CHAPTER VII

LIONEL AND DOROTHY

They entered the house by a side door and followed the Prior down a short passage that led straight to the library. The wide, mullioned windows of the room faced that part of the garden where the flowers made such a pageant of colour. What a delightful room it was, the children thought; so different from the great, cold, silent hall where you felt such an insignificant atom. Here, with the wide windows letting in all the colour and sunshine of the garden, here, with the deep chairs and sinky-in carpet and the books and the curios and pictures you felt immediately at home.

The curios seemed to have come from all over the world, and you scarcely knew which to look at first.

"Just wander round and look at what attracts you most," the Prior said, seeing their bewilderment. "Anything you want to know about them I'll explain to you."

And for the next quarter of an hour he was busy answering questions.

"This? I got it in India. That's a Chinese junk--look at the carving. Yes, that's an exact model of a Japanese house. That head was carved by a Red Indian from the root of a tree. Those spears? I got them in the Sudan. Yes, these are panther skins. Yes, really, I shot the animals myself."

The children's interest was unabating. They tried to push away the unwelcome thought that seven o'clock must be nearly here.

Presently, Billy wandered over to a table that held some books and photos. Suddenly, he paused.

"Nancy, Mavis, come here!" he cried. "There's a photo of Uncle Val's friend, Mr. Pringle, here, just like the photo he brought with him last summer."

Nancy and Mavis, too interested in Billy's discovery to notice the smile of triumph on the Prior's face, flew across the room.

"Oh! It's him! Do you know him?" Nancy asked, turning eagerly to the Prior. "He's Uncle Val's greatest friend, and next time he comes home he's coming to see us. We don't know him yet 'cept what Uncle Val tells us about him. _Do_ you know him?"

"Yes, I know him," the Prior replied.

"Have you known him long?" Billy asked.

"Nearly twenty-five years." The children did not know what to make of that baffling, teasing smile of the Prior's.

"An' is it long since you've seen him?" Mavis asked.

"I saw him when I came home from India in the spring. I stopped in Egypt especially to see him, because," he paused dramatically, "he's my son, you know!"

"Your son!" they shouted. "Then he's the Lionel who has a room here! Oh, isn't it wonderful."

Suddenly, a new thought struck Billy.

"You didn't see Uncle Val, too?" he asked slowly. "Uncle Val," he added, "is like me--only he's twenty-four and I'm ten."

The Prior still wore the teasing smile as he studied Billy.

"Let me see! Someone in Egypt like you? A grown-up edition of you, eh? Why, now I come to think of it, Lionel insisted on dragging along a certain Val Stafford with him. Could that be your Uncle Val?"

"Yes, yes!" they shrieked. "That's Uncle Val! And you've _seen_ him! Oh, it's the God of Adventure that brought us here!"

The excitement was intense. When at length it subsided somewhat, Nancy enquired what the Prior thought of her uncle. Did he mind Lionel bringing him along? Did he like him?

The Prior turned and looked at Billy.

"If that young man over there grows up anything like his uncle he'll be a brother you can be proud of. _I_ am proud that Lionel should have him for a friend."

"Oh, doesn't it make you kind of belong to us?" Nancy cried impulsively. She replaced Lionel's photo on the table and, as she did so, caught sight of another one. It was of a little girl of about her own age, a little girl who looked at her with Lionel's laughing eyes.

"Oh!"

She looked up quickly and caught the Prior's glance--no need to ask any questions, what she wanted to know was written on the Prior's face. She slipped her hand into his.

"An' you're letting Mavis and me have _her_ room?"

"Yes, dear," he replied, his hand on her head. "You are just the kind of little girls she would have liked to share it with. My little Dorothy was an open-air child, just as you are."

"Was she--was she ill a long time?"

"No, dear. She was following the hounds and was thrown from her horse. Lionel, poor boy, found her. But--listen, children!"

Seven o'clock! Oh, what a waste of time bed would be at such a place as this!

A knock at the door and Mrs. White entered.

"Ah, Mrs. White! Hot baths, sponge cake and milk, and bed, please!"

He kissed Nancy and Mavis very tenderly and pressed an affectionate hand on the boys' shoulders.

"Good-night, and thank you for letting us have Dorothy's room," Nancy whispered.

They followed Mrs. White upstairs, each child busy with his or her own thoughts about this wonderful place and all that had happened there. Lionel's room came first, a real boy's room, into which the girls took a peep while Mrs. White was showing the boys where they should take their bath.

"Now, my dears, Miss Dorothy's room is down this corridor if you are ready."

They kissed Billy good-night and then, quite naturally first Nancy then Mavis turned to Montague and kissed him in turn, and, waving good-night, followed Mrs. White to Dorothy's room.

Montague for quite half a minute stood in the doorway. Nancy and Mavis had kissed him--just as they had kissed Billy. They had kissed him, not pecked him as Jocelyne did--how he writhed under those pecks! This had happened to him, Montague. Feelings he could not understand pounded away at the starved little heart; thoughts and words--comradeship, comradeship, that was it, that was how the Prior had touched him, that was what had been behind their kiss.

"If anybody ever hurts them I'll _kill_ them," he growled inwardly.

"Come on, old chap, I'm half-undressed."

Comradeship again in Billy's jolly voice. How Montague responded to it, how wonderful it was. Later on, when after the baths and sponge cake and milk, the Prior's last injunction had been obeyed, and they lay in the two small beds side by side, Montague asked Billy a question.

"Do you _love_ your sisters?"

"Why, of course!"

"I wish," Montague muttered, "I had a sister _I_ loved."

"But why not love Jocelyne?"

"Love Jocelyne? You don't know her! 'Sides, she doesn't love me--we quarrel!"

"Well, so do we sometimes," Billy admitted. "Why, we used to fight like anything when we were little kids. Course we don't now 'cos boys don't hit girls when they're big, though sometimes they'd jolly well like to. But quarrels don't really make any difference--you can always make it up again."

"Not with Jocelyne," Montague protested mournfully.

And yet, and yet, had there not been a time long, long ago when their mother was alive when he and Jocelyne _had_ loved each other? Why then did they not love each other now? Montague did not know, he could not remember when they had stopped caring.

"Listen! There's a car!" murmured Billy sleepily. "Another boarder, I s'pose. _He_ won't be able to keep the rule of going to bed at seven--p'raps the Prior will excuse him."

"Well, we'll see him at matins or breakfast, I s'pose," Montague replied. And then silence fell between them, and a minute later two small boys were fast asleep.

* * * * * *

An hour or more later, while the children slept, the Prior and the new "boarder," who, apparently, was allowed to break rules, were walking up and down the beech lawn smoking and talking and thinking and planning.

"It's the boy Montague I'm thinking of," the Prior was saying. "The other three would certainly be bitterly disappointed if we sent them home to-morrow, Billy especially, for he's a sticker--he and Val Stafford are made of the stuff that does pioneer work, the finest stuff in the world, but they love their home and their parents, and the going back would have no sting in it apart from the fact of giving up their adventure. But Montague! That acidulated aunt should be made to suffer, the boy's spirit is cramped and starved, and these three little people, quite unconsciously, are having the right influence on him. A week or so with them, wandering about amongst the hills, forgetting himself in looking after little Mavis--what a difference it would make to the boy! What can you suggest, Dick?"

Dick Frampton, whom the God of Adventure had brought to this Priory of Adventures to-day of all days, smoked in silence for a few minutes before replying.

"Wait a moment, Uncle, I believe we can arrange something. But, I say, don't you think we should let Montague's guardian know that the boy is all right and leave it to him to tell the aunt if he wishes to. I can 'phone him up."

The Prior agreed, and the two fell to further discussions, both of them entering with the zest of schoolboys into the plans for the children's further travels.

It was at dinner that the Prior had first mentioned to his nephew (who had come to spend a few days with him) about the unexpected little guests who were asleep upstairs. Dick, whose thoughts had been with the children most of the day, though he had imagined them safely at Nestcombe long ere this, knew instinctively that the Prior's guests were his "libation" children. He was annoyed with himself for not guessing from the fact that they had blankets with them, that the adventure was to be of more than one day's duration. He was dismayed at the thought of what might have happened to them through his stupidity.

"Do you know how long they intend travelling?" he asked.

The Prior shook his head and laughed like a boy.

"I've asked no questions--not one. It was Billy telling me about his Uncle Val that put me on the scent; the name, you know, and then the strong likeness between the boy and Val. I took them into the library on the chance that their uncle might have shown them Lionel's photograph and that they would recognize it--and they did!"

The Prior was delighted with himself.

"And I've wired to their people," he continued gleefully.

To Dick's enquiry as to how he knew the address, oh, that was a simple matter, he replied. Didn't Val Stafford live at Nestcombe, when he was in England, and hadn't Billy told him how Sir Walter Raleigh had influenced them both. Simple enough to guess that they shared the same home.

"And their people will fetch them to-morrow, I suppose?"

"No." The Prior wore the air of a conspirator. "I told them to do nothing until they heard from me again--I wanted first to consult you. Also I wanted to know what, if anything, you knew about the small boy they had picked up at Riversham--I felt sure you must know something about him."

And Dick, seated there at the dinner-table, was able to tell the Prior that the great-aunt was one of his pet aversions. The guardian was the novelist, James Cradock. Dick had met him several times lately and liked him. Montague's mother had been dead two or three years, and the father had died a few months ago, from the result of wounds received in the war; he had suffered terribly for some time, Dick had gathered from Mr. Cradock.

"And this sister, what of her?" the Prior asked. "Montague seems to have no love for her."

"Jocelyne? Oh, she's at the age when small boys of Montague's type grate. A handsome girl, but, of course, Montague doesn't appreciate her beauty--he couldn't, they're both at the wrong age. What they need, I suppose, is some influence to bring out the best in each of them. It's there all right, though they would neither of them believe it of the other."

And it was this that had set the Prior--or Mr. Pringle, as everybody except the children called him--thinking, this obvious need of Montague's for something that had so evidently been denied him lately. It was this that had caused him to wire as he did to the Staffords. Why should the children not continue their travels for a few more days? Why not let the influence of the hills and the free, roving life and the comradeship of the other children do their work with the boy? Why not? Yet how to persuade the parents to countenance the plan? How persuade them that no harm could come to them amongst these friendly hills? And, was he altogether sure himself that they would be perfectly safe with nobody at hand to protect them?

"Look here," said Dick, and this was the "further discussion" that had taken place while they smoked their after-dinner cigars on the beech-lawn, "I've got an idea."

The idea was that Dick should return home at once, motor over to Nestcombe from Riversham and explain matters to Mr. and Mrs. Stafford. And if they consented to allow the children to go on he would act as a kind of warden to them and follow them about in his car.

"It would be quite simple," he added, "and I should like it--it would be an adventure for _me_. What do you think of the idea?"

The Prior (for though he is not a prior, we, like the children, will call him that--there being nothing about his character to suggest the stiffness of "Mr. Pringle") was all enthusiasm for it. Mrs. White, he said, should pack their baskets with good things, and they should set off soon after breakfast unless he heard from Dick to the contrary.

"But what about money?" Dick enquired. "Shall we give them something?"

The Prior shook his head.

"I imagine they have some money," he said, "quite enough to last them a few days. Better not give them any more--they'd be safer without it--also I think they prefer their independence. Let them get through it and then use your judgment."

And so the matter was settled.

As the two conspirators strolled back to the house together Dick fell to marvelling at the extraordinary coincidence of the day. Would the children, he wondered, if they knew all, regard the happenings in the light of an adventure?

"They are out to seek it, you know," he explained.

The Prior nodded.

"I gathered so--there was some mention of the God of Adventure in the library, though I imagine their idea of _real_ adventure is something more definite, more actual than what has happened to-day. But, after all, my boy, there's nothing extraordinary about these happenings. Life is all adventure, it's always the unexpected that happens. That, at any rate, has been my experience all the world over."

Dick agreed. Yes, of course, his uncle was right. Was not adventure waiting round the corner for us always? Was it not our own fault if we let it pass by? Well, here were he and his uncle in the thick of an adventure that _they_ had not let slip past them. The sleeping children upstairs, his uncle who could never grow old, he himself with the joy of youth throbbing in his veins, which of them all would most eagerly stretch out responsive hands to the beckoning god?

The Prior ordered the car when they reached the house and they waited in the Library while William Monk, the butler, sent the order to his brother, John Monk, the chauffeur. The appearance of William Monk reminded the Prior of yet one other bit of fun he had to share with Dick, namely, the children's mistake regarding him and the other members of the Monk family.

"I'm indulging in a bit of make-believe that some day they and I will laugh over together," he explained. "Why not let them believe, at least till their adventure is over, that Monk and his brother and cousin and nephews are monks in very truth? It adds to the romance of things for them. This ought, they said, to have been a monastery, but a priory, they thought, might be nearly as good. Imagine their hurt pride if they knew that they had asked to be taken in at a private house? Ah, but _some day_, as I said, they shall hear their Prior's side of the question and learn the happiness they have given him."