Robinetta Part 17

"No," said Mrs. de Tracy obstinately, "you have no legal claim to compensation, Elizabeth. I cannot undertake to allow you anything for what is not yours. If I did it in your case you know quite well I should have to do it in many others."

There was a long and heavy silence. Elizabeth Prettyman was taking in her sentence of banishment from her old home; Mrs. de Tracy was merely wondering how long it would take her to walk down that nasty steep bit of path to the ferry. At last the old woman looked up.

"When must I be goin' then, ma'am?" she asked meekly.

Mrs. de Tracy considered. "The transfer of land from one person to another generally takes some time: you will have several weeks here still; I shall send you notice later which day to quit."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth simply, and added, "The plum tree blossoms 'ul be over by that time."

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mrs. de Tracy, in whose heart there was room for no sentiment.

"'T would have been 'arder leavin' it in blossom time," the old woman explained; but her hearer could not see the point. She rose slowly from her chair and looked around the cottage.

"I am glad to see that you keep your place clean and respectable, Elizabeth," she said. "I wish you good afternoon."

Elizabeth never rose from her chair to see her visitor to the door--(an omission which Mrs. de Tracy was not likely to overlook)--she just sat there gazing stupidly around the tiny kitchen and muttering a word or two now and then. At last she got up and tottered to the garden.

"I'll 'ave to leave it all--leave the old bench as me William did put for me with his own 'ands, and leave Duckie, Duckie can't never go to Exeter if I goes there,--and leave the plum tree." She limped across the little bit of sunny turf, and stood under the white canopy of the blossoming tree, leaning against its slender trunk. "Pity 't is we ain't rooted in the ground same as the trees are," she mused. "Then no one couldn't turn us out; only the Lord Almighty cut us down when our time came; Lord knows I'm about ready for that now--grave-ripe as you may say." She leaned her poor weary old head against the tree stem and wept, ready, ah! how ready, at that moment, to lay down the burden of her long and toilsome life.

"Good afternoon, Nursie dear!" a clear voice called out in her ear, and Elizabeth started to find that Robinette had tip-toed across the gra.s.s and was standing close beside her. She lifted her tear-stained face up to Robinette's as a child might have done.

"I've to quit, Missie," she sobbed, "to leave me 'ome and Duckie and the plum tree, an' I've no place to go to, and naught but my ten pounds to live on--and 't won't keep me without I've the plum tree, not when I've rent to pay from it; not if I don't eat nothing but tea an' bread never again!"

In a moment Robinette's arms were about her: her soft young cheeks pressed against the withered old face.

"What's this you're saying, Nurse?" she cried. "Leaving your cottage?

Who said so?"

"It's true, dear, quite true; 'asn't the lady 'erself been here to tell me so?"

"Was that what Aunt de Tracy was here about? I met her on the road five minutes ago; she said she had been here on business! But tell me, Nurse, why does she want you to leave? Are you going to get a better cottage? Does she think this one isn't healthy for you?"

"No, no, dear, 't isn't that, she 've sold the cottage over me 'ead, that's what 't is, or she's going to sell it, to a gentleman from London--Lord knows what a gentleman from London wants wi' 'en--and I've to quit."

Robinette tried to be a peacemaker.

"Then you'll get a much more comfortable house, that's quite certain.

You know, though this one is lovely on fine days like this, that the thatch is all coming off, and I'm sure it's damp inside! Just wait a bit, and see if you don't get some nice cosy little place, with a sound roof and quite dry, that will cure this rheumatism of yours."

But Mrs. Prettyman shook her head.

"No, no, there won't be no cosy place given to me; I'm no more worth than an old shoe now, Missie, and I'm to be turned out, the lady said so 'erself; said as I must go to Exeter to live with me niece Nettie, and 'er don't want us--Nettie don't--and whatever shall I do without I 'ave Duckie and the plum tree?"

"Oh, but"--Robinette began, quite incredulously, and the old woman took up her lament again.

"And I asked the lady, wouldn't I 'ave something allowed me for the plum tree--that 'ave about clothed me for years back? And 'No,' she says, ''t ain't your plum tree, Elizabeth, 't is mine; I can't 'low nothing on me own plum tree.'"

Robinette still refused to believe the story.

"Nurse, dear," she said, "you're a tiny bit deaf now, you know, and perhaps you misunderstood about leaving. Suppose you keep your dear old heart easy for to-night, and I'll come down bright and early to-morrow and tell you what it really is! If you have to leave the plum tree you'll get a fine price put on it that may last you for years; it's such a splendid tree, anyone can see it's worth a good deal."

"That it be, Missie, the finest tree in Wittisham," the old woman said, drying her eyes, a little comforted by the a.s.surance in Robinette's voice and manner.

"There now, we won't have any more tears: I've brought a new canister of tea I sent for to London. I'm just dying to taste if it's good; we'll brew it together, Nursie; I shall carry out the little table from the kitchen and we'll drink our tea under the plum tree,"

Robinette cried.

She was carrying a great parcel under her arm, and when Mrs. Prettyman opened it, she could scarcely believe that this lovely red tin canister, filled with pounds of fragrant tea, could really be hers!

The sight of such riches almost drove away her former fears. Robinette whisked into the kitchen and came out carrying the little round table which she set down under the white canopy of the plum tree. Then together they brought out the rest of the tea things, and what a merry meal they had!

"It's just nonsense and a bit of deafness on your part, Nurse, so we won't remember anything about leaving the house, we are only going to think of enjoyment," Robinette announced. Then the old woman was comforted, as old people are wont to be by the brave a.s.surances of those younger and stronger than themselves, forgot the spectre that seemed to have risen suddenly across her path, and laughed and talked as she sipped the fragrant London tea.

XVIII

THE STOKE REVEL JEWELS

"Hullo! Cousin Robin, hurry up, you'll need all your time!" It was Carnaby of course who saluted Robinette thus, as she came towards the house on her return from Wittisham.

"I'm not late, am I?" she said, consulting her watch.

"I thought you'd be making a tremendous toilette; one of your killing ones to-night," Carnaby said. "Do! I love to see you all dressed up till old Smeardon's eyes look as if they would drop out when you come into the room."

"I'll wear my black dress, and her eyes may remain in her head,"

Robinette laughed.

"And what about Mark's eyes? Wouldn't you like them to drop out?" the boy asked mischievously. "He's come back by the afternoon train while you were away at Wittisham."

"Oh, has he?" Robinette said, and Carnaby stared so hard at her, that to her intense annoyance she blushed hotly.

"Horrid lynx-eyed boy," she said to herself as she ran upstairs, "He's growing up far too quickly. He needs to be snubbed." She dashed to the wardrobe, pulled out the black garment, and gave it a vindictive shake.

"Old, dowdy, unbecoming, deaconess-district-visitor-bible-woman, great-grand-auntly thing!" she cried.

Then her eye lighted on a cherished lavender satin. She stood for a moment deliberating, the black dress over her arm, her eyes fixed upon the lavender one that hung in the wardrobe.

"I don't care," she cried suddenly: "I'll wear the lavender, so here goes! Men are all colour blind, so he'll merely notice that I look nice. I must conceal from myself and everybody else how depressed I am over the interview with Nurse, and how I dread discussing the cottage with Aunt de Tracy. That must be done the first thing after dinner, or I shall lose what little courage I have."

Lavendar thought he had never seen her look so lovely as when he met her in the drawing room a quarter of an hour later. There was nothing extraordinary about the dress but its exquisite tint and the sheen of the soft satin. The suggestion that lay in the colour was entirely lost upon him, however: if asked to name it he would doubtless have said "purplish." How he wished that he might have escorted her into the dining room, but Mrs. de Tracy was his portion as usual, and Robinette was waiting for Carnaby, who seemed unaccountably slow.

"Your arm, Middy, when you are quite ready," she said to him at last.

Carnaby's extraordinary unreadiness seemed to arise from his trying to smuggle some object up his sleeve. This proved, a few moments later, to be a bundle of lavender sticks tied with violet ribbon that he had discovered in his bureau drawer. He laid it by Robinette's plate with a whispered "My compliments."

"What does your cousin want that bunch of lavender for, at the table?"

Mrs. de Tracy enquired.

"She likes lavender anywhere, ma'am," Carnaby said with a wink on the side not visible by his grandmother. "It's a favourite of hers."