Set in Silver Part 22

"Oh! Words get mixed, when they're sent. He _knows_ I'm not flirting with him."

"Does he know--forgive me--does he know that you don't love him--a little?"

"He knows I don't love him at all."

"Then I--can't understand," said Sir Lionel.

"Would you like me to love him?" I couldn't help asking.

"No," he began, and stopped. "I should like you to be happy, in your own way," he went on more slowly. "I've been at a loss, because a little while ago you said you didn't like Burden, and then you seemed to change your mind----"

"It was only seeming," I continued on my reckless course. "My mind toward him stands where it did."

"If that is so, what have you done to him, to give him hope?"

"Nothing I could help," I said.

"There's a strange misunderstanding somewhere, apparently," Sir Lionel reflected aloud.

"Oh, don't let there be one between us!" I begged, looking up at him suddenly.

He put his hand out as suddenly, and grabbed--literally grabbed--mine. I was so happy! Isn't it nice that men are so much stronger than women, and that we're meant to like them to be? It can make life so interesting.

As his fingers pressed mine, I let mine press his too, and felt we were friends. "By Jove, no, we won't," he said. And though it wasn't much to say, nothing could have pleased me better. The words and the tone seemed to match the close clasp of our hands.

"Would you be willing to trust me?" I asked.

"Of course. But in what way do you mean?"

"About d.i.c.k Burden. He _doesn't_ think I'm flirting, and he doesn't think I care for him. Yet I want you to trust me, and not say anything to him or to his aunt. Let d.i.c.k and me fight it out between us."

He laughed again. "With all my heart, if you want to fight. But I won't have you annoyed. If he annoys you he must go. I will get rid of him."

"d.i.c.k can't annoy me if he doesn't make trouble for me with you, Sir Lionel," I said. (And that was the truth.) "Only, if you'll just trust me to manage him?"

"You're very young to undertake the management of a man."

"d.i.c.k isn't a man. He's a boy."

"And you--are a child."

"I may seem a child to you," I said, "but I'm not. I'll be so happy, and I'll thank you so much, if you'll just let things go on as they are for a little while. You'll be glad afterward if you do."

And he will, when I've gone and Ellaline has come. He will be glad he didn't give himself too much trouble on my account. But I'm not going to think now of what his opinion of me may be _then_. At present he has a very good, kind opinion. Even though I am a child in his eyes, I am a dear child; and though it can't last, it does make me happy to be dear to him, in any way at all--this terrible Dragon of Ellaline's.

But that isn't the end of our conversation. The real end was an anti-climax, perhaps, but I liked it. For that matter, the tail of a comet's an anti-climax.

It was only that, when we'd talked on, and he'd promised to trust me, and leave the reins in my hands, while he attended solely to the steering of his motor-car, I said: "Now we must go in. Mrs. Senter will be wanting to finish her rubber." (I forgot to tell you that he explained she'd had a telegram, and had been obliged to hurry and write a letter, to catch the last post. That had stopped a game in the middle.)

"Oh, hang it all, I suppose she will!" he grumbled, more to himself than to me, because, if he'd paused to think, he would have been too polite to express himself so about a guest, whatever his feelings were. But that's why I was pleased. He spoke impulsively, without thinking. Wasn't it a triumph, that he would rather have stayed there in the garden, even with a "child," than hurry back to that radiant white-and-gold (and black) vision?

Now you know why I am so pleased with life.

All that happened last night, and to-day we have had "excursions," but no "alarums." We (every one, not just he and I) have been to Kent's Cavern, where prehistoric tigers' teeth grinned at us from the walls, and have taken a walk to Babbicombe Bay, where we had tea. I think it was the loveliest path I ever saw, that cliff way, with the gray rocks, and the blue sea into which the sky had emptied itself, like a cup with a silver rim. And the wild flowers--the little, dainty, pink-tipped daisies, which I couldn't bear to crush--and the larks that sprang out of the gra.s.s! There are things that make you feel so at _home_ in England, dear. I think it is like no other country for that.

To-morrow we are to motor to Princetown, on Dartmoor--Eden Phillpotts land--and are coming back to Torquay at night. If I have time I'll write you a special Dartmoor letter, for I have an idea that I shall find the moor wonderfully impressive. But we mayn't get back till late; and the day after we are to start early in the morning for Sir Lionel's county, Cornwall. Afterward we shall come back into another part of Devonshire, and see Bideford and Exmoor. That's why I've been able to forget some of my worries in "Westward Ho!" and "Lorna Doone" lately. But Sir Lionel can't wait longer for Cornwall, and, so day-after-to-morrow night my eyes shall look upon--only think of it--"dark Tintagel by the Cornish sea." That is, we shall see it, Apollo permitting, for motors and men gang aft aglee.

This isn't apropos of Apollo's usual behaviour, but of the stories we've been told concerning Dartmoor roads. They say--well, there's nothing to worry about with Sir Lionel at the helm; but I shouldn't wonder if to-morrow will be an adventure.

There, now, I'm sorry I said that. You may be anxious; but I can't scratch it out, and it's nearly at the bottom of _such_ a big sheet. So I'll wire to-morrow night, when we get back, and you'll have the telegram before you have this letter.

Your how-to-be-happy-though-undeserving,

But ever loving,

Audrie.

XVI

AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER

_Still Torquay, Ten Thirty_, _August 7th_

Dearest: I thought the moor would be impressive. It is overwhelming. Oh, this Devonshire of my father's people is far from being all a land of cream and roses!

Dartmoor has given me so many emotions that I am tired, but I must tell you about it and them. When I shut my eyes, I see tors, like ruined watch-towers, against the sky. And I see Princetown, grim and terrible.

No country can look its best on a map, no matter what colour be chosen to express it; but I did like Dartmoor's rich brown, which set it apart from the green parts of Devonshire. It took some time, though, even in a motor, to come to the brown; for our road was fairy-like as far as Holne, Charles Kingsley's birthplace. We got out there, of course, and looked at his memorial window in the charming village church. At Holne Bridge I thought of the beautiful way to the Grande Chartreuse; so you can imagine it was far from sterile, although we were on the fringe of the moor. And ah, what a lovely green fringe the brown moor wears! It is all trimmed round the edge with woods, and glens, where the baby River Dart goes laughing by. And there's a most romantic Lover's Leap, of course.

Strange how so many lovers, though of different countries, have all that same wild desire to jump off something! If I were a lover I should much rather die a flat, neat death.

We saw this Lover's Leap only at a distance when going toward the moor, but coming back--however, I will tell you about it afterward, when I come to Buckland Chase, on the way home.

It was at Holne that the big hills, of which we'd been warned, began; but Apollo merely sniffs at gradients that make smaller, meaner motors grunt with rage. We had a car behind us (which had started ahead), but it was rather an ominous sign to see no "pneu" tracks in the white dust of the road as we travelled. Other days, we have always had them to follow; and it makes a motor feel at home to know that his brethren have come and gone that way. This must have seemed to Apollo like isolation; and as if to emphasize the sensation which we all shared, suddenly we began to _smell_ the moor.

I can't describe to you exactly what that smell was like, but we _knew_ it was the moor. The air became alive and life-giving. It tingled with a cold breath of the north, and one thought of granite with the sun on it, and broom in blossom, and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s such as mountain-sheep love, though one saw none of those things yet. The scenery was still gentle and friendly, and the baby Dart was singing at the top of its voice.

Really, it was almost a tune. I felt, as I listened, that it would be easy to set it to music. The moss-covered stones round which purled the clear water looked like the whole notes and half notes, all ready to be pushed into place, so that the tune might "arrange itself." And the amber brown of the stream was mottled with gold under the surface, as if a sack full of sovereigns had been emptied into the river.

The first tor on our horizon was Sharp Tor, which the Dart evidently feared. The poor little river disappeared at sight of it, hurrying away from its frown, and as the stream vanished all the dainty charm of the landscape fled, too. We saw the moor towering toward us, stern and barren, with that great watch-tower of Nature's pinning it to the sky.

Moorland ponies raced to and fro, mad with the joy of some game they were playing, and they were not afraid of us. I should think the live things of the moor were afraid of nothing that could come to them out of the world beyond, for that pungent air breathes "courage," and the gray granite, breaking through the poor coat of gra.s.s, dares the eyes that look at it not to be brave.

Near the moorland ponies--on Holne Moor--we came to the strangest reservoir you could dream of. It was vast, and blue as a block fallen out of the sky; and once, Sir Lionel said, it had been a lake, though now it gives water to the prison town. An old road used to run through it; and to this day you can see the bridge under water. The story is that strange forms cross that bridge at night. I'm sure it's true, for anything could happen on the moor, and of course it swarms with pixies.

You believe that, don't you? Well, anyway, you would if you saw the moor.

The next tor was nameless for us, but it was even finer than Sharp Tor.