is a small farm round the corner, about a quarter of an hour's climb from here."

"I can't do it," she said with a little impatient sigh; "I must just wait till my man comes back. You might sit down and enliven my solitude, if you can spare the time. We are strangers, but it is a lovely afternoon. It is the loneliness that I dislike so much."

Anstice was quite willing to oblige, and Ruffie's pony was only too ready to rest. She took the little boy off his pony into her lap, and he, as well as she, talked to this strange lady of the Fells which they loved so much. The stranger did not give her name, and asked no more personal questions.

But presently Anstice said:

"I really think the quickest way will be to send off some one to get a car to drive you home. Would you like me to walk on to the farm above us, or do you think your chauffeur will have sent already?"

"He is too stupid to do that," said the lady irritably; "I told him to get some men to come and mend my car. That is all he will think about. The car is the first thought in his mind, not his mistress."

"Then I will go to the farm and send some one off to the inn at Stapp. That is the nearest place where they keep cars. Do you mind taking care of this little boy? I shall not be long."

"Thank you. Perhaps that is the best thing to do."

The afternoon was warm and sunny. Anstice took the cushions out of Ruffie's basket chair, and made a "nest" for him, as she called it, upon the ground close to the stranger. Then she tethered his pony to a stout mountain ash, close by.

"Now, Ruffie, you're a little gentleman, and you must take care of this lady till I come back," she said to the child when she had settled him comfortably amongst his cushions, and wrapped a warm shawl round his legs.

Ruffie held up his head gallantly. This was after his own heart. No shyness was in his composition, and when Anstice had left them, he turned to the stranger with his most angelic smile.

"I could spare you the littlest of my cushions if you would like to lean your head against it."

She smiled at him.

"No, thank you. I wouldn't take one of your cushions for all the world. Who is that lady? Your governess?"

"Oh, no, that's Steppie. She's a kind of mother, you know. Daddy made her into one. She's a wunnerful person, most comf'able to lean your head against when it aches. And I'm tremenjously fond of her. She makes you laugh when you feel like crying, and she gives the most lovely surprises in the world. She got me my chair for the pony, and Josie and Georgie their ponies. There's nothing she can't do, but the thing we like best about her is her stories. She has bookfuls in her head, and most of them she makes up herself."

"Who are Josie and Georgie? Your brothers?"

"Oh, no, they're only girls."

Ruffie's tone was pitying.

"They've always wished they were boys, but God didn't mean them to be. Steppie says nobody can't have everything they want. They can't be boys, and I can't have my legs, and she can't be a little girl again. And—" here his face twinkled impishly—"you can't have your car to go home with!"

"I'm afraid I can't," the lady said with a grim smile. "Go on talking to take my mind off my misfortune. Is your father at home?"

"No."

Ruffie's face became dejected.

"He's always, nearly always at sea in his yacht. He's been longer at home this last time than I ever remember before, and I did hope he'd forgotten the sea. I believe, if Steppie coaxed him very hard, he'd stay at home always. She's got such a coaxing face with holes in her cheeks when she laughs, and she puts her face down next yours, she's so soft and cuddly, that it makes all your wicked thoughts go away, and you hug her, and—and do egsackly as she tells you. Dad said to me, he 'spected she was happiest when he was away, and when I asked her was she, she wouldn't answer. I wish I could think of a kind of spell like the fairies and witches make in stories, that would keep Dad from going away from us. A kind of line that we could draw round the lake, and our house, which he couldn't possibly step over."

"The only spell that could do that would be love," said the lady gravely, "and your father has only loved one person in the world, I believe, and that is himself."

Ruffie's colour rose. He looked at the lady indignantly.

"You don't know Dad; he loves me, he loves me from the very bottom of his heart, and I love him!"

"I knew your Dad when he was a little boy and he always loved himself first."

"Did you know him as a little boy? Did he know you?"

This was quite an exciting discovery to Ruffie.

"Yes, we knew each other through and through. You are rather like him in face."

"Just the top of my body," said Ruffie with pathetic pride as he placed his small hands across his waist, "is quite all right, isn't it? And with this shawl covering me up, you might think I was all right all through. But Steppie says that I'm like a treasure cupboard, where the best things are on the top shelves. She says some little boys have their legs all right, but their heads are no good to them. And so I'm glad God took extra pains with my head. I'm not very clever really, but I'm going to be a painter when I grow up, and I've got a notebook where I write down the pictures that I shall paint when I'm a man. Steppie is going to find some one to teach me drawing and painting properly. Would you like to hear a few names of my pictures?"

"Very much."

Ruffie produced out of his jacket pocket rather a dirty and well-worn little notebook. Then he began reading:

"The Fells on Fire."

"Dad being carried by Angels to Heaven when he's very old."

"An Arab Steed chasing a Tiger."

"A big War in the Air."

"A Fairies' Wedding on the Lake."

"The Garden of Eden."

"A Puppies' Tea Party."

He paused.

"I think your ambition is great," said the lady, looking at him with a smile, "but I have always heard that artists' souls soar beyond their brushes."

Ruffie would have this explained to him.

Then he said:

"I dream of pictures in the night. And then I put down the names in the morning. Did you ever play leapfrog with Dad when he was a little boy?"

"I don't remember."

"Did you go to his house, and he come to yours?"

"No," said the lady, a grim look coming over her face. "We won't talk about those times any more. Do Josie and Georgie want to paint pictures like you?"

"Oh, no, indeed." Ruffie laughed merrily. "Georgie is going to write books when she grows up. She says she'll have read all there is to read by that time, and she'll want some more, so she'll make them herself. And Josie is going to play to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, and have nosegays of flowers flung at her for doing it."

Conversation did not languish between the two.

When Anstice returned, she found them on a very friendly footing. She had sent a farm boy off post-haste for a car, and it actually arrived at the same time that the chauffeur appeared with a blacksmith. The lady did not wait till her car was repaired. She took the hired car, and did not pursue her journey.

"I shall be glad to get home," she said. Then she turned to Anstice very graciously: "I am glad to have met you, and as for this small Rufus, I should like to run off with him, for he's the best company I have had for many a long day."

"Where do you live?" Ruffie asked her.

"A long way off from you," she said, "and I don't think we shall meet again. It is not very probable."

"But wouldn't you like to see Dad now he's grown-up?" Ruffie asked.

She shook her head. "Not at all, thank you. Good-bye. Perhaps one day I may send over for you to come and cheer up a very lonely old lady, but it's only a possibility, not a probability."

She turned to give directions to her chauffeur, and then, as Anstice was busy putting the little fellow into his basket chair, she came over and stood beside him.

"Will you give me a kiss?" she asked suddenly.

Ruffie coloured. He was not particularly fond of kissing strangers; then he put his little arms round her neck and pressed his soft, rosy mouth against her cheek.

"I like you," he said. "I like your eyes, they make me think of Dad's. You move them about like he does."

The stranger murmured something to herself, and Anstice caught the words: "May I be preserved from being like him in any way."

And then with a flash of intuition, Anstice guessed who she might be. But she said nothing.

Farewells were said, and then Anstice and Ruffie turned homewards.

"It is too late to go on farther to-day," Anstice said. "As it is, we shall be late for tea. What did you talk to that lady about, darling?"

Ruffie told her as much of the conversation as he could remember.

Anstice was very quiet on the way home. She wondered if it would have been best to ask for the stranger's name.

"But then she might have refused to give it to me," she told herself; "she evidently did not wish us to recognize her. I am glad she has met her nephew. It may do good. I hope it will. I shall tell Justin about it when he comes home. If I write to him about it, he will ignore it, and we shall be no 'forrarder.'"

BOOK III

LOVERS