CHAPTER XIII

LANCE BURMESTER IS CONSCIOUS OF A PERSONALITY

"Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still." --FLETCHER.

Nothing compelled Melicent to listen, so she sat on Tod's Trush, just over his pathetic little doorway, her arms round her knees, her eyes fixed, full of the forward-reaching, time-devouring dreams of youth, upon the lovely lines of the land, ridge beyond ridge, dying into grape-bloom haze upon the faint horizon.

She was not unhappy. Her isolation hardly distressed her; she was accustomed to being an alien among unsympathetic people. She was, however, considering what she should do. She actively disliked her aunt, was repelled by her uncle, mentally herded her cousins and their governess together as so many silly triflers, not particularly honest. But all this she could bear, if only she might learn to fit herself for her future; and this, it appeared, was impossible.

If only it had not been so! For here she felt that she could live and work. Soul and body were being laved in pure air--renewed and vivified. The terrible sense of antagonism to all her surroundings which she had always felt in Africa was gone. There she had been craving, craving all the time for she knew not what; her cry had been that of Paracelsus--"I go to find my soul!" It seemed to her that she had found it, or would find it, in the stern keeping of this rugged land, where the only thing that was out of harmony was the attitude of her own kindred.

Just opposite to her, among the broken ground which rose from the main valley, forming a ridge parallel to that on which she sat, was a little house, embowered in fruit trees.

An ampylopsis creeper on the grey stone wall gave a touch of vivid scarlet; a great purple Jackmanii clematis smothered the porch.

"There," thought Melicent, "I could wish to be. There I could live and learn things, and the days would never seem too long."

She studied the little remote place, trying to see whether any road led to it, and admiring the way in which it stood, as if lifting its face to the kisses of the southern and western sun.

Lost in reverie, she had not heard the approach of anyone, and was surprised when a dog jumped through the heather near her, on the side of the Trush farthest from where her cousins were seated. A whirring of strong brown wings arose from their covert, and a grouse family shot up, with indignant "_Cock-cocks_," wheeling in the blue air. Three guns cracked, and in a moment the five Vicarage girls were on their feet.

As three sportsmen appeared, Gwen made one bound to where Millie sat, her face aflame.

"It's Freshfield," she gasped in her ear, "and young Mr. Burmester, and somebody I don't know. Oh, I wish he was alone! He won't dare to speak to us. Look at his nice curly dark hair! Isn't he scrumptious?"

The young agent, with an expression of acute discomfort, had raised his hat to the phalanx of great girls. Mr. Burmester was looking bewildered at the sudden appearance of what looked like a boarding-school out for a walk emerging from the heather. He also pulled off his cap, and said, in the deprecating tones of a very young man:

"Oh, I say! I'm afraid we startled you." With which he made as though to pass on.

Millie had not moved from her seat on the Trush; it was not her way to be startled. She had taken off her hat, and sat there bare-headed in the sunset, her heart full of quiet, like Wordsworth's nun--too steeped in Nature's calm to notice this intrusion.

The third member of the shooting party had paused to examine the lock of his gun. He was a short, rather thick-set man, with very blue, clear eyes, which redeemed his face from the common-place--which saw beauty in all Nature, and seemed to exact truth from men. When he raised these eyes from the gun, he saw Millie seated there on the Trush, and he gave a glad laugh, not at all surprised, but full of satisfaction.

"Hallo, Melicent! There you are!" he cried out heartily.

Melicent bounded up, looked around, pushed away Gwen, who stood before her, and leaping into the heather, flew to her friend. She gave a little cry of gladness.

"Mr. Helston! How did you get here? Is Mrs. Helston here too?"

"She's not actually here in sight, but she's not far off," he replied, putting his arm round her. "You'll see her very soon. You must present me to your cousins. Lance, I've found a friend."

Lancelot Burmester, in secret terror of what he called "flappers," came up awkwardly. He was a clever-looking fellow, fair, with an incisive profile, a pale face and pince-nez. He advanced from one side, as Tommy, anxious and heated, hurried up on the other.

"Miss Lutwyche and I are old friends," said Mr. Helston pleasantly. "We made the voyage from Africa together. Have I the pleasure of speaking to Mrs. Cooper?"

Tommy, blushing, disclaimed the honour, explained her identity, and shook hands with young Burmester. Freshfield, meanwhile, slipped round to Gwen behind the backs of the party.

"I know something of Mayne, Miss Lutwyche's guardian," said Mr. Helston in explanation; "and at his request my wife and I undertook the serious task of keeping this young person in order for the voyage." He did not add that he had himself paid the difference between first and second-class fare for her. "After her being so cruelly mishandled," he said, "you may imagine she needed care. She was not really fit to travel, but she was so eager to be off." He smiled down at her. "I think she looks a little different," he concluded quite fondly, "from what she did when we first took her in hand."

"But you have not said yet how you got here?" urged Millie, who was holding, in both hers, the hand that hung over her shoulder.

"Why, the very day you left us I ran up against Burmester in Pall Mall, and he said, 'Come down for a week's shooting,' and when we realised that Ilberston is, as it were, next door to Fransdale, you may imagine that we were doubly minded to come. Well, here we are! And how do you like England?"

"If by England you mean Fransdale," said Millie, "I like it in a way that can't be put in words."

"Oh, yes, it can be put in words; the thing's been done. You should read the works of one William Wordsworth," struck in Lance Burmester.

Millie raised her eyes to his face> and apparently liked what she found there.

"Should I? I will," she said thoughtfully.

"What have you done to your arm?" asked the young man kindly.

"My dear chap," said Harry Helston, "what this scrap of a child has been through would have broken the spirit of anybody else. Her brute of a Boer stepmother--"

Millie turned to him quickly.

"Please, Mr. Helston, my uncle does not wish it known," she said, with sedate dignity.

"What? Oh, very well, pussie!" replied her friend, gazing round at the eager faces of the governess and the girls; "I'll say no more, then. Mustn't get you into trouble. What are you up to with my gun? Want to shoot a bird--eh?"

"Oh, do let me," she begged; "I've not had a chance for so long! My arm is well enough for me to be able to take a sight. Do let me try!"

"Come this way. Freshfield says there are any amount of birds just over this ridge," said Burmester eagerly. "I should like to see you shoot."

Melicent possessed herself of the gun, and went forward, laughing and sparkling. The others followed as if spellbound. Nobody had an eye for Freshfield and Gwen, who came slowly behind, making the most of their moment. Very soon, up went the whir of brown wings again. Millie stopped, took aim with what seemed to be great deliberation; there was a breathless pause; a bird fell; everyone was laughing and congratulating the sportswoman. Lance Burmester presented her with her prize, and added another to make a brace. She was urged to come on, and repeat her exploit, but Tommy was growing nervous, and interfered.

"The vicar might not like it--they must be getting home."

Melicent went, quite happily, having received the assurance that her friends were at hand, and would look her up before long. She was unprepared for the torrent of reproaches and abuse which streamed forth upon her head as soon as they were out of sight of the shooting party.

"You mean little cat!" "You're a regular sneak!" "We know now, it's you yourself that want to keep it dark!" "Why couldn't you hold your tongue!" "Father said _you_ were not to mention it, he never said a word about other people."

Their meaning began to dawn upon her at last.

"You mean my not allowing Mr. Helston to tell how I broke my arm? Well, of all the people I ever met, you have the most low-down notions of honour!" she cried indignantly. "You are just like my half-brothers and sisters! I always thought English people were straight, that it was only Boers that were such skunks!"

Tommy interfered, and reproved Millie for using bad language; and a more congenial topic was soon found, in the delights of having met and spoken to, not only Freshfield, but Mr. Burmester himself.

"Maddie wants him for her young man," explained Theo; "only we didn't see how the thing was to be begun, because, you see, we never get any chance to speak to him. Father and mother did go to dine with Sir Joseph once, but mother doesn't like Lady Burmester. She is dreadfully High Church, she thinks everybody ought to go to the Communion service every Sunday, and we only have it once a month, so on the other Sundays Lady Burmester drives all the way to Ilberston. Mother thinks it so impertinent of Lady Burmester to think she can possibly know better than a clergyman's wife. She said she wouldn't go there again; but I don't think they've been asked. You know really, mother doesn't know anything at all about it. I asked her why it was wrong to have that service every week, because we are supposed to believe in the Catholic Church, and all other Catholics seem to; so she said it was most improper for a young girl to argue about such things, as her father was sure to know best I said: 'If he knows, won't he explain to me?' and she said: 'You must wait till you are a great deal older.'"

"To-morrow is the first Sunday in the month," chimed in Maddie, "so they will all be there. What did you think of Lancelot Burmester's looks? Do tell us all about the Helstons. You were lucky to make friends with them, I daresay they will ask you to stay. Mother doesn't like us to go and stay away, for fear of our hearing naughty words. She doesn't think anybody is so well brought up as we are! If she could only hear some of the stories Willie and Georgie bring home from school!"

They all laughed at this.

"The real reason is, we have no clothes to go in, and she can't afford to buy us any," grumbled Theo, who was perhaps the handsomest of the girls, and the cleverest too.

"I daresay you could make your own if you tried," said Melicent. "I'd help. I think you ought to make your own clothes."

In the interest suddenly created by this new idea, nobody noticed that during the whole of the walk home Gwen, the talkative, never said a word.

* * * * * * * *

"George, what an epidemic of girls!" groaned Lance, as soon as Tommy and her brood were out of sight. "Those poor Coopers! As if their own great, ugly five were not enough, but they must take on another to make the half-dozen!"

"It is an act of true kindness," replied Helston. "For a man with five daughters of his own to make room for another, shows him to be extremely conscientious."

"The little cousin," critically said Lance, "has something fetching about her. Nothing to look at, but one is conscious of a personality."

"I never look at her," said Millie's friend, "but those lines occur to my mind--

"The good stars met in your horoscope Made you of spirit, fire and dew."

"I don't know about the dew; she's a skinny little wisp," was the uncivil comment.

"Wait till she grows up," said Millie's champion. "You would wonder there was anything left of her if you knew what she has come through. But I gave her my word, so I mustn't tell you; and after all," he added, musing, "I don't wonder that the vicar doesn't want the tale to get about; it's not a pretty story, and I daresay would do the child no good in a narrow-minded, provincial circle."

"I can't think how she will get on with those Coopers," remarked Burmester. "Did you ever see such raw material? And you heard what my mater said at lunch? They are such hide-bound, pragmatical--no doing anything with them. The vicar quietly goes his way, listening to nobody's wishes--thinks himself infallible. The pater has given him up as a bad job; says you might as well have a cabbage at the Vicarage! Hall, of Ilberston, is such a good chap! He might give this Southerner many a hint. But the Coopers won't have a word to say to him, because he has a weekly Eucharist, and makes the schoolchildren attend."

Helston listened with sinkings of the heart. This did not sound like a household in which Melicent would be happy. But report is often one-sided. He determined to judge for himself.