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The Rebellion of Margaret

by Geraldine Mockler · English · Gutenberg #18844 · 449,498 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Rebellion of Margaret

Author: Geraldine Mockler

Illustrator: Arthur Twidle


        
Release date: July 16, 2006 [eBook #18844]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18844

Credits: Produced by Louise Pryor, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REBELLION OF MARGARET ***




Produced by Louise Pryor, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                       THE REBELLION OF MARGARET

                         BY GERALDINE MOCKLER

               AUTHOR OF "THE GIRLS OF ST. BEDE'S," ETC.

                     ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR TWIDLE




LONDON
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

        I. Margaret's Dream Friend

       II. Margaret overhears a Conversation

      III. Margaret starts on a Journey

       IV. Margaret makes a Friend

        V. Eleanor Carson

       VI. Margaret and Eleanor change Names

      VII. Mrs. Murray meets the Train

     VIII. Maud Danvers

       IX. The Danvers Family

        X. Eleanor at Windy Gap

       XI. A Practical Joke

      XII. Eleanor meets Margaret's Aunt

     XIII. Hilary turns Detective

      XIV. The Hour of Reckoning

       XV. An Unexpected Visitor

      XVI. Conclusion




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"Margaret!" said the Old Man, breaking into speech at
last, and in a very harsh voice: "What Folly is this?"

"I am going for a Walk into the Town," she said, shyly

Maud swung round and saw Margaret standing with a
Pile of Letters by her Mother's Chair

Eleanor turned to the Piano, and ran her Fingers
Lightly over the Keys

"That Girl," pointing a lean, accusing Finger at Eleanor,
"is not my Granddaughter Margaret"




CHAPTER I

MARGARET'S DREAM FRIEND


"Margaret Anstruther! Margaret Anstruther! Margaret Anstruther!"

It was a sultry afternoon in early July. The sun was shining out of a
cloudless blue sky, the air was so still and so overpoweringly hot that
it seemed to have sent every living creature, save the owner of the voice
that was calling upon Margaret Anstruther, to sleep, for no answer was
returned to the thrice repeated call, and the silence which the summons
had broken settled once more over the garden. Not a leaf on even one of
the topmost twigs of the huge old elms from underneath which that
insistent voice had come was stirring, not an insect chirped, and the
birds who held morning and evening concerts among the branches were
silent now.

"Margaret Anstruther, will you come and play tennis? My brothers Reginald
and Lionel want a game, and if you will play we shall be four, and
because you have not had much practice lately you shall play with
Reginald, for he plays better than Lionel."

Greystones was noted for its elm-trees. The grounds, indeed, contained
little else in the shape of flowers or trees but elms. For a few brief
weeks in spring when they were dressed in the tenderest of greens they
were lovely, and in the autumn, if the leaves were not stripped off by
gales before they had a chance to turn golden, their hues could vie with
those flaunted by any other trees, but in the summer their dull, uniform
green was apt to become monotonous, and Margaret Anstruther was then wont
to declare that she could cheerfully have rooted up every one of them.

But as the remark never reached any one else's ears but her own, no one's
feelings were hurt. A chance visitor to Greystones, regular visitors were
not encouraged, had once observed that the entire grounds, some thirty or
forty acres in extent, which comprised the domain must have been an elm
wood originally, and that a space just sufficient on which to erect a
house of moderate dimensions had been cleared in the heart of it,
Greystones had been built, a way cut through the trees to form a drive to
the road a quarter of a mile distant from the house, and the rest of the
wood left undisturbed to be called a garden or not as the owner pleased.

Certainly the present owner had made no attempt to form a garden, but had
allowed the elms to grow right up to the walls of the house and to darken
the windows of the gloomily situated dwelling as much as they pleased.

"Margaret Anstruther, if you will not come and play tennis, will you come
for a ride upon your bicycle--that nice new one that you received as a
present from--from your grandfather." Here the speaker paused and laughed
as if the idea of Margaret Anstruther getting a bicycle from her
grandfather was a distinctly amusing idea. "We will go far, far along to
the blue distance--much farther than you ever went with Miss Bidwell--and
we will have tea at the inn down by the river and come home by moonlight.
We shall be quite safe, for Reginald and Lionel will be with us, and they
will take care of us."

The part of the grounds in which this so far one-sided conversation was
taking place was at some considerable distance from the house, in fact it
was right on the confines of the wood and as far from the house as
possible. Beyond the wood flat, green fields stretched on all sides
undiversified by as much as a copse or a hill. Even a bare, ploughed
field would have been a welcome relief to the landscape, while a yellow
cornfield would have imparted a positively gay appearance to it; but year
in year out those green fields wore always the same aspect.

But dull though the view might be, it was at least a wide one, and there
were the sheep and the cows that grazed in them to look at. Occasionally,
too, a stray passer-by, under the erroneous impression that in crossing
them he was taking a short cut, would venture into them, only to turn
back discomfited when confronted with padlocked gates and hedges threaded
with barbed wire, to say nothing of notice boards warning trespassers to
beware.

For the man who owned Greystones and those densely wooded grounds also
owned the fields that surrounded them, and his hatred of intruders was
well known in the immediate neighbourhood. It was a brave child who crept
through his hedges or climbed over his gates to pick primroses or
blackberries, and the urchin that was unlucky enough to encounter old Mr.
Anstruther while so engaged never ventured to trespass on his property
again.

"Margaret Anstruther! Margaret Anstruther! are you going to sit under
that tree all the afternoon? If you are too lazy to play tennis or to
come for a ride, will you come with me to Lady Barchester's garden party?
She has invited two hundred guests, and you must wear that lovely white
muslin dress with the little frills all up the skirt, and the big white
hat with the pink roses, and do not forget to take the pink chiffon
parasol that was sent you from Paris last week. We have been asked to
remain to dinner there, you may remember, for there will be a dance
afterwards. And the moon will be shining, and will it not be very
pleasant to sit out in the garden between the dances! Will you come,
Margaret Anstruther?"

That proposal was surely one that ought to have been tempting enough to
have called forth an answer of some sort from the girl to whom it was
addressed, but it was met by the same dead silence that had followed the
other suggestions.

Then somewhere near at hand a gate creaked loudly, there was the sound of
a key being turned in a padlock, and with his back towards the sunlit
fields from which he had come some ten minutes previously, the tall, thin
figure of an old man with a flowing white beard and with an Inverness
cloak hanging from his spare shoulders strode over the grass in the
direction of the thick clump of trees from which the unseen voice had
proceeded.

Though he took no pains to render them inaudible, his footsteps made no
sound on the grass, and as he approached the same voice spoke again,
unconscious of his near presence.

"Margaret Anstruther," it went on, "do you not then wish to do any of the
nice things I have told you about? Do you like sitting here by yourself,
when outside in the world real things are happening, and there are real
people to whom you might be talking, and whom you might know? Are you
happy? Tell me that."

The old man came to a pause, as abrupt as it was involuntary. Had any one
been there to see his face at that moment they would have perceived that
he was finding it difficult to believe the evidence of his ears. Almost
against his will it seemed he waited to hear the answer to that question,
for his obvious impulse had been to stride on and confront the speaker,
on whom his cold blue eyes, lightened now with a gleam of anger, rested.
She was sitting at the foot of a big elm-tree, with her back resting
against its trunk and her hands loosely clasped round her knees. She was
very young, and the forlorn droop of her figure and the pathetic
expression that was at that moment depicted upon her face made her look
even younger than her years, which numbered barely eighteen.

"Oh, Eleanor Humphreys!" she said, and her clear hazel eyes brimmed over
with tears as she spoke. "I am very, very miserable. Nobody loves me, and
I have nobody to love except you, of course, Eleanor Humphreys, and
sometimes I cannot make believe that you are real at all."

"Margaret!" said the old man, breaking into speech at last, and in a very
harsh voice. "What folly is this? To whom are you talking? Who is this
Eleanor Humphreys? Where is she?"

[Illustration: "MARGARET," SAID THE OLD MAN, BREAKING INTO SPEECH AT
LAST, AND IN A VERY HARSH VOICE, "WHAT FOLLY IS THIS?"]

And with both hands resting on his stick, which was planted firmly on the
ground in front of him, he darted suspicious searching glances among the
surrounding trees.

At the sound of her name uttered in those hard tones Margaret had sprung
to her feet; her face, pale before, had turned yet paler, and her big
hazel eyes fastened themselves with a terror-stricken expression on her
grandfather's face.

"How dare you encourage people to come into my grounds and talk to you
without my permission? Have I not expressly forbidden you to make
acquaintances without my knowledge. Who is this Eleanor Humphreys? Where
is she hiding? What does she mean by coming here and asking you to
accompany her to tennis parties and dances? Answer me. Tell me who she
is, and how she comes to be here without my knowledge."

"She is nobody; she--she is nowhere," stammered Margaret, whose trembling
lips could scarcely frame the words.

"Nobody, nowhere," thundered the old man. "Don't dare to trifle with me,
Margaret. Show her to me immediately, and I will tell her, whoever she
may be, what I think of her for presuming to come here without my leave."

Margaret's lips gave a sudden little twitch, which showed that, badly
frightened as she was, a hint of the humour of the situation had dawned
upon her mind.

"You--you can't scold her, grandfather. She--she isn't real. She is my
dream friend."

There was a momentary silence, during which Margaret, glancing timidly at
her grandfather's stern and angry face and reading there the contemptuous
scorn which he felt for her unworthy self, wished that the earth might
open and swallow her up. But as it remained unyieldingly firm she had
perforce to remain above ground and endure to the full his prolonged
scrutiny.

"So," he said at length, and if anything had been wanting to complete her
discomfiture and to drive away any lingering feeling of mirth, his tone
would have been more than sufficient for that purpose, "so this is the
manner in which you pass your time. In dreaming about imaginary people,
and in holding conversations remarkable for their utter inanity with
them, about tennis parties and dances and pink chiffon parasols."

Failing a yawning chasm at her feet, Margaret would have been thankful
if that same pink parasol had been a reality at that moment, and in her
hand, so that she could have held it as a screen between her crimsoning
face and his pitiless old eyes. She writhed inwardly to think that all
the idle fancies in which she had been indulging during the afternoon
had been poured into her grandfather's angry ears. And it was positive
agony to her shy nature to know that her shadowy friend was no longer her
own secret.

"Kindly have the goodness to answer my question. Seeing that but a
few minutes have elapsed since you were proving yourself capable of
sustaining both sides of a conversation, I think that it cannot be too
great a strain upon you to reply to my question now. Do you hear me?"

All trace of anger had vanished now both from Mr. Anstruther's face and
from his manner, and he spoke in the cold, precise tones, and framed his
sentences in the rather stilted manner habitual to him.

"Yes, grandfather," Margaret gasped in a very small voice. She was rarely
at ease with her grandfather--he had never taken any pains to render her
so--and when he addressed her in tones of semi-sarcasm she grew so
disconcerted that she could not answer him coherently. And, as the more
confused she became the more caustic his tongue waxed; their interviews,
brief though they were, often concluded with anger on his part and with
tears on hers.

"Then I should be obliged if you would have the kindness to answer me."

"I--I forget what it was that you asked me," stammered Margaret.

"Oh, I do not flatter myself that my questions can vie in interest with
those addressed to you by your imaginary friend. Nevertheless, I should
be glad if you will kindly pay attention to them. I asked you if it was
in this profitable manner that you usually passed your afternoons now."

"Sometimes, grandfather."

"Then I will find you something else to do. What is it that you ought to
be doing at this hour?"

"Three to four. Take exercise," said Margaret in the tone of a child
repeating a lesson.

"And this is the way in which you take it? By sitting and dreaming
away your time in nonsense and folly and in making up silly, idle
conversations with idiotic creatures of your own imagination. I gave even
you, Margaret, credit for more sense. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

Now, if Margaret had murmured the meek affirmative reply that was
obviously expected of her, the whole course of her life might have been
different. Her grandfather would probably have delivered himself of a few
more harsh strictures, and then Margaret would have been dismissed to the
house, with orders to double her morrow's lessons.

But though she winced at the scorn with which he spoke to her, it did not
cut so deep as the ridicule he poured on what he contemptuously termed
the idiotic creatures of her own imagination, and oddly enough, though
she would never have summoned up enough courage to justify her own
actions to him, she could not remain silent when the intelligence of her
shadowy friend was derided.

"No;" she said slowly, thoughtfully, and quite as much amazed at her own
temerity as Mr. Anstruther was; "I don't think I am ashamed, grandfather.
You see, I am very fond of Eleanor Humphreys. She has been a very great
comfort to me."

Sheer amazement held Mr. Anstruther silent. He would probably have been
less surprised if the kitchen cat had entered into conversation with him.

"When I am lonely she comes and talks to me. She is not always alone,
like me, but is one of a large family of brothers and sisters. They have
such good times together. They play tennis, and go to parties and dances,
and sometimes I go with them; but when I cannot go Eleanor comes here
afterwards and tells me all she has been doing, and then it is just as
though I had been to the parties also."

But at that point Margaret pulled herself up in a sudden breathless
manner. It was always like that she thought confusedly. Either she had
not courage to open her lips to her grandfather, or else she was led into
saying all manner of things which a moment's calm reflection would have
told her must on no account pass her lips.

But at any rate, as she realised with a queer little thrill of
excitement, she had not been disloyal enough to say that she was ashamed
of her affection for Eleanor. And she had had to derive as much comfort
from that thought as possible, for it required no great discernment to
see that her grandfather was terribly angry with her. Yet, when he spoke,
his voice was as cold and as even, his diction as precise, as usual.

"I wonder, Margaret," he said, "if you are mad, or merely pretending to
be mad. In either case, I have listened to you long enough. Kindly go
into the house, seat yourself at the piano, and practise scales for two
hours. The sound at this hour of the day will not be a pleasing one; but
hearing it I shall trust that the manual exercise is keeping your mind
from dwelling further on this folly."

Margaret required no second bidding to leave him, but retreated from the
spot at the fastest walk she could manage. To have run from his presence
would have been considered both disrespectful and unlady-like, and would
not have been permitted for a moment.

When the trees had swallowed her up from his sight, Mr. Anstruther turned
and walked in the other direction. And there was a perturbed look on his
face.




CHAPTER II

MARGARET OVERHEARS A CONVERSATION


Margaret's parents had died when she was in her infancy, and she had been
brought up entirely by her grandfather. As far as she knew, she had no
other relatives. Certainly he had never spoken to her of any. When she
grew old enough to begin lessons, Mr. Anstruther had engaged an excellent
governess to reside at Greystones, and at her hands Margaret had received
a careful, sound education. No nun in a convent ever led a more regular
existence than Margaret had led from the time she was five years old
until a few weeks before this story opens. Certainly no girl was ever
expected to lead so quiet and monotonous an existence.

Every morning, winter and summer alike, she entered the schoolroom
punctually at seven and practised on the piano for an hour and a half. At
half-past eight she and Miss Bidwell breakfasted together. Nine to eleven
were lesson hours. Eleven to one were exercise hours. At 1.30 they dined.
The afternoon programme varied according to the seasons and the weather.
In summer they worked from three to five and went out afterwards, while
in winter the order of things was reversed and they went out first and
worked afterwards. After tea Margaret practised again, prepared her
lessons for the next day, and went to bed at nine.

And that had been her daily life year in year out until a few months
before the day on which this story opens. And then, greatly to Mr.
Anstruther's annoyance, an event had occurred which upset all his
carefully laid plans. Miss Bidwell, whose sight had never been very
strong, was threatened with cataract in both eyes, and acting on the
advice of a clever little doctor who had lately come to the
neighbourhood, she had decided to go to her mother's relatives in France
and to take a complete rest until her eyes should be ready for operation.
The news that Miss Bidwell's sight had been failing for some time came as
no surprise to her pupil, who had perceived for some time past that her
governess could scarcely see to read even with the aid of her strongest
glasses, and Margaret, without allowing her to know that she knew--for
she divined that Miss Bidwell had striven desperately to conceal the
truth not only from those around her, but from herself too--had done the
little that lay in her power to save her governess's eyes as much as
possible.

But to Mr. Anstruther the news came as a very disagreeable shock. He had
not intended to part with Miss Bidwell for at least three or four years
to come. Other people might perhaps have considered that Margaret was
already growing too old to be subject to the control of a governess, and
that if her character were to be properly developed she must now be
allowed to think and act independently. But if any one had ventured to
express these sentiments to Mr. Anstruther, they would have been
requested, not over politely, to mind their own business. He had grown
used to Miss Bidwell, and he disliked the idea either of replacing her by
a stranger, or of letting Margaret do without another governess.

Margaret parted with her governess with very real regret. Although
through all the years they had been together their relations had always
been those of mistress and pupil only, never that of friends and
companions, still in losing her Margaret at least lost the company of
another fellow-being. For Mr. Anstruther had decided not to engage
another governess, at any rate not until he saw if he could possibly do
without one. His dislike for his fellow creatures became intensified
every year, and had it not been that his occupation of farming took him
out of doors all day long and brought him into contact with all sorts and
conditions of people, he would long ago have turned into the recluse that
he wished his granddaughter to be.

For the existence that he planned for her now was one of the most
extraordinary that a girl of her age was ever called upon to live. She
was, he decreed, to go on exactly as if her governess was still with her,
to read for so many hours a day, to practise for so many more, and to
take regular exercise in the garden. For out of the confines of the
grounds she was now strictly forbidden to go. But as Margaret listened to
the rules that were being laid down for her she never dreamed of
questioning them, but in the shy voice that was habitual to her in her
grandfather's presence promised obedience to them. And as she left the
room her grandfather looked after her with an expression of great
satisfaction on his face. But the satisfaction was for himself, and not
for her. How well he had brought her up! How wise his treatment of her
had been! What a commendable difference between her manner to him, and
her mother's! He had vowed that he would bring up Margaret's daughter to
respect and obey him in the smallest particular, and he had accomplished
the task he had set himself.

It had, after all, been quite an easy one. The great secret was, he
reflected to maintain an attitude of judicious firmness, and never to
relax it. Not once had Margaret ever ventured to argue with him or to
question his right to order her every action. And so very well pleased
with himself Mr. Anstruther dismissed her from his mind and went about
his own affairs. It had been a matter of some surprise to Margaret to
find how soon she not only got accustomed to Miss Bidwell's absence, but
ceased to miss her. Naturally she felt a little lonely at first, and it
was rather strange to look up from her work and not see the thin, angular
form of her governess seated at the head of the table with a book, at the
pages of which she had latterly, at least, not looked much, open before
her, nor to hear the ceaseless click click of her steel knitting needles.
But as soon as the feeling of loneliness and the sense of almost
oppressive silence that now surrounded her wore off Margaret grew to like
her hours of solitary study. The hours that she found most irksome were
those that she was compelled to spend taking exercise in the grounds. For
though she liked being out in the open air, she soon grew heartily tired
of walking about under the shade of the densely growing elms, and she
missed the long country walks with Miss Bidwell to which she had been
accustomed.

Gradually the monotony and exceeding loneliness of her life began to tell
upon her spirits, her appetite failed, she grew paler and thinner, and
her step as she roamed aimlessly about the grounds grew daily more
languid.

But still no thought of rebelling against the queer existence she was
leading entered her mind, for as yet she had scarcely realised how
unhappy she was. It was an intensely hot summer, and she thought that the
unusual heat was responsible for the lack of interest she felt in all her
usual occupations, and for the tired feeling which made her now, instead
of obeying her grandfather's orders to take exercise, deliberately seek
out the shadiest spot among the trees and sit quietly there the whole
afternoon. It was probably the very first deliberate act of disobedience
of which she had ever of set purpose been guilty in her life, and it was
to have consequences of which she little dreamed.

One afternoon, some two or three weeks before the day on which her
grandfather was to come so unexpectedly upon her, she was sitting there
half asleep when the unusual sound of footsteps and voices in the field
below her startled her into complete wakefulness.

Though she was close to the hedge that divided the fields from the woods,
she was so well screened from observation, not only by the hedge but by a
clump of intervening young trees, that she was able to rise to her feet
and look at the speakers as they passed without fear of detection.

For strangers to be trespassing in her grandfather's fields was an event
rare enough to excite her curiosity, and she was eager to know who the
intrepid people might be.

Somewhat to her surprise, she recognised in one of them the clergyman of
the church five miles distant, to which they always drove every Sunday
morning. It was not their own parish church, for with the rector of that
Mr. Anstruther had quarrelled many years ago, not for any particular
reason except that he was the clergyman of the parish and therefore to be
kept at a distance.

He was walking with a middle-aged little man of kindly aspect in whom
Margaret recognised Dr. Knowles, the doctor who had lately bought old Dr.
Carter's practice, and who had advised Miss Bidwell to go abroad for her
eyesight.

Though nothing was further from Margaret's mind than any intention of
eaves-dropping, she could not help overhearing every word that was spoken
as they passed the spot where she was standing. Mr. Summers, the
clergyman, was speaking.

"Yes, poor girl. It is a great shame. Her grandfather keeps her cooped up
in that gloomy old place and never lets her see a soul. She has passed a
lonely, unloved youth, for I am sure her grandfather has never shown her
any affection, and I am equally sure that her dry stick of a governess
did not, and, poor child, she has never been allowed to associate with
any one else. She has never been allowed to have a friend or to go to a
party or a dance in her life. And she must be nearly eighteen now. It
really is a shame, for youth only comes once."

"What a queer life! What a queer life for a girl to lead!" said the
little doctor in jerky tones. "And is she contented with it?"

"Yes, I think so; but, then, she has no idea what she is missing."

With that reply the two voices passed out of hearing, leaving Margaret
standing motionless under the tree. Of course it was she of whom they
were talking. Was she, then, so greatly to be pitied? The idea was such
a novel one that she could not take it in all at once, but gradually the
truth of what they had said dawned with overwhelming force upon her mind.

"A lonely, unloved youth." Yes, such a youth had certainly been hers. Of
course her grandfather had never loved her. In the bewildered state of
her mind she hardly knew whether she had always realised that fact, or
whether she had taken his affection for her for granted. And he had
allowed her no friends, no parties, no dances. Why had she thus been
brought up aloof from every one? Certainly, as Mr. Summers had said in
reply to Dr. Knowles' question as to whether she was content with her
existence, she was content simply because she knew no better one. She
had not realised before in what a very different fashion other girls were
brought up. But now her eyes were open. That simple phrase, "She does not
know, poor child, what she is missing," had told her more than many
lengthy explanations could have done.

Looking back afterwards on those moments during which she had stood
gazing with unseeing eyes after the departing figures of the two men,
they seemed to her to make a dividing line between all her previous
and her after life. She had thought that the departure of Miss Bidwell
had been an epoch in it; now that sank into comparative insignificance,
for after all her departure had left her, Margaret, unchanged.

But the same could not be said of this event. Hitherto she had blindly,
unquestioningly accepted her grandfather's right to order every detail
of her life, and if she had thought about the matter at all she had
doubtless supposed that his authority over her would always be as
absolute as it was now.

However, it was one thing to discover that her childhood had missed, and
her girlhood was losing, many of the pleasures that should rightly belong
to them, but to remedy this state of affairs was quite another. Although
the idea that her grandfather had been unduly strict with her had been
thus suddenly brought home to her, it did not in the least lesson the
habitual awe in which she stood of him, and as she was obliged to
continue to adhere to the rules he had laid down for her, she began to
wonder whether she had not been happier when she had not dreamed of
questioning his right to exact such unquestioning obedience from her.

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," she quoted to herself,
and what was the good of knowing that her life was so dull if she dared
not do anything to make it less so. Since Miss Bidwell's departure she
had fallen into the habit of talking aloud to herself, for she found that
during her many long, lonely hours the sound even of her own voice made
some companionship for her, and her conversations with Eleanor Humphreys
were now no longer carried on in the recesses of her mind but out loud.

It was a dangerous habit, as she was to discover ere long, especially as
Eleanor had of late, since in fact the seeds of discontent had been sown
in Margaret's mind, not stopped at describing her gaieties to her friend,
but tried to persuade her to break bounds and to come and join in the
revels.

And that was what had brought Margaret into such serious trouble with her
grandfather.




CHAPTER III

MARGARET STARTS ON A JOURNEY


The immediate result of the conversation that Mr. Anstruther had
overheard between his granddaughter and her imaginary friend was a visit
from the doctor to Margaret. Mr. Anstruther was sure that Margaret would
never have dreamed of rebelling against him even in her thoughts had she
not been ill, and within an hour from the time he had dispatched his
granddaughter in disgrace to the house, Mr. Anstruther followed her there
accompanied by Dr. Knowles. Dr. Knowles it was whose conversation with
the clergyman Margaret had in her turn overheard from behind the hedge,
and if he had pitied Margaret before, his pity increased tenfold, when by
a series of skilfully put questions he had drawn from her a description
of her daily life. But he smiled reassuringly at her as he bade her
good-bye, and promised to send her a prescription that he knew she would
like.

But though, when she came to hear of it, Margaret approved this
prescription, her grandfather strongly objected to it when it was
first mooted to him. For it was change of air that the doctor
prescribed--change of air immediate and complete.

"If you could fill this house with young people, and let her lead a gay,
lively life here, I don't say that it might not do her as much good as a
change of climate, but," perceiving that Mr. Anstruther's face was set
like a flint at a mere suggestion of such a thing, "a change would be
better still. She has been too long in this flat, low-lying district;
Brighton or Eastbourne, or any part of the Sussex Downs, would be of
immense benefit to her."

"And if I follow neither of these alternatives," said Mr. Anstruther
harshly, "if I let her go on as she is doing now, what then?"

"Then I think you will run a great risk of having a morbid, melancholy
young lady on your hands--a delicate one too--for she is in danger of
becoming anemic, unless her health improves."

Dr. Knowles spoke so emphatically that, averse though he was to the idea
of letting his granddaughter go away, Mr. Anstruther dared not disregard
his warning. Nothing, he told himself obstinately, would have induced him
to accept the alternative proposal and fill his house with young people
for her sake. That would have been denying the very principles on which
she had been brought up. But the change was another matter altogether.
The next point to be considered was where he should send her; the doctor
had specified the Sussex downs, and that brought to Mr. Anstruther's mind
the fact that he had a friend who lived in a village high up on those
same downs. Many years ago he had visited her in the breezy place in
which she had chosen to make her home, and if his memory served him
rightly, and he had no doubt on that point, Windy Gap, as the village was
called, would be bracing enough to please the doctor, and quiet enough to
satisfy him. To the best of his belief there was scarcely another house
within three or four miles, and even if she had possessed near neighbours
Mrs. Murray would not have been likely to hold much intercourse with
them, for she was very deaf, and, as when he had known her, at least, she
had objected strongly to using an ear-trumpet, and few people had
sufficient lung power to make her hear without it, she had been quite
content not to hear them at all. Mr. Anstruther smiled rather grimly as
he reflected that Margaret's stay at Windy Gap was not likely to make her
own home seem dull by contrast when she returned to it.

Although he had held no correspondence with Mrs. Murray for many years,
they had in the days of their youth been such very good friends that Mr.
Anstruther had no scruples at all in writing to ask her if she would be
willing to consent to receive his granddaughter on a long visit. An
answer came by return of post to say that Mrs. Murray would be delighted
to have her, but that as she was totally unused to young people and
would be at a loss to know how to entertain a young girl, George must
give her some idea of what amusements she would need.

"My dear Julia," wrote Mr. Anstruther by the very next post, "Margaret
requires no amusement of any sort whatever. I particularly wish her to
make no friends and to pay no visits. You will find her obedient and
quiet, respectful towards her elders, to whose opinion she has been
taught to defer implicitly on every point. You, I think, were among those
who remonstrated with me when fourteen years ago I sketched to you the
lines on which I intended to bring up my granddaughter. When you see the
result of my training, however, you will admit that your remonstrances
were misplaced. I will not, however, disguise from you that during the
last few days her conduct has not been altogether satisfactory, but
suspecting that a grave act of disobedience of which she had been guilty
arose from the fact that she was not quite in her usual health, I called
in a doctor, and he confirmed me in this opinion and recommended change
of air. Of course, you are aware that when Margaret comes of age or when
she marries, if she marries before she is twenty-one, she inherits a
fortune of about £2,000 a year. Her mother inherited nearly double this
sum, but she and her husband--she married her second cousin and did not
change her name--between them reduced the capital by considerably more
than half. But I have brought Margaret up in utter ignorance of the fact
that she is an heiress, and have always taken pains to prevent her from
coming into contact with any one who might inform her of it. And this I
have done to guard her from being married merely for the sake of her
money. Let her lead while with you the same simple life that she has led
hitherto. Make her study for five or six hours daily and spend the rest
of the time in your lovely garden. If she goes out for walks, which seems
to me unnecessary, for she can surely take all the exercise needful to
her health in your garden, pray see that she is attended by a maid whom
you can trust. I also particularly wish her to take up the study of a new
language. It will give her something definite to work at, and will drive
from her thoughts sundry silly fancies and whims to which of late she has
given way. She already talks French and German very well indeed, thanks
to a most painstaking governess who has helped me to bring her up, and
now she might with advantage take up Italian. You are so close to
Seabourne, which place is, I know, a great educational centre, that you
will have no difficulty in getting teachers. Pray spare no expense and
get the very best. Perhaps you might also arrange for a competent singing
mistress to come out to Windy Gap two or three times during the week, for
Margaret has a nice little voice--not strong, but sweet and true--and
singing, when not displayed in public, is a becoming accomplishment for a
woman to have."

Could Mr. Anstruther have heard the running fire of exclamations
expressive of amazement, amusement, and pity with which Mrs. Murray
punctuated the reading of this letter, Margaret would never have been
permitted to go to Windy Gap.

But Mrs. Murray's reply gave no hint of the feelings with which she had
read his long letter of instructions; she merely promised to take every
care of his granddaughter and to keep her well occupied.

"I am delighted to hear," she wrote, "that you particularly wish her to
take Italian and singing lessons, for as it happens she will enjoy an
unique opportunity of studying both those things. For living in this
village is an Italian lady, a certain Madame Margherita Martelli, who was
once a famous operatic singer, but who lost her voice after a very short
career. She lives here so as to be near her only daughter, who married a
clergyman in Chailfield. She is by no means well off, and will be very
glad to make a little money by teaching Margaret singing and Italian. I
have heard she is a splendid teacher. As for Margaret forming any
intimate friendships while with me, you can set your mind at rest on that
point, for my deafness has increased so much since I last saw you that I
do no visiting in the ordinary sense of the word, but am quite happy with
my books and my garden. Then, too, I have a large acquaintance with my
poorer neighbours in the surrounding villages, and though my lameness
prevents me from walking to see them, I have a sturdy little pair of
ponies who take me everywhere, and I am looking forward to having
Margaret as a companion on my daily drives."

When Margaret heard, as she did four or five days after the doctor's
visit, that she was to go away from Greystones for a prolonged period,
her amazement was only equalled by her delight. She had known that some
change was impending for her, for the day after his visit she had been
ordered to spend all her time out of doors, and, as long, of course, as
she did not go out of the wood, to do exactly as she pleased. So she had
taken out the lightest books the schoolroom shelves contained and had
spent the long, hot days lying under the shade of the trees. The state of
suspense in which she had lived during those days gave ample support to
the doctor's verdict that a change of some sort had become necessary to
her. She grew even paler than was her wont, and a succession of two or
three wakeful nights brought dark circles under her eyes, making them
look almost unnaturally large and bright.

"So," said her grandfather, who had called her into his study to acquaint
her with the plans he had made for her, and who had had no difficulty in
reading on her tell-tale face the delight the news had given her, "you
are pleased to be going away even before I have informed you what your
destination is?"

"Yes, grandfather."

"And you feel no regret in leaving Greystones?"

"No, grandfather."

Mr. Anstruther suppressed with some difficulty the strong feeling of
irritation that seized him at these monosyllabic answers. He knew that it
would have been highly unreasonable on his part to have displayed
annoyance, for had he not himself taught her to give a simple "Yes" and
"No" when possible to his questions?

"Or in leaving me?"

For a brief instant Margaret hesitated the while her clear, candid eyes
were fixed thoughtfully on his face. Her natural politeness forbade her
to give the negative reply which her innate truthfulness also demanded.
He saved her from the necessity of making a reply at all.

"I am answered," he said in the sarcastic tones which never failed to
bring the colour to her face. "Pray did you think my feelings would be
wounded if you had told me that you felt no regret at leaving me?"

"I--I do not know," stammered Margaret uneasily.

"Well, as it is my desire that you go it would not be of much use
discussing your feelings or wishes on the matter. This is Thursday; you
will go next Tuesday."

"Yes, grandfather."

This time Mr. Anstruther could not restrain the impatient glance he threw
at her pale face and downcast eyes.

"Yes, grandfather! no, grandfather! I do not know, grandfather!" Was that
really all she felt capable of saying in his presence? A few days ago he
could have believed that to be the case, but now he was conscious for the
first time of a baffled sense that he really knew nothing whatever of the
real character of this granddaughter of his. She was obedient, yes, but
that was after all a matter of conduct rather than of character, and he
found himself wondering what traits might be hidden away under the quiet
reserve of her manner. But again with an effort he suppressed his
irritation and proceeded to describe to her the place to which she was
going and the life she would lead there. "For if you imagine that the
senseless delights I overheard you picturing to yourself the other day
are to be yours you may as well disabuse yourself of the notion at once.
Nor will you have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of a number
of giddy young people. You will lead a life of as strict retirement there
as here. My friend, Mrs. Murray, who has so kindly consented to take you
for a time, is about my age; she will have the additional drawback in
your eyes of being very deaf. She lives quite alone in a little village
on the Sussex Downs and sees no one. But you will have plenty to do. I
have made arrangements for you to begin the study of Italian. It is time
you learned another language, and fortunately there is an Italian lady,
a Madame Margherita Martelli, once a famous singer, resident in the
village, who will instruct you in her language and also give you singing
lessons. She will also, perhaps, accompany you on your daily walk."

A curious light flashed suddenly into Margaret's down-drooped hazel eyes.
Her daily lessons! Her daily walk! And one deaf old lady for company! For
one wild minute she felt inclined to rebel, to tell her grandfather that
she was tired of being treated as a child, and that she had a right, at
eighteen, to have some voice in the disposition of her own time.

If she had raised her eyes then, he must have seen the mutinous look in
them, and then, whatever else had happened, or whatever the doctor had
said at his advice being set at nought, it would have been quite certain
that Margaret would not have been permitted to leave Greystones that
summer.

But that desire to rebel vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving
Mr. Anstruther as unaware as he had been before of all that his
granddaughter's quiet, almost indifferent manner concealed.

"After all," she told herself afterwards, "there will be the downs and
the sea to look at. And it will be a change from this."

So she held fast to those two thoughts, and did not permit herself to
be dismayed by the picture her grandfather had drawn of the life that
awaited her at Windy Gap.

Of course, it was out of the question that Margaret should travel alone,
and Mr. Anstruther made arrangements for his housekeeper and cook to
escort her to her journey's end. The almost childish delight that
Margaret felt at the thought of the actual journey itself was somewhat
damped by the news that Mrs. Parkes was to accompany her. For her
grandfather's estimable cook and housekeeper was a grim old woman who
ruled the maids with a rod of iron, and who, even in the days of her
childhood, had never had a kind look or a smile for Margaret. That,
however, in Mr. Anstruther's opinion, had added to her recommendations,
for it had been one of his rules that his granddaughter should have
nothing whatever to say to any of his servants. But though the news
that Mrs. Parkes was to be her escort lessened the pleasure that she was
feeling at the thought of the long railway journey that lay before her,
it could not by any means wholly destroy it. After all, they could sit at
opposite ends of the carriage, and Margaret knew that, except when they
changed trains, which they had to do once, she would be tolerably certain
to forget Mrs. Parkes' presence altogether.

As soon as she had heard where she was to go, Margaret looked her
destination up on the map. But Windy Gap was too small a place to be
marked. Chailfield, however, was the nearest station, and that was on the
map, as was also Seabourne. The latter place was a large and fashionable
watering town renowned for its schools, in one of which Miss Bidwell had
been a governess for some years. Many were the dictations in English,
French, and German, descriptive of the town and the surrounding downs
which Margaret had written, and it was strange to think that she was now
about to see these places for herself.

The few days that intervened between the Thursday on which she had heard
that she was to go away and the following Tuesday could not pass too
quickly for Margaret, and when Monday dawned and the actual packing of
her trunk could begin, she was in a high, though carefully repressed
state of excitement. Lizzie, the housemaid, who had been getting her
clothes ready during the last few days, fully sympathised with the eager
impatience which Margaret showed that everything should be ready in time.

"For if I had had the dull time that Miss Margaret has had ever since
Miss Bidwell went away, not that she was very gay company, I should be
off my head with joy too."

"Is Miss Margaret off her head with joy, then?" said the kitchen-maid, to
whom the remark had been addressed.

"Well, in a quiet way of her own she is," said Lizzie. "She don't sing
nor dance like other young ladies would, but her eyes shine like stars,
and now and again she smiles quiet to herself."

But, after all, Margaret did not have Mrs. Parkes as a travelling
companion. The day before they were to start for Chailfield two things
happened. Scarlet fever broke out in Clayton, and Mrs. Parkes fell down
the cellar stairs and broke her leg.

"The departure of my granddaughter, who was to have left to-morrow
morning by the nine-thirty train, must therefore be delayed," said Mr.
Anstruther, "until I can procure for her a suitable escort."

This was said to Dr. Knowles, who had been summoned to set the broken
leg.

"Departure delayed! Escort! Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Knowles in his most
staccato manner. "Don't keep her an hour longer here than necessary. In
her run-down state she would be just the sort of person to go down with
fever. The sooner she is away from here the better."

"But I hardly like the idea of her travelling alone," said Mr.
Anstruther, who saw the reason of what the doctor said far too clearly
to resent his manner. "I would have taken her myself, but it is quite
impossible for me to leave home for several days----"

"Then send her alone. What on earth can happen to her? Put her in charge
of the guard, engine-driver, inspector, every official on the line, but
don't keep her here another day. It would be wicked to let her run
unnecessary risks."

As it was then ten o'clock at night, and Margaret was to start so early
the next morning, it was impossible to find any one to go with her,
especially as Dr. Knowles had warned her grandfather against bringing her
in contact with any one in the infected village. After all, he thought,
Dr. Knowles was right, and no harm could come to her through travelling
alone. It was not even as though she were going through London. The
journey was a perfectly simple one, and involved only one change at a
place called Carden Junction. If he spoke to the guard at Clayton, and
told him to put the young lady into the Southern Express at the junction,
she would be well looked after the whole way.




CHAPTER IV

MARGARET MAKES A FRIEND


But in making this arrangement the next morning, Mr. Anstruther, as did
the guard also, reckoned without the train being delayed for over an hour
when some fifteen miles from Carden Junction, and consequently missing
the connection with the Southern Express at the latter station.

"I am sorry to say, Miss, you will have to wait here for two hours
and a half," said the guard, as he helped the young lady who had been
given into his charge to alight. "I will carry your bag for you to the
waiting-room. It's a slow one, too, the next train, and don't get into
Seabourne until 7.10, whereas the express you have just missed would have
got you there at 3.45."

"I do not mind at all, thank you," said Margaret blithely, as she walked
down the platform beside him with light steps. "I really think it's great
fun missing a train, and having to wait for the next."

"Then, Miss, you're the first passenger I ever met who looked at it in
that way," said the guard in some astonishment. "Well, I must be going
on, for, as we're late already, we don't stop any time here. Good
morning, Miss, sorry I couldn't have done more for you, and put you in
charge of the next guard, as the gentleman asked. But you will be all
right in the waiting-room. Your train leaves at 2.17."

"Thank you," said Margaret. "I will not forget. Good morning."

She was delighted to see him go, and when the train steamed out of the
station, which it did a few minutes later, a sense of freedom, as novel
as it was delightful, took possession of her. For a few hours, at least,
she was absolutely her own mistress. There was no one to tell her to do
this, when she would rather have done the other, no one even to tell her
to remain where she was if she wished to go for a walk. And to go for a
walk was just what she intended to do. She certainly did not intend to
spend the next two hours in this stuffy little waiting-room, whose one
window commanded a view of nothing more exciting than the station yard.
She would go into the town and look at the shops.

It was true that the sky seemed rather overcast, but the clouds were
probably only passing ones, and the sun would shine out again in a few
minutes. Turning abruptly from the window she was hurrying towards the
door, when a voice close beside her remarked that she was leaving her bag
behind. Swinging round in amazement, for she had thought that she was
alone, she perceived that the room now contained another occupant who
must have entered it while she was staring out of the window. A girl of
about her own age was seated at the table with a couple of books and an
exercise book spread out before her, and as Margaret looked at her she
just pointed with her pencil at the dressing bag which the guard had
placed on a chair, and went on writing again immediately.

Margaret thought her one of the prettiest girls she ever seen, and though
that would have been saying a great deal less for her than Margaret
realised, for after all she had not seen many girls pretty or otherwise,
this girl was undoubtedly exceedingly good-looking. She had masses of
wavy chestnut hair, red-brown eyes, and a clear, pale skin.

Arrested thus suddenly on her way to the door by this unexpected remark,
Margaret halted rather awkwardly in the middle of the room uncertain what
to do about her bag.

"I am going for a walk into the town," she said shyly, "and my bag is too
heavy for me to carry with me. May I not leave it here?"

[Illustration: "I AM GOING FOR A WALK INTO THE TOWN," SHE SAID SHYLY.]

The girl raised her eyes again with some impatience. She had obviously
thought the incident closed, and she made reply as shortly as she
could that it was not usually considered safe to leave luggage in
waiting-rooms.

"Then what ought I to do with it, please?" said Margaret.

"Why, put it in the cloakroom of course," returned the other, and this
time her irritation at this continued interruption was so unmistakable
that Margaret, blushing crimson, grasped the unlucky bag and fairly fled
out of the waiting-room, without, as she contritely remarked afterwards,
a word of thanks or apology.

Having safely deposited the bag in the cloakroom, she set out for her
walk. As she passed the window of the waiting-room she could see the girl
she had left there sitting at the table turning the leaves of a book with
one hand and scribbling hurriedly with the other.

"She's looking up words in a dictionary," Margaret said to herself, who
knew the signs of the occupation only too well. "And that is what I shall
be doing to-morrow. But I am not going to think of that now."

The walk on the whole was not fraught with much enjoyment. Carden, though
a junction of some importance, was nothing much in the way of a town, the
streets near the station were narrow and crowded, the shops poor, and
Margaret was not sorry when her stroll was cut short by a few heavy drops
of rain. It would be much more interesting, she thought, to go back to
the waiting-room and look at the girl who was doing exercises there.
Perhaps, though on that point Margaret was not very hopeful, she might
even talk to her presently. So she hurried back and reached the shelter
of the station only just in time to escape a heavy shower.

The girl was still seated at the table, and she did not even raise her
head as Margaret entered. With a fresh access of shyness Margaret avoided
looking at her, but walking to the window stared out at the rain. But as
a shower was a phenomenon with which she was familiar, and the near
presence of another girl was not, Margaret very soon shifted her position
so that she could without turning her head, and unobserved as she
thought, study the girl at her leisure.

She was wearing a skirt of some rough frieze, and the colour, a sort of
dull turquoise, suited her admirably. A white cotton shirt with a collar
and tie completed her attire, while a short coat of the same material as
her skirt was flung carelessly over the back of her chair. As Margaret
looked at her she became absorbed in speculation as to who the girl might
be, and where she was going. Was she on her way home, or was she going to
stay with friends? Then Margaret fell to admiring the vivid colour of her
hair, which was full of lights and shades. Just above her ears and her
temples it shone like vivid gold, but the coils behind were of a deep,
rich chestnut colour, with an inclination to merge into gold at their
tips. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were just a couple of tones deeper than
the darkest shade of her hair, and Margaret felt glad of that as their
owner doubtless was also. She liked her nose, too--it was short and
straight.

"Do you think you will know me again?"

The girl had not raised her head or even lifted her eyes from the pages
of the dictionary she was fluttering with her left hand, while the other,
poised over the book, was held in readiness to pounce down on the right
page directly it came uppermost.

Margaret gave a great start as the nonchalantly uttered question broke
the silence of the room, and she looked round to see if there was any one
else present, for the question seemed to be addressed to no one in
particular, certainly not to her. And yet as there was no one else in the
room, of course the question must have been meant for her.

"Oh, yes, I am sure I shall," she answered in a tone of such pleased
conviction that the girl looked up and gave her a quick, puzzled glance.
But no one could meet Margaret's candid eyes and suspect her of wishing
to be rude, and after a moment's scrutiny the girl's frowning brows
relaxed and she smiled--such a merry, amused smile, that the last vestige
of Margaret's shyness disappeared on the spot.

"You see," she said, "you are the first girl I have ever spoken to in all
my life, and so, of course, I should always remember you."

"The first girl you have ever spoken to!" ejaculated the other, her eyes
opening to their fullest width. "Oh, come, I can't believe that."

"But you are, that is to say, the very, very first _real_ girl."

The emphasis Margaret laid on the word "real" did not at the moment
strike the other, who was now quite as interested in Margaret as the
latter was in her.

"Look here," she said, "I don't think I can do any more exercises at
present, though it seems wicked waste of time to be talking when I might
be learning something. But my poor brain has taken in all it can at
present, and I am willing to rest it awhile by talking to you. Come here
and sit down, and we'll talk."

"I have been desirous of talking to you some moments past," said
Margaret, flushing with pleasure at the suggestion. "But you looked so
busy that I did not venture to interrupt you."

An involuntary smile crossed the other girl's face as she listened to
Margaret's prim little way of speaking.

"I know, and I was rather cross about the bag, wasn't I? but I had just
got hold of the tail of a rather difficult sentence and it gave a wriggle
and vanished when you spoke. However, please don't look so dreadfully
sorry. I made a successful grab at it a few minutes afterwards. Now shall
we tell each other our names. Mine is Eleanor----"

She stopped short in amazement, for Margaret had sprung to her feet and
was gazing at her with eyes that fairly shone with excitement.

"Eleanor!" she cried, "Eleanor! Oh, no, not really and truly!"

"Why not? Don't you like the name?"

"Like it! Why, of course I am very, very fond of it. It is the name of
some one I love very much. I suppose your other name is not Humphreys, is
it? But it would be really too much if it were."

"It's not. Eleanor Kathleen Carson is my full name."

"Eleanor Kathleen Carson," repeated Margaret when her excitement had
calmed somewhat.

"It's a lovely name, though, of course, it ought by rights to have been
Eleanor Humphreys. I know now the reason why I liked you so much the
moment I saw you."

"Not the first moment," said Eleanor, with twinkling eyes. "You thought
me horrid the first moment you saw me, and scuttled from the room as hard
as you could."

"No, I liked you from the first," Margaret repeated firmly. "Only I was
shy. It was very stupid of me," she added, partly to herself, "to be shy
of you when your name was Eleanor all the time."

"And who is this Eleanor of whom you appear so fond?" demanded Miss
Carson. "To begin with, you tell me that I am the very first girl you
have ever spoken to, and then that you have a friend called Eleanor. Pray
explain the discrepancy in these statements."

But Margaret, looking at the laughing light in the curious red-brown eyes
bent upon her, shook her head.

"I believe you would laugh at the other Eleanor," she said, "so I don't
think I shall tell you. But I will tell you my name. It is Margaret
Anstruther."

"And where do you live, Margaret Anstruther?"

"At Clayton, in Flatshire, with my grandfather."

"And have you any brothers and sisters, Margaret Anstruther?"

"No."

"And no friends, you said?"

"No."

"Where were you educated, Margaret Anstruther?"

"At home, with a governess. Her name was Miss Bidwell. She went away
to Germany three months ago, because her eyes were causing her grave
trouble, and it may be necessary for her to have an operation."

"Since when you have been alone with your grandfather?"

"Yes."

"You seem to have led a very quiet life. Was your governess clever, and
were you an industrious child, and loved your lessons?"

"She was very clever, and I was very industrious," smiled Margaret, who
was thoroughly enjoying this string of half banteringly put questions.
"But I did not love my lessons."

"Lazy, Margaret Anstruther? Why not?"

"I do not know; I do not think I was lazy. Miss Bidwell would not have
permitted me to be so, but she made everything seem rather dull."

"What did that matter? You had a chance of learning things," said
Eleanor. The mocking note had gone from her voice, which had become very
earnest. "Apparently you had nothing to do all day long but learn, learn,
learn. Lucky, lucky girl, and yet you say everything seemed dull. Would
that I could have changed places with you sometimes."

"I am sure the arrangement would have pleased me also," said Margaret.
"But I do not think you would have liked it. As soon as Miss Bidwell
saw that I was growing too fond of one subject it was her habit to
discontinue my study of it, until she saw that my interest in it was less
strong."

"But what an extraordinary governess!" exclaimed Eleanor. "What on earth
made her behave like that?"

"My grandfather had given strict orders that I was not to be allowed to
become too absorbed in any particular study. He did not want me to
neglect one thing in favour of another."

"But just to take a nice, lukewarm, lady-like interest in all of them,"
said Eleanor. "I see. But please go on, and tell me some more about
yourself. Where are you off to now, and why?"

"I am going to a place called Windy Gap, near Chailfield. At least
Chailfield is the name of the station. Windy Gap is a little village four
or five miles off, and right on the top of the downs."

"And I am going to Seabourne, which is about three or four miles away
from Windy Gap, on the other side," said Eleanor. "How very funny!"

"I think it is very pleasant to hear that you are going to be so close
to me," said Margaret rather shyly. "Perhaps we shall see each other
sometimes."

Eleanor shook her head. "I, for one, shall have no time for visiting,"
she said, "as you will understand when it comes to my turn to tell you
about myself. But we will finish with you first. Why are you going to
Windy Gap?"

"My grandfather thought I was not very well, for one day he found me
talking in the wood to myself and wishing for all sorts of parties, and
so he sent for a doctor, who said I must go away for a long change; and
so grandfather wrote to Mrs. Murray, an old friend of his who lives at
Windy Gap, and asked her if she would have me on a visit."

"And didn't you nearly go off your head with delight when she said she
would?"

"No," said Margaret, with a little sigh, "for my mode of life there will
be very much the same as it has always been at home. Lessons all day
long, and no one to speak to."

"But there will be your hostess at least," said Eleanor encouragingly.
"Come, Margaret, do not despair."

"But she is deaf," said Margaret, in the same melancholy tone. "And I
believe she is also very severe. But," brightening, "I am not going to
think about her now, for I have got you to talk to for another hour.
It's just one o'clock, and my train does not go until seventeen minutes
past two."

"The 2.17 is my train too," said Eleanor. "But what do you say to having
lunch now. I am getting hungry."

She produced a little paper bag from the basket in which she carried her
books, and offered one of the two buns the bag contained to Margaret. But
the latter suddenly remembered that the housemaid Lizzie, in spite of the
confusion that had reigned in the kitchen regions since Mrs. Parkes had
been laid low, had found time to pack up an excellent little lunch for
her.

"It is in the bag you told me to put in the cloakroom," she said. "If you
do not mind very much, would you be so kind as to come and help me to get
it out. I do not like going there alone."

"What! are you shy?" said Eleanor, with considerable amusement, and
to herself she wondered why her grandfather had let such a very
inexperienced girl as this travel alone. But in spite of Margaret's
shyness Miss Carson felt quite interested in her new acquaintance. There
was a serious, old-fashioned air about her that made her unlike any other
girl that Miss Carson had ever met, and, as it was shortly to transpire,
she had known a great many, and was therefore competent to give an
opinion on that point. Margaret's very speech was different to that of
other girls. It was so slow and careful, and she appeared to phrase her
sentence with a deliberation that Miss Carson found both quaint and
pleasing. Decidedly, she thought, this chance acquaintance was worth
passing the next hour or so with, if only for the sake of the secret
amusement she was affording her, and so, at Margaret's timid request, she
rose willingly enough and accompanied her to the cloakroom. Then, having
recovered the bag, they returned to the waiting-room, which they were
glad to find was still unoccupied by any one else.

Inside the bag there was a tin biscuit-box, the contents of which, when
spread out on the table, made quite a tempting-looking lunch. There were
chicken and tongue sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, covered jam puffs,
grapes, raisins, and almonds, and a bottle of delicious home-made
lemonade.

In her determination that Miss Margaret's holiday should begin pleasantly
with a good luncheon on the journey, Lizzie had put up enough for two
persons at least.

"Perhaps," said Margaret gleefully, when she had persuaded Eleanor to
abandon her buns and to share this sumptuous meal, "she knew that I
should meet a friend. Do you know," she added, "that this is the very
first picnic I have ever attended in my life, though I have read of them,
of course, in books."




CHAPTER V

ELEANOR CARSON


A picnic! Eleanor was conscious of a sudden feeling of pity for her newly
made acquaintance. She called this meal, partaken of in the dusty, dingy
little waiting-room of a noisy junction in company with a girl whom an
hour ago she had never met, a picnic.

Memories of gay, delightful river picnics, of mountain picnics, of
picnics in ruined castles shared with numerous boy and girl friends
flashed through Eleanor's mind. And this girl whose lot she had found it
in her heart to envy a short time back had known none of these things.

"And had I not met you," Margaret was saying confidingly when Eleanor
came out of the sombre mood into which she had suddenly fallen, "I should
never have had the courage even to open my lunch, at least I could not
have eaten it in a railway carriage with every one staring at me. Could
you have eaten your lunch under such circumstances?"

"Oh, yes, I think I could," Eleanor returned with some amusement.

Probably their ages were very much the same, but what a child Margaret
was compared to her! To make up for that, however, she certainly used
much longer words.

"How did your grandfather come to allow you to travel alone?" she asked
suddenly. "From what you have told me about him I should have thought it
was the very last thing he should have allowed you to do."

"He was very reluctant to give me permission to travel without an
escort," Margaret answered, "but he was unable to avoid doing so." And
then she related how the housekeeper who was to have brought her had
broken her leg, and how a sudden epidemic of scarlet fever in the village
had made it advisable for her departure not to be delayed.

"Of course," she added, "my grandfather was not aware that I should miss
the train and be obliged to wait here, or else I am quite sure he would
not have allowed me to come by myself. But please, please do not let us
talk about me any longer. I want to hear about you now and, except that
your name is Eleanor Kathleen Carson, I do not know anything at all about
you."

"There is not much to tell," returned Eleanor; "and what there is is not
particularly interesting; but fair is fair, as the children say. Know,
then, to begin with, that I have even fewer relations in the world than
you, for I have none at all."

"None!" Margaret exclaimed incredulously. "Then with whom do you live?
Where is your home?"

"I have no home. I have been earning my living for the last three years,"
Eleanor answered.

"Earning your own living. But are you not too young to do that? In what
manner do you earn it?"

"As a governess. I have been an instructor of the young for the last four
years," Eleanor said, laughing a little at the expression of boundless
amazement which this statement brought to Margaret's face. Indeed, for a
moment the latter suspected her new acquaintance of joking. She found it
hard to believe that a girl of her own age should actually be a
governess. She had thought that all governesses were of Miss Bidwell's
age, and like her, too, in appearance.

"I wish you had been my governess, then," she said earnestly.

"It would have been rather a farce if I had been," Eleanor retorted, "for
I have an idea that you know very much more than I do; not that that
would be difficult, for I know nothing. Listen, now, and I will tell you
all about myself. I am Irish. My father died when I was four, and two
years later my mother married again."

"Oh!" said Margaret, with intense interest and sympathy in her voice;
"and then they cast you adrift to earn your own living?"

"No," said Eleanor, with some amusement in her voice, "they did nothing of
the sort. Besides, you can't very well cast a small person of six adrift,
as you call it, to earn her own living. On the contrary, my stepfather
was as kind to me as if I had been his own child, and I could not have
loved him more if he had been my own father whom I scarcely remember. We
were so happy together, we three. My stepfather just adored my mother,
she worshipped him, and they both spoiled and petted me. My stepfather
was a very rich man. He was English, I must tell you, but he had come to
Ireland on a visit, and there it was he met my mother; and to please her
when they were married he bought a lovely estate in Kerry, which was her
county, and became an Irishman, as he used to say. Until I was fifteen I
did exactly as I liked all day. I rode, of course, and hunted, and lived
an outdoor life, and though I had a governess and was supposed to do
lessons occasionally, it was only very occasionally that I showed my nose
in the schoolroom. And then, when I was fifteen, our happy life came to
an end. One morning my stepfather got a letter at breakfast to say that
the solicitor who had charge of all his money had committed suicide two
or three days before, and that it had been found that he had made away
with huge sums belonging to his clients. We were absolutely ruined.

"The news was such an awful shock to my stepfather that it brought on an
attack of the heart, to which he was subject, and he died that night; and
my mother died a few weeks later. She could not, she told me, face life
without him, and she pined away and died simply of a broken heart."

Eleanor's voice had become rather husky as she spoke the last few
sentences, but she did not cry, she only sat and stared rather fixedly
at the various timetables with which the table was strewn.

Margaret put out her hand and touched her timidly on the arm, and the
silent token of sympathy pleased Eleanor who could not have borne her to
have spoken just then.

There was a moment or two of silence, during which the rain splashed
steadily, drearily against the dusty window panes. It had settled now
into a thoroughly wet afternoon, and there seemed very little prospect of
its clearing before nightfall.

"I have often wondered since what would have become of me then," Eleanor
resumed after those few moments of silence, "had it not been for Miss
McDonald. She was an old governess of my mother's and had a girls' school
in Hampstead, and when she heard how I was left she wrote and offered me
a home with her until I was old enough to earn my own living. I was to be
a sort of pupil teacher, if you know what that means--to do lessons with
the elder girls and to teach the younger ones--and in that way my
services were supposed to pay for my board and teaching. But I am quite
sure that at first, at any rate, Miss McDonald was a loser by the
transaction. I was woefully ignorant to begin with, and knew scarcely
more than a child of nine, and I was so miserable that I did not care
what became of me or what I did. Looking back now on that time I see that
Miss McDonald was wonderfully kind and patient, and that it was for my
own good that she insisted upon my working. But for a long time I don't
suppose there was a more unhappy girl in the whole of England than
myself. I hated England and the school and everything, and, of course, it
was a tremendous contrast to my former life, for it wasn't even as though
the school were a good school; it was quite second class, and the girls
were hopelessly common. And then all of a sudden consolation came to me,
and poor little drudge of a pupil teacher that I was, snubbed by the
elder girls and bored to death by the younger ones, I became happy again,
though in quite a different way to any happiness I had ever known
before."

"How?" said Margaret, who had been listening to this narrative with
parted lips and eager eyes.

After this, Eleanor Humphreys' conversation would seem tame indeed, for
at the bottom of her heart Margaret knew that, pretend to the contrary as
much as she liked, nothing that Eleanor Humphreys said ever came as a
surprise to her! But conversation with this Eleanor was quite another
matter. It was impossible to have the least idea beforehand of what she
was going to say.

"How?" she asked again, quivering with impatience, for Eleanor, instead
of answering her immediately, was looking at her with a teasing smile on
her lips evidently enjoying the prospect of keeping her for a moment or
two longer on the tip-toe of expectation.

"Well, before I tell you," she said, "I will give you three guesses. Now,
put yourself in my place and think what you would have liked to have had
happen to you if you had been me."

"I should have liked some kind, lovely lady to have come and adopted me,
and taken me away to a beautiful home in the country, where I should have
had lots and lots of brothers and sisters," said Margaret, faithful to
the idea that the companionship of other young people was the greatest
delight a girl of her age could enjoy.

But Eleanor shook her head. "I shouldn't have liked that a bit," she
said. "I should have been sure to have quarrelled with a whole ready-made
family of brothers and sisters, and they would not have loved me at all,
and the kind, lovely lady would have been jolly sorry she ever adopted
me, and would have turned me out of her lovely home pretty smartly. Guess
again. I can tell you that the good fortune that came to me was ever so
much more worth having than being adopted."

"I cannot imagine any occurrence that would have caused me more
pleasure," said Margaret in a hesitating fashion. "Was it, perhaps,
discovered that the solicitor who lost your stepfather's money had
not lost it quite all, and that there was some left for you?

"Better than that," said Eleanor; "much better. Guess again. I forgot
to mention that I do get a little money from the wreck of our fortunes,
about twenty pounds a year, but I shall never get more than that, and I
know it."

"Did some one fall in love with you, then?" said Margaret rather shyly.

"Gracious, no!" said Eleanor. "No men except one or two old professors
were ever allowed inside Waterloo House. And if a prince on a coal-black
horse, as handsome and as rich as a prince in a fairy tale, had come
riding up to the front door, and begged for my hand on bended knee, I
would have said 'No, thank you' if by saying 'Yes, please,' I must have
lost this wonderful thing that is mine. Have you ever heard of Melba or
Patti?"

"Certainly," answered Margaret, rather wondering at the apparently
irrelevant turn the conversation had suddenly taken.

"Well, then, in me you behold a future Melba and a Patti rolled into
one."

"Do you mean that you are a singer?" asked Margaret.

"A future Melba--Patti--Tetrazzini, I should have said," Eleanor returned
gravely. "But I see from your bewildered expression that you haven't
very much idea what I am talking about, so I will explain. As a child at
home I did not care much about music, chiefly, I think, because I did not
want to be made to practice too much, and when I first went to Waterloo
House I felt I liked it still less. The pianos there were mostly cracked
and old, the girls, very few of whom had a note of music in their
composition, thumped them all day long until I grew fairly sick of the
sound, and as I had to superintend the practising of the younger ones,
you may guess how much I enjoyed myself. But last Christmas holidays,
during which I was left by myself as usual, for Miss McDonald always went
away for a change, and she was so delicate, poor thing, that unless she
had gone away to the country or to the seaside two or three times a year
she could never have got through the terms, I took to practising a good
deal. It may sound horribly conceited, but I fell in love with my own
voice on the spot, and there, in the cold drawing-room, I used to sit and
sing all sorts of rubbishy, sentimental songs until my voice was husky
with mingled emotion and fatigue. Then I thought I would go to a few
concerts and find out if any of the great singers had such a lovely voice
as mine."

"And had they?" queried Margaret, as Eleanor, who had been talking at a
great rate, paused for breath.

"Had they?" repeated Eleanor with a little laugh. "They had. I came home
that evening quite out of love with my own voice, and before those
holidays were over I spent my half-yearly allowance, which I had only
just got, as well as my last quarter's salary, in tickets for concerts
and operas. It was the best time I had had since I left Ireland. In the
afternoons and evenings I used to go to concerts, and the mornings I
spent practising. But I gave up the songs and went in for scales only,
and I could hear my voice improving every day. I longed for some one who
really knew to tell me if my voice was any good, but I didn't know who to
ask. Miss Marvel, the school singing mistress, had no more voice than a
mouse, and what was worse, no ear. She would let a whole class sing out
of tune and never turn a hair. She did not like me because I had once
pointed this out to her, and I knew that if I asked for her opinion of my
voice she would only run it down. Then a daring idea came to me. Can you
guess what it was?"

"No, I cannot," said Margaret quickly, warned by her last experiment, "I
have never been taught to guess. Please continue."

"Very well," said Eleanor, smiling a well-pleased smile, for Margaret's
impatience was a tribute to the interest she was imparting to her tale.
"Have you ever heard of Signor Vanucci? No," as Margaret shook her head.
"He was one of the greatest singing masters in London, and a professor of
I don't know how many academies and schools of music in London. My great
idea was to go straight to him and to ask him if he would hear my voice,
and tell me if it was worth training. And on the very last day of the
holidays, when I had only about enough money left to pay my fare into
town and back, I went to his house. The servant didn't want to admit me
when she heard I had no appointment, but I told her what I wanted, and
begged so hard that she hadn't the heart to refuse, although she told me
that she would be pretty sure to get into trouble afterwards with her
master. But I don't believe he was cross with her, for he was a dear old
man, and didn't look as though he could be angry with any one. Of course,
I began by apologising for having ventured to come, and said I was afraid
he must be very much astonished at my having dared to do such a thing as
to force my way into his house. He looked at me quite gravely, and said,
did I think, then, that I was the first young lady who had conceived the
idea of coming to him to be told whether her voice was most like Patti's
or Melba's. I said I had thought so; and then he said that I was the
nine-hundredth-and-thirty-seventh that week. 'And Martha lets them all
in, every one,' he said, with such a comical look of despair that I could
not help laughing outright. 'And she thinks that I have only to hear them
sing, and they straightway become famous on the spot. Well, well,' he
went on, 'you did not come here to hear me talk, but to listen to
yourself singing, is it not so? There is the piano. Take your seat.
Where are your songs?'"

"And then he yawned, and walked away to the window, and stood there
humming a little tune. I could see that he was already getting tired of
me, and sorry that he had let me in, and though the thought that he was
looking upon me as an awful nuisance would have made me awfully nervous
if I had let it, I just said to myself, 'here is your opportunity, seize
it. What does it matter about any one else?' And I sat down and sang a
scale, beginning with the lowest note I could manage, and going up, up,
up, and ending with a long shake on the two top notes."

"Bravo! bravo!" he said when I had finished, and he was no longer
standing at the window humming a tune, but he was at my side clapping his
hands and patting my shoulder. "Do you know," Eleanor said, her eyes
aglow with triumph at the recollection of that moment, "I had come in
hoping that he would give me five minutes of his time, and he kept me for
an hour, although two pupils were waiting for him in the ante-room."

"And what did he say?" queried Margaret, with an interest that was
positively breathless.

Eleanor suddenly sprang to her feet and began restlessly to pace the
room. The glow of triumph had faded from her face, and had been replaced
by a look of impatient despair that was almost fierce in its intensity.

"Oh, I can't bear to think of what he said!" she burst out. "I feel as
though I should go wild sometimes when I remember, when I know that I
have a gift which is given to few, and that it is wasted on me, locked
away, unless--for do you know what Signor Vanucini said to me?" she asked,
coming to an abrupt pause by the table. "He told me that I ought to be
the greatest singer of my generation, that he foresaw a splendid future
before me, that my voice had infinite possibilities, but that, of course,
it was utterly untrained, and that years of hard work and study lay in
front of me. That I must work, and work, and learn, and learn, and above
all have the best training from the first. And then he said that I had
better enter my name as a student at one of the colleges where he was a
professor, and that he himself would give me lessons. And, oh! the
bitterness of the moment when I had to say that I had no money, no
friends to pay for my education, and that I was earning my living as a
pupil teacher in a third-rate school in the suburbs. Do you know he
seemed almost as much upset as I was. He said it was a great pity, that a
voice like mine ought not to be thrown away, and he asked me a lot of
questions about Miss McDonald and the school. Did I think she would
continue to let me live with her, and come up to town three or four times
a week, and he would give me lessons for nothing. I said I was afraid
not, for I knew the school was in rather low water, and that Miss
McDonald, so far from being able to keep me for nothing, had dismissed
the junior governess, and that I was to fill the vacant post.

"'Nevare mind,' he said, 'we vill find ze way. I, Giorgi Vanucci, to you
make ze assurance.'

"Then he took down my name and address very carefully in a note-book and
sent me away. I was so excited that I walked the whole way from Berners
Street to Hampstead, and felt all the time not as though I were walking
on hard pavement, but as though I were treading on air. I knew from his
manner that Signor Vanucci meant to help me, and that it would be all
right for me to accept his kindness, for I could pay him back afterwards
when I became a famous singer. The next day Miss McDonald came back, and
the day after the girls returned, and the old, dull, insufferably stupid
round began again. But all the time I was thinking, 'This won't last long
for me; in a few days Signor Vanucci will write and tell her the
wonderful news about me.' Miss McDonald noticed how happy I was, and told
me that she was glad that I was at last showing more interest in my work
as a teacher. 'For, my dear,' she said, rather sadly, 'it is no use your
quarrelling with your bread-and-butter. You may not like teaching, but it
appears to me the only opening possible to you.' I only laughed and
danced about the room and hugged her. Wait, I thought, until that letter
comes from Signor Vanucci, and you will see that you will be nothing to
the man who cut bread-and-butter with a razor, for you will have been
guilty of the enormity of setting a Melba and a Patti down to teach
children their Sol-re-fa.

"But that letter never came; and about ten days later I knew why, for I
saw in the papers that the famous musician, Signor Vanucci, had been
knocked down by a motor-car when crossing a street near his house, and
though not much injured, had died a few hours after from the shock."

"And what did you do?" asked Margaret, feeling very much inclined to cry
when she heard how Eleanor's high hopes had thus been laid low.

"Do?" said Eleanor sadly; "there was nothing to be done. I grieved for
the dreadfully sudden death of the old man, and I shall never forget his
kindness, and I shall always feel as grateful to him as though he had
lived to carry out his generous intentions towards me. But, of course,
his death was an awful disappointment.

"All my hopes of getting my voice trained vanished, and it seems as if
what Miss McDonald said were true, and that I have no chance of being
anything but a teacher all my life. To have had so much almost in my
grasp, and then to have had it snatched away, was rather hard luck," she
ended gloomily. "However, I simply would not let myself despond. For one
thing, I hadn't time; I was being worked to death. One or two of the
governesses were down with influenza, including the music mistress, and I
took her singing class, and, I promise you, I made them sit up. I told
them I had never yet heard them sing five consecutive bars in tune, and
then I imitated them in rather an exaggerated way, and even the big ones
who adored Miss Marvel and detested me could not help laughing. But on
the whole I was glad when Miss Marvel was well again and could take over
her own class, and within two days they were singing as flat as ever.
Then I filled up any spare moments I had during the day by studying on my
own account. One of the things Signor Vanucci had impressed on me was
that if I wanted to be a great artist instead of merely being a great
singer, I must not be content with training my voice only, but must
educate my mind, and that nothing in the way of learning would ever come
amiss, for I could put it all in my music. So though I could not get the
singing lessons I pined for, I remembered his advice and set to work to
learn all I could. Among other things, he had asked me if I knew Italian,
and had seemed sorry when I said 'No, and very little French or German
either.' So as a beginning I bought an Italian grammar and a dictionary,
and started to study the language. There they are now," she said, nodding
towards the two books with which she had been so busy a short time
before. "It is wonderful what a lot one can get done in odd moments, if,"
she added with a smile, "one is not led away to waste one's time, and
other people's too, by detailing to them at great length one's life's
history."

"You know you are not wasting my time," Margaret replied with great
earnestness, "and I am most grateful to you for telling me about
yourself. I shall never, never forget it or you," she added wistfully;
"but I shall remember every word you have said, long after you have
forgotten you ever met me."

"But I am not going to forget you either," Eleanor said, and was touched
to see the quick look of almost pathetic gratitude that sprang to
Margaret's face at this answer. "You mustn't go away with the idea that I
tell everybody I meet about myself. You may not believe it after the way
I have taken you into my confidence, but you are the very first person to
whom I have ever mentioned my home or my parents since I said good-bye to
Ireland six years ago, and that you are the only person in the whole wide
world who knows of my visit to Signor Vanucci and what he told me, for I
have kept that a secret from every one. I could not even bring myself to
tell Miss McDonald about it--not that she would have been unsympathetic,
but simply because it was such a bitter disappointment that I could not
have borne to hear it discussed. Besides, she could not, however willing
to do so, have helped me in any way. I told you the school was in low
water. It had not been paying properly for some time, and that term Miss
McDonald decided that unless she got a great many more pupils at Easter
she would give it up altogether at the end of the summer term.

"Well, at Easter no fresh pupils applied to come, and so many left that
scarcely any remained in the school. I don't know what poor Miss McDonald
would have done, for I don't think she had saved much money, if a brother
that she had not seen for years had not written from Australia to say
that after many years of struggling he was now a rich man, and that he
hoped she would go out there and make her home with him. And she sailed
for Melbourne last week."




CHAPTER VI

MARGARET AND ELEANOR CHANGE PLACES


"Miss McDonald sailed for Australia last week!" ejaculated Margaret in
the utmost astonishment. "But what is to become of you, then? Are you
quite alone?"

"Quite," responded Eleanor, for whom her solitary state evidently
possessed no terrors, for she smiled at Margaret's horrified tone. "Dear
old Miss McDonald! If I would have consented, she would have taken me
with her, I think, and chanced her brother's dismay when we got there.
She was dreadfully distressed at the idea of leaving me behind; but what
could she have done for me if she had remained? As I told her, she had
done more for me than any one could possibly have expected of her, in
keeping me, and giving me what education I possess, during the last six
years. And it is not as if I had lost my situation through her going away
either, for I have been left as a legacy to Miss Marvel. Miss Marvel
bought the goodwill of the school," she added, seeing that Margaret had
not quite understood her last remark, "and she has promised to keep me on
as junior governess, as long as I do my work well, of course, and wish
to stay."

"And do you wish to stay there?" Margaret asked.

"Did you ever hear that beggars can't be choosers?" Eleanor said, with
rather a wry little smile. "I should not wish to stay in any school as a
teacher if I could avoid such a fate, but I can't; and I am at least
sensible enough to be thankful that my bread-and-butter, and a roof over
my head, and a bed, and a few other little trifles of that sort are
provided for me. And before she went, Miss McDonald did me another kind
turn. Up to the present I have always spent my holidays in Hampstead, but
this year she wrote to a cousin of hers who lives in Seabourne and asked
her if she would have me down on a visit, and the cousin wrote back such
a nice letter, saying she had just been on the point of advertising for
some one who would come to her for the whole of the summer holidays, and
make herself useful and help look after the children, and have a good
time with the elder ones. The letter was a little vague, and so Miss
McDonald thought as she read it out to me, for it did not give me much
idea of what I was to do. But probably she wants some one to arrange the
flowers, and write notes, and so on, and take the children down on the
beach and that sort of thing."

"Oh, but how lovely for you!" Margaret said, with a touch of envy in her
voice. "I wonder how many children there will be, and if there will be
any nice girls of your own age among them. And what delightful picnics,
and tennis parties, and excursions you will enjoy!"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Eleanor, without the slightest enthusiasm in
her voice. "But Mrs. Danvers, for that is the name of the lady, said I
must be prepared to find my days fairly well occupied, and must not mind
having scarcely any time to myself."

"Why, it is just the kind of life that I should have enjoyed so much,"
Margaret said, with a tremendous sigh. "People to talk to and to play
with all day long. It does seem odd that you are not anticipating it with
any pleasure, Eleanor."

"It is not only funny, it is, I know, very ungrateful," Eleanor said,
with sudden energy. "But, oh!" she added, "I don't want to play or to
talk. I want to work, work, work, and become great and famous. But at
least I can get up early. The morning hours, the ones before breakfast,
will at least be my own, and I can study for three or four hours every
morning before I go down to breakfast."

"Yes, and you could practice your singing then," said Margaret.

"What! and wake the whole family up. I expect that would be as much as my
place was worth," laughed Eleanor. She paused and sighed, while a shadow
chased the brightness from her face. "I try and cheat myself into the
belief that I am going to enjoy myself at Seabourne," she broke out as
she resumed her restless march up and down the room; "and that I shall
love being near the sea and near real country again. And so I shall enjoy
that part. But all the time deep down inside me I am just miserable at
the thought that I am wasting time that can never, never come back to me.
It does seem hard to think that there are hundreds and hundreds of girls
all over England who are getting splendid musical educations that will
never be the least little bit of use to them, while my voice is being
thrown away for want of training. I tell you, Margaret, I feel sometimes
as if it simply did not bear thinking about. A splendid, interesting
career, bringing fame and fortune with it, lies waiting for me on the
other side, as it were, of a deep gulf. The gulf can only be crossed by
the bridge of training, and I haven't the money to pay the toll."

She flung herself with an air of gloomy impatience on the nearest chair,
and, putting her elbows on the table, propped her chin on her palms and
stared with a frown at the empty fireplace opposite to her.

For a moment or two Margaret did not speak, but stole anxious glances at
the sad face of her new acquaintance, whose rapid changes of mood she
found it exceedingly difficult to keep pace with. For Eleanor certainly
passed with startling quickness from grave to gay, and now, after having
dwelt only a few seconds back with obvious delight on the thought of her
sojourn by the sea, she was plunged in the blackest depths of despair
again. But the truth was that the thought of the glorious gift she so
confidently believed was hers, and of which she could make no use, was
never absent from Eleanor's mind, and though her natural gaiety and pluck
combined enabled her to laugh and talk as though she had not a care in
the world, a chance word could always bring the sadness and longing that
underlay her laughter to the surface.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" sighed Margaret at last, when the silence had
lasted so long that she began to fear that Eleanor had forgotten her
presence altogether, and would not rouse herself from her reverie until
it was time for their train to go. "Oh, dear! what a pity it is that we
cannot change our identities! To stay in a big house with people is just
what I should like to do, and I believe you would really like staying at
Windy Gap and having Italian and singing lessons all day long with an
Italian lady."

"Really like," said Eleanor; "that is a mild way of putting it. Why,
there is nothing that I should like better, provided, of course, that the
Italian lady is a good teacher."

"Oh, yes, I believe she is a good enough teacher. If I recollect aright
what my grandfather said to me on the subject, she used to be an opera
singer herself once some years ago, but her health broke down and she
had to leave the stage. Her name is Madame Martelli."

Scarcely had the last word left her lips than Eleanor, straightening
herself with a sudden jerk, gazed with eyes that fairly blazed with
excitement at Margaret.

"Martelli!" she exclaimed incredulously. "Not Margherita Martelli!"

"Yes, I am quite sure that was the name, because I thought at the time
how very much prettier the Italian way of saying Margaret was than the
English. Do you not think so also?"

But Eleanor brushed the inquiry aside as though she had not heard it.

"And to think," she muttered, more to herself than to Margaret, "that she
is going to have lessons from Martelli."

"But why not?" said Margaret in a puzzled tone. "Is she not nice? Is she
not a good teacher?"

"Nice! A good teacher! Have you never heard of Margherita Martelli?"
Eleanor ejaculated in a tone of such unbounded amazement that Margaret
began to blush for her own ignorance, and it was in a shame-faced voice
that she owned that until the other day when her grandfather had told her
that she was to have lessons from a Madame Martelli she had never heard
the name.

"Oh, well," said Eleanor, calming down and laughing at her own
impetuosity, "now I come to think of it, I was just as ignorant a few
months ago, but I was reading the autobiography of a great concert
director the other day and in it he speaks of Margherita Martelli and the
brief but wonderful career she had. She only sang for two or three years,
and had scored triumph after triumph when a sudden illness deprived her
of her voice, and she vanished from the stage as suddenly as she had come
on to it. I had no idea that she lived in England now or that she gave
lessons. Oh, you lucky, lucky girl!" she added, a note of deep,
uncontrolled envy in her voice. "Just imagine. You are going to have
lessons from Martelli. And you are not out of your mind with joy. What
a wicked, wicked waste it is!"

"Is it not?" Margaret agreed, not a whit offended at the frankness of
this remark. "I do not wish to learn singing. I know my voice possesses
no merit whatever, and, moreover, I am not always sure whether I am
singing in tune or not."

"Well, it is something to know you don't know," said Eleanor. "Not every
one who sings out of tune could or would own as much. Oh, what a
horrible, topsy-turvy world it is, to be sure! Here are you going to
have the thing that I covet more than anything else in the whole wide
world--singing lessons from a first-rate teacher, which you don't
appreciate in the least--and here am I, compelled to waste the whole
summer holidays doing nothing. And if you would like to be me, as you say
you would, how much more wouldn't I give to be you, if only for a month!"

"Yes," said Margaret, with a long-drawn sigh; "it does seem a matter for
considerable regret that we cannot change places, and you be me and I be
you. If only a fairy would pass this way and transform us with a waive of
her magic wand into each other how much happier we both should be, and
how delighted Madame Martelli would be to get you for a pupil instead of
me!"

"Don't," said Eleanor, with a little muffled groan. She could not play
with the idea as Margaret was doing, her feelings were far too deeply
engaged for that.

Margaret sighed again. It distressed her to see any one so unhappy as
Eleanor looked at that moment, and she began to realise that her longing
for a freer, different life to the one she had hitherto led was but a
puny thing when compared to the fierce desire that consumed Eleanor to be
given an opportunity to cultivate her voice. If only she could help her
in some way. But what could she do? She might ask Mrs. Murray to allow
Eleanor to share her lessons, but she was afraid that the request would
not be granted. She knew that her grandfather would not allow her to
associate with any girl of her own age, certainly not with one whose
acquaintance she had made in so casual a manner. And besides, even if her
grandfather had done such an unlikely thing as to give his consent to the
arrangement, how could Eleanor find the time to come out to Windy Gap for
her lessons?

So back again came Margaret to the regret that had been running in her
head so long, the regret that she and Eleanor, who were so obviously
fitted to lead each other's lives rather than their own, could not change
places. Oddly enough, too, if they did change places, no one would be any
the wiser. Mrs. Murray had never seen her, and Mrs. Danvers had never
seen Eleanor. So if Eleanor went to Windy Gap, and she, Margaret, to
Seabourne, their respective hostesses would never suspect the exchange
that their guests had effected between themselves.

"Eleanor!" she exclaimed, leaning across the table and speaking in a
voice that shook with excitement, "let us do it. Change places, I mean.
If you'll be me, I shall be only too pleased to be you. No, don't
interrupt," as Eleanor seemed about to speak, "I have thought it all out,
and it will be quite easy. Mrs. Murray has never seen me, and Mrs.
Danvers has never seen you, so how are they to know that we have changed
places?"

"You can't be serious, Margaret, surely," Eleanor said. "It's the most
hare-brained suggestion I ever heard."

"Why?" said Margaret.

"Why? Because it is. We should be found out in a day, or a week."

"But who is to find us out?" persisted Margaret. "Mrs. Murray has never
seen me, and Mrs. Danvers has never seen you. Why, if they were here now
they could not tell which was which. Oh, Eleanor, do go to Windy Gap
instead of me, and let me go to your house. Think of the Italian lessons,
and the singing lessons. Why, Eleanor, it is the opportunity of your
lifetime, it is really. This is probably the turning-point of your whole
life? I am surprised that you cannot realise that."

"I do realise it," Eleanor said almost fiercely. "Do you suppose for an
instant that I can't see what an opportunity is being offered to me? But
what I also see is how very wrong it would be."

"Yes, I suppose it would be rather wrong," Margaret said calmly; "but,
after all, we would not be doing any one any harm, and I am so tired of
being treated just like a little girl and as though I had no opinions or
will of my own."

"Well, I think when your grandfather hears of this escapade he won't be
under that delusion concerning you any longer," Eleanor said rather
drily.

"Then you will do it?" Margaret cried eagerly. It was her turn now to
jump up and pace the room restlessly. "Oh, say quickly you will do it,
for I find this suspense very trying. Please, please, Eleanor, do not say
No. Just think how dull and dreary my life has always been, and do not
deprive me of the chance of having just a little enjoyment like other
girls of my age."

The implication that sheer selfishness only made her hold out against
this scheme struck Eleanor as being distinctly funny.

"But I don't suppose for a minute there is going to be much enjoyment
for me at Seabourne," Eleanor protested. "Mrs. Danvers said I must be
prepared to work pretty hard."

"Well, I shall like that as long as it is not lessons," Margaret said
quickly. "Why, even to see other people and to watch them, and to listen
to them talking will be enjoyment for me. And think of Madame Martelli
and the singing lessons."

"I am thinking of them," Eleanor returned desperately, "and I am trying
hard not to." Then all of a sudden her resolution gave way. It had been
too unequal a fight to last very long, for there were too many forces
arrayed against her conscience to give it a fair chance of gaining the
day. Margaret's persuasions counted for little really, but the thought
of the lessons was, of course, all-powerful with her, and there was, too,
a spice of adventure about the scheme that appealed strongly to her
high-spirited, mischief-loving nature. "But it's on you that the trouble
will fall in the end, Margaret," she warned her. "When we are found out I
shall be turned out of the house as an imposter, of course, but that will
be all that can happen to me. It's you who will have to bear the brunt of
both Mrs. Murray's anger and of your grandfather's."

But be the consequences what they might, Margaret refused to look so far
ahead or to consider for a moment the time when the trick they were about
to play must inevitably be discovered.

That belonged entirely to the future; it was the present that occupied
her mind now, and the keen zest and animation with which she entered into
every detail of the scheme, foreseeing and guarding against every
obstacle that might wreck it, came as a positive revelation to Eleanor.
She could not have believed that Margaret had it in her to plot and plan
in such a shrewd, capable manner, and she could only nod her head in
acquiescence to most of the suggestions that were made. She was simply
swept off her feet by Margaret's impetuosity. And so, carried along
by the flood of her eager eloquence and nearly off her head with joy at
the intoxicating thought that she was attaining her heart's desire, and
that splendid singing lessons were now within measurable distance of her,
it was small wonder that her conscience gave up the unequal fight and
retired from the field in despair.

"We must change tickets," Margaret announced presently, with the
business-like air of one who is determined to overlook no detail, however
apparently unimportant, "for you will have to get out at Chailfield,
Eleanor, which is three or four stations before we come to Seabourne."

"Very well, yes, I suppose so," Eleanor said somewhat absently. She was
deep in consideration as to which opera she should study first with
Madame Martelli. The latter would probably wish to take one in which she
had scored a success herself, and Eleanor was racking her brain to
remember the particular one in which she had read that the gifted singer
of past days had made her most signal triumph.

"And oh, Eleanor! what about our clothes? I have never, never thought of
them."

There was such a depth of tragic despair in Margaret's voice that it
could not but arrest Eleanor's wandering attention.

"Clothes," she said vaguely; "what clothes?"

"Why, our clothes," Margaret said impatiently. "We ought to change them,
you know, and you put on mine, and I put on yours."

Eleanor looked at her for a moment with the deep, earnest gaze one
unconsciously accords to people whose last remark one ought to have heard
but has not. But then, as the meaning of Margaret's speech slowly
penetrated to her brain, she smiled, and the smile broadened to a laugh.

"If changing clothes is part of the programme," she said, still laughing,
"I'm off. Why, Margaret, how do you suppose I'm going to get into your
clothes, and what do you suppose you would look like in mine? Why, I am
an inch taller than you are, and broader in proportion. No, we must take
our own things and cut the marking out of our linen. None of my
underlinen happens to be marked, so that simplifies matters for me."

"But mine all is," Margaret said ruefully; "Mrs. Parkes did it all last
week, and would it not look strange if I cut my name out of all my
things?"

"Yes, perhaps it would rather," Eleanor said thoughtfully. "I tell you
how you must manage. To begin with, don't let a maid do your unpacking
for you, and keep everything locked up until you have had time to go out
and buy a bottle of marking ink and some block tape. Then mark the tape
with your name and sew it over the name on your linen."

"And then," Eleanor pursued, "we must always remember to keep most of our
private possessions under lock and key, so that no one reads our real
names on any of our books."

"Why, that is just what I have been telling you," said Margaret, "and as
a beginning I wrote Margaret Anstruther over the Eleanor Carson on the
fly-leaves of your grammar and your dictionary."

"Why, of course, so you did," said Eleanor. "Excuse my apparent
inattention. At that moment I was choosing the opera in which I was to
make my _début_, and was trying to decide whether the said _début_ shall
take place in London or Paris, or in New York. They do give one such
splendid receptions in New York. One thing you may rely on, Margaret,
I shall send you tickets. Stall, second row, or would you like a box?"

"Speaking of boxes," said Margaret seriously, "are your name or your
initials painted on yours; neither are on mine."

"Nor on mine. My trunk, too, is innocent of any old labels that might
betray us."

At that moment a porter opened the door and looked in.

"The 2.17 has just been signalled," he said; "are either of you ladies
going by it?"

"We both are," said Eleanor, jumping up briskly and going towards the
door. "Porter, our trunks are wrongly labelled. Would you kindly see to
it for us. The one that should be labelled to Seabourne is labelled to
Chailfield, and _vice versâ_. I will come and show you. Come along,
Margaret, the porter will take your bag."

"I had omitted to take the matter of labels into my consideration,"
Margaret said, in an undertone, as they followed the man up the platform.

"Well, you needn't reproach yourself over much for that," Eleanor said.
"Considering that this is your first attempt at a conspiracy, you make an
A1 plotter."

Margaret's answering smile was rather a perfunctory one. She found
Eleanor's way of treating the matter as a most excellent jest rather
a trying one, and yet she could not but acknowledge that Eleanor's
foresight, when she chose to exercise it, was at least equal to her own.
For when Eleanor had made sure that the new railway labels were properly
affixed she changed their private labels, thus making the transfer of
their names complete.




CHAPTER VII

MRS. MURRAY MEETS THE TRAIN


"There," said Eleanor, "the first step is successfully accomplished, and
we have taken formal possession of each other's names. Here comes the
train. You were travelling first, weren't you? I was third. We had better
both go third as far as the station just before Chailfield, and then I
will take your ticket and get into a first and make my arrival in state.
By the way, did you send a telegram to Mrs. Murray telling her you had
missed an earlier train?"

"No," owned Margaret, conscience stricken, "I am afraid the idea that I
should do so never occurred to me."

"Very careless of you," commented Eleanor. "Nobody may be at the station
to meet me. I treated you much better, for I sent one to Mrs. Danvers.
However, the porter will send one for me," and after asking Margaret for
Mrs. Murray's address, and the porter for the time at which the train was
due at Chailfield, she wrote out the following telegram: "Missed
connection at Carden. Arriving Chailfield 7.56. Margaret." This she
handed to the porter, asking him to send it off as soon as he had seen
them into the train.

"I wonder," she added, as they stood waiting for the train to come in,
"how soon we shall get accustomed to our new names. You will probably
find that part easier than I shall, for the name of Margaret is quite
strange to me, whereas you told me that you had had a great friend called
Eleanor, so that the name will have a familiar ring to you at any rate.
By the way, you never explained to me how you reconcile the two
conflicting statements you made me, for after telling me that you had
scarcely ever spoken to a girl in your life, you went on to say that your
dearest friend was a namesake of mine."

The two girls had been fortunate enough to secure a carriage to
themselves, for very few people were travelling by that slow train, and
as soon as the door was shut upon them they settled themselves opposite
one another, and Margaret proceeded to give the desired explanation. For,
as Eleanor, who to Margaret's relief had now quite emerged from the
dreamy mood into which the thought of her future fame had led her,
remarked, that if their plans were not to topple ignominously about their
ears at the very outset, it was absolutely essential that each should
know as much about the other as possible.

And so, though rather reluctantly, Margaret spoke of her dream friend,
and of how, since the days of her childhood, she had managed to keep her
existence a secret even from her grandfather and her governess until ten
days ago, when the former, overhearing her talking to herself in the
wood, had suspected the presence of a stranger, and though that had been
contrary to his most stringent rules, had not been a whit appeased when
he learned that the person to whom his granddaughter was talking was an
imaginary one.

Margaret need not have been afraid that Eleanor would pour ridicule on
her shadowy friend; on the contrary, the latter was too touched by the
picture of the lonely life the other must have led even to smile.

"It really is quite a coincidence that my name is Eleanor, too," she
remarked thoughtfully, "and I am not altogether sure that the name is a
fortunate one for you. You see, the first Eleanor ended by getting you
into fairly hot water, and the second Eleanor, which is me, is in a fair
way to do likewise. But I am glad you told me about the first Eleanor. As
she played such an important part in your life it would never have done
for me to have been in complete ignorance of her existence. Now this is
how I propose we should employ the next half-hour or so. Have you got a
sheet of paper and a pencil? No," as Margaret shook her head. "Well, I
can supply you with both articles. Little did I think," she added, as she
tore a couple of sheets out of her exercise book, and giving one to
Margaret, kept the other for herself, "even in my wildest dreams that the
innocent pages of my copy-book would ever be put to such a purpose as
this. I am going to write down a list of the things about myself that you
ought to know, and I want you to do the same about yourself. Little
things which we would probably forget if we told them to one another, but
which it may prove very useful to have jotted down so that we can refer
to it in case of need. You might write down the date of your birthday,
for instance, your grandfather's, if you know it, and give me a short
description of your house, how many bedrooms it has, and so on, and how
many servants, their names, the name of your clergyman, and the church,
the doctor, any people you know by sight or by name; your governess's
name, how long she was with you, why she left, and how you spent your
days, and any little things of that sort. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think I do," Margaret said, "for I can see how awkward it would
be if Mrs. Murray asked you any of these things and you could not
answer."

"And on my side," said Eleanor, "I shall write you a short description of
the school, and the names and numbers of the girls, what classes I took,
the names of the governesses, and a short description of Miss McDonald's
appearance, what she usually wore, where she went for her holidays, and
any little details of that sort."

For over half an hour the two girls scribbled away busily, and a good
deal more paper had to be torn from the exercise-book before their
literary labours were at an end.

Margaret, in addition to her own written hints for Eleanor's guidance,
was able to give the latter a folded sheet of notepaper which her
grandfather had ordered her to convey to Mrs. Murray. On one side of it
was carefully written out a table of the hours of study which Margaret
had been accustomed to observe hitherto, and on the other he had sketched
a plan of the way in which he wished her days to be filled while she was
with Mrs. Murray. Eleanor was pleased to observe that by far the greater
part of the day was to be spent with Madame Martelli, and though the
study of Italian occupied more time than singing, Eleanor was confident
that she could soon alter that.

"But I am not at all sure," she said, with a slight grimace, as she read
through the list of what Margaret had been used to do, "if I shall be
able to maintain your character as easily as I thought. For you are a
very learned person, Margaret, and if I am put through an examination as
soon as I arrive, I don't know where I shall be. No," as Margaret opened
her lips to protest, "I am not fishing. It is a fact that my education is
miles behind yours, and I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Mrs. Murray
found that out straightaway."

"She will only think that I--that you, I mean--have a very bad memory,"
Margaret said encouragingly. "Besides, she is deaf, and, from what
grandfather said, not very fond of conversation. She will only expect
you to say Yes and No to her, for she will know that that was all
grandfather expected me to say to him."

"Is that all you were supposed to say to him," Eleanor asked in blank
astonishment.

"That is all. Until about a year ago I thought grandchildren and sons and
daughters never did say more than that to their parents; but, of course,
I know now that they do."

"Well, I should imagine so," Eleanor remarked. "You have been brought up
in the style of one hundred years ago, and yet, except for a certain
quaintness in your speech, one would not think you very different from
any girl brought up in the ordinary way."

"Is my speech quaint?" Margaret asked in dismay.

"It's nothing to worry about," Eleanor said consolingly. "Perhaps it is
only because you don't talk a word of slang that your speech sounds a
little odd."

"Slang!" said Margaret, only partly relieved. "Is that not what
schoolboys talk?"

"Schoolboys and others," said Eleanor, with a laugh. "But don't worry,"
she added. "It is quite in keeping with your new character as a governess
that you should not be slangy, so do not put yourself to the trouble of
learning any."

"You have said several things that I did not understand," said Margaret
thoughtfully, "were they slang?"

"Very probably; what were they?"

"Oh! I do not know that I can remember them quite all, but you said a
minute ago that my education was miles behind yours; what did that mean?"

"Inferior to yours," Eleanor said promptly. "That's hardly slang. It
explains itself really, and so you will find with most of the things I
have said. But, perhaps, if you hear any expressions of that sort from
the young Danvers and don't understand them, it will be better not to ask
their meaning. You see, you are supposed to have lived in a girl's school
for the last three years and to have all the slang vocabulary at your
fingers' ends, so that if you go asking what every common or garden slang
expression means you will give us both away with a pound of tea."

"I understand," said Margaret meekly, "and I will not ask." And she made
good her promise by forbearing to inquire what "common" or "garden"
meant when used in that connection, and what bearing a pound of tea had
on the question.

"By the way," said Eleanor, "it has just occurred to me that we ought
to keep any photographs we have of our parents safely locked away. I
must be especially careful, for Mrs. Murray, as an old friend of your
grandfather's, might, if she saw the photographs of my father and mother,
recognise the fact that they were not yours."

"The only portraits I have of my father and my mother are contained in
this locket," said Margaret, as she drew an old leather case from her bag
and pressed the spring. Within lay a dull gold locket richly chased on
one side, and having the monogram "M" beautifully worked in seed pearls
on the other. Inside were two portraits painted on ivory, one of
Margaret's father and one of her mother.

"My mother had these especially painted for me," Margaret said, "but I
have never worn the locket. It is too big."

"Yes, it is too big to wear," Eleanor said; "but oh!" as she took the
case from Margaret's hand, "what a beautiful string of pearls!"

The locket fitted into a bed on the velvet-lined case, and round it was a
circular depression in which a row of pearls lay coiled.

"Yes, that is the chain to wear with the locket," Margaret said. "It is
attached to it."

"If it wasn't I should wear the pearls by themselves," Eleanor said,
examining them intently. "They are a perfectly lovely row, and must be
worth a lot of money. You had better keep this very carefully locked up,
Margaret," she said, snapping to the case and handing it back to its
owner. "They are hardly the sort of things that a governess would be
likely to possess."

"My bag has a very good key," Margaret answered, "so I should always keep
it locked and wear the key on my watch-chain."

When Eleanor heard that Margaret had never been to London, and had only
the very vaguest idea of what Hampstead, where she was supposed to have
lived for the last six years, was like, she had given vent to a low
whistle expressive of despair. And as their time together was now drawing
short she felt that it would be better to give Margaret a verbal
description of that suburb rather than attempt to write one out for her.
So as hurriedly as she could she told Margaret as much about Hampstead as
she could think of on the spur of the moment. Margaret listened
attentively, and as she had naturally an excellent memory, which had been
trained to a marvellous pitch of perfection by Miss Bidwell, she found no
difficulty at all in committing to heart almost every word that Eleanor
uttered on the subject.

The train was running now through exceedingly pretty scenery, but neither
of the two girls had any attention to spare for it; every minute of their
time was occupied in endeavouring to make themselves as perfect as
possible in their new characters. But at last when a long, undulating
range of distant blue hills turned themselves slowly into green downs,
and instead of occupying the horizon only, filled the middle distance
entirely, leaving a foreground of flat green fields between themselves
and the train, Eleanor, glancing out of the window, gave it as her
opinion that they must be fairly close to Chailfield now, and that at the
next station she would change into a first-class carriage.

The rain had long since ceased, and the sun, as it sank towards the range
of hills that rose against the western sky, was shining brilliantly out
of a mass of gorgeously hued clouds. As it turned out, however, Eleanor
had no chance to change into a first-class carriage, for as the train
slowed down and ran into the little country station they were
approaching, she saw that they had actually arrived at Chailfield.

Both girls gave a little gasp of dismay. Neither had realised that the
moment for parting was so near, and now that it was actually upon them,
both of them were conscious of a distinct feeling of nervousness which
perceptibly increased, especially on Eleanor's part, when she saw that a
lady who could be none other than Mrs. Murray had come down to meet the
train, for outside the paling that separated the road from the platform
a low pony-carriage drawn by two fat black ponies was waiting, and in it
was seated a somewhat stout elderly lady wearing a very broad-brimmed
mushroom hat. She was scanning the carriage windows as the train went
slowly past her, but did not appear to see the two girls who, being in
the front part, were carried some distance beyond her before the train
came to a standstill.

Eleanor gathered up her umbrella and the basket containing the books, and
stood up. A porter came to open the door.

"Any luggage, Miss?"

"Yes, one trunk labelled Anstruther," Eleanor said very distinctly.

"Very good, Miss; for Windy Gap, aren't you? The omnibus is waiting
outside for your luggage, and Mrs. Murray has drove down to meet you."

Eleanor stepped out on to the platform feeling that the Rubicon was now
crossed and that there was no drawing back for either of them. She
lingered for a moment beside the door, which Margaret had very promptly
shut upon her the moment she was out of the carriage.

"Don't be nervous," Margaret whispered encouragingly from the safe
seclusion of her corner. "I am not."

"Of course you're not!" Eleanor retorted. "You haven't begun to play the
impostor yet. I have, and I am not sure that I like it. Your turn to be
nervous will come when you get to Seabourne. Well," pulling herself
together as the porter came within earshot, "good-bye to you, Miss
Carson, so glad to have met you. I hope your holidays will be very
pleasant ones."

"I hope so too," said Margaret, with a little happy laugh of pure
excitement. "Goodbye, Miss Anstruther, I hope you will get on nicely with
all your lessons."

For some reason the train was late in starting on again, and Margaret
was therefore able to see the meeting between Mrs. Murray and Eleanor,
although she was not near enough to overhear what was said on either
side. When Eleanor had given up her ticket and passed through the gate,
she saw Mrs. Murray, who had not got out of the pony-carriage, lean
forward and, taking hold of Eleanor's two hands, draw her under the shade
of the enormous mushroom hat and kiss her affectionately. The hat got
somewhat disarranged in the process, and Mrs. Murray righted it with a
pleasant low laugh that came distinctly to Margaret's ears as she sat
watching the little scene from the corner of the third-class carriage.

Then she seemed to be asking Eleanor some questions, which the latter
answered readily through the ear-trumpet which Mrs. Murray held out to
her. Once they looked in her direction, and a spasm of alarm shot through
Margaret's mind. Surely, surely Eleanor was not abandoning their
conspiracy at the very outset of its career. The trunk had already been
hoisted on to the top of the somewhat dilapidated looking old bus that
evidently plied between the distant village of Windy Gap and the station.
Why, then, did the pony-carriage not drive on, or why did the train not
start? Eleanor looked again towards the carriage in which Margaret sat in
a perfect fever of impatience to be off, and then, after saying something
to Mrs. Murray, to which the latter gave an affirmative nod, she left the
carriage and came running up the platform. Margaret could have cried with
disappointment. She had no doubt at all that Eleanor had already repented
of her scheme, and was coming to say that it must be given up. Eleanor
reached the door in a somewhat breathless condition, and Margaret
resisting her first impulse to shut the window and to draw down the
blind, and refuse to listen to a word she was going to say, put her head
reluctantly out.

"I couldn't help coming to tell you that she is a perfectly sweet old
lady," Eleanor panted. "And she gave me such a warm welcome that I feel
an awful fraud, and----"

Margaret interrupted her with an exclamation that sounded almost like a
wail of despair.

"And you have come to tell me that you want to change back into your own
self?" she said.

"No, not much," Eleanor said hurriedly; "but the point is, do you? She
seems to be perfectly charming, and I don't believe she would be very
angry. And oh, Margaret! I feel as though I ought not to oust you from
house and home in this way."

Margaret's brow cleared as though by magic. It was all right then.
Strange though it undoubtedly appeared to her, Eleanor was not only
willing but actually eager to go to Windy Gap, and it was only out of
motives of unselfishness that she had offered to change into their proper
selves.

Briefly, but with all the emphasis of which she was capable, Margaret
assured her that such an act of unselfishness would not be appreciated in
the least.

"Oh, very well," Eleanor said, much relieved, "and to tell you the truth
I think Mrs. Murray would be rather surprised if I were suddenly to
return to her and say that I was not Margaret Anstruther but that you
were. She would probably end by thinking us both impostors. Well, I must
go now; I only came back just to give you the chance of becoming yourself
again if you had already repented. Look here, you must let me know how
you get on. I shall be quite anxious to know. Will you write? Quick, tell
me Mrs. Murray is beckoning."

"I could write, of course," Margaret said cautiously "but you must
remember that Margaret Anstruther has never received a letter in her life
and that Mrs. Murray might want to see it."

"I shall come in and see you then," Eleanor said.

"Oh, will you?" Margaret said with a smile. "Kindly remember, Miss
Margaret Anstruther, that you never took a walk unaccompanied in your
life. No, leave it to me, and I will try and come out to Windy Gap one
day to see you, for I am free, free, free, and quite grown up, while you
are a mere child in the nursery!"

And so, though rather against her will, Eleanor was obliged to leave the
matter like that, and saying good-bye to Margaret for the second time she
scurried away down the platform.

Margaret watched her step into the pony-carriage, tuck the dust wrap over
her knees and over Mrs. Murray's, and then settle herself with an air of
obvious enjoyment for her drive. From the window Margaret could see the
long, white chalky road that they would traverse to reach Windy Gap,
which place doubtless lay to the left beyond the high ridge which shut
out all further view of the downs. The road wound its leisurely way
between high hedges and green fields, was lost for awhile as it passed
behind an outlying spur of the downs, and became visible again as,
apparently repenting its former meanderings below, it sternly took the
shortest and steepest way possible up the side of the hill, and finally
disappeared over the brow. And it might have fallen to her lot to be
sitting beside Mrs. Murray and in that little low pony-carriage, and to
be driving along that monotonous road to the remote village on the downs
instead of to be whirling past them as she did in a train on her way to
a houseful of young people. Margaret could have hugged herself with
pleasure as she thought of the exchange she had made.




CHAPTER VIII

MAUD DANVERS


There were only three or four stations between Chailfield and Seabourne,
and they followed so closely on one another that in rather less than half
an hour the train ran into the big station of Seabourne.

"Any luggage, Miss, cab, or outside porter, please," said a porter,
opening the door of the carriage.

"One trunk and a hat-box, and I will have a cab, please," Margaret
answered.

She was rather surprised and pleased at her own self-possession, as led
by the porter she threaded her way up the crowded platform. And when he
paused to ask her what name he should look for on the trunk she gave
Eleanor's as calmly as though she had been known by it all her life. It
had not occurred to Margaret that any one might come to the station to
meet her, or, rather, to meet the girl whose identity she had taken on
herself, consequently she gave a startled jump, when, as she stood on the
edge of the press of people round the luggage van, a tap fell smartly on
her shoulder, and turning, she found herself confronted by a merry,
sunburnt girl of about her own age.

"Miss Carson, isn't it?" the latter sang out in a clear, rather pleasant
voice, that could be distinctly heard above the noise and confusion
surrounding them. "Oh, don't look so astonished! I heard you tell the
porter the name on your luggage, and I tracked you up the platform. Let
me introduce myself. I am Maud Danvers, and I hope you've had a nice
journey and all that. I say, you're taking a cab, aren't you? That's all
right. Get in to one when you've collected all your belongings, will you,
and wait for me, and I'll drive up with you. I shan't be long, but I have
just got to go and finish a conversation that I am in the middle of."

And with a careless little nod Miss Maud Danvers turned and went off up
the platform. But casual though her greeting had been, it had served to
dispel the slight feeling of loneliness that had been creeping over
Margaret. How exceedingly kind of that nice girl to have come and met
her! And in what a delightfully frank and friendly manner she had
accosted her! Margaret felt instantly sure that she was going to like
Maud Danvers very much indeed, and it was with a little glow of pleasure
that she reflected that she was going to live in the same house with her
for many weeks to come. For a moment she forgot to aid the porter to look
for her box, but turning her back upon the busy crowd she followed Maud
with her eyes. Without being exactly pretty, Maud Danvers was an
exceedingly nice-looking girl, and her fresh, clear skin no less than her
brisk step and the way she held herself, showed that she was an outdoor
girl.

She was wearing a short tweed skirt that barely reached to her ankles,
and displayed a neat pair of golfing shoes, but the skirt was so
exceedingly well hung and the fit of the Norfolk coat that matched it
so good that Margaret, unversed though she was in such matters,
instinctively recognised that Maud's clothes not only became her very
well, but had been made by a first-class tailor. Her own simply made
coat and skirt of blue serge felt suddenly very dowdy.

Meanwhile Maud had made her way along the crowded platform to a point
where two girls in Panama hats and long white blanket coats, and carrying
tennis racquets under their arms, were standing together, and as soon as
she reached their side, they all three plunged into an eager conversation
in the interest of which it was soon evident that Margaret was forgotten.

Just, however, as Margaret's cabman was beginning to show signs of
impatience, the bicycles for which the two girls had been waiting were
extricated from the van, and with a hasty nod to Maud, they pushed their
way out of the crowd.

"The Cedars, Pelham Road, please," Maud said as she got into the cab.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Carson. But I wanted to speak to
the Finches. They had just got back from the Surbiton Tournament. They
had done awfully well both of them. The tall one, Anna's the best. Fancy,
wasn't it stupendous luck for her! She got into the third round of the
open singles and met Mrs. Lambert Chambers. Of course, she was beaten
hollow. Didn't even get a game. But wasn't it luck meeting her?"

Now, as Margaret had not the very vaguest notion who Mrs. Lambert
Chambers was, or why it should be considered such extraordinary good
fortune to meet her, she gave such a vague assent to the question that
Maud turned to stare at her with undisguised amazement in her eyes.

"You don't mean to say," she exclaimed, "that you have never even heard
of Mrs. Lambert Chambers!"

"I don't seem to remember her name," confessed Margaret, blushing
crimson.

"Why, I mean the famous Mrs. Lambert Chambers. The tennis player. Miss
Douglas that was, you know."

"Oh!" said poor Margaret again. Then she added lamely, "I--I suppose she
must play very nicely."

"Play nicely!" ejaculated Maud, still surveying her companion with a
direct glance that the latter found very embarrassing. "Great Scott, what
a funny way of putting it! Where on earth were you brought up! And never
even to have heard of her! Why, you will be saying next that you never
heard of C. B. Fry or Braid, or Grace, or the Dohertys."

But Margaret, in the face of the scorn she already provoked, was not
disposed to confess to such depths of ignorance, and she murmured a vague
reply that might have meant anything. However, the few unintelligible
sounds that passed her lips might not have been sufficient to save her
from further cross examination on the subject of her knowledge of tennis
had not Maud's attention been attracted by the same two girls who,
speeding past on their bicycles, called out to her not to forget
to-morrow.

"Right oh!" sang out Maud in reply. "I shall expect you 11.30 sharp."

"How beautifully they bicycle!" Margaret said in admiring accents,
following the two girls with eyes as they threaded their way through the
traffic.

"Oh, well, any one can do that, can't they?" Maud replied. "Did you bring
yours? You'd find it useful. I say, what was your hockey eleven like?"

"What was our hockey eleven like?" faltered Margaret. "I--I forget."

"Forget!" Maud exclaimed, in fresh amazement. "How could you forget an
important thing like that? Why, nowadays if a school can't put a decent
hockey eleven in the field it does not count for much."

"I mean," said Margaret, as a timely recollection of what Eleanor had
told her about the games at Waterloo House came to her mind, "Miss
McDonald was very old-fashioned, and she did not at all approve of the
modern fashion of girls playing boys games."

"Great Scott!" said Maud in tones of intense commiseration. "Fancy being
a governess in a rotten school of that sort! I wonder you stayed. Then
you didn't play cricket?"

"No."

"Tennis?"

"No. But," added Margaret rather timidly, for it distressed her to see to
what depths she was sinking in Maud's estimation, "I have always thought
I should like to learn lawn tennis very much. Perhaps you could teach
me."

"Me?" said Maud, raising her eyebrows in a quizzical fashion and gazing
at Margaret with the point blank stare, which the latter found so trying
to encounter with equanimity. "Sorry, but I haven't the time. I daresay
one of the kids would give you a game, though, some time."

"As if," she said afterwards, detailing this conversation with much
laughter to one of her brothers, "tennis could be taught in a day, or as
though I were going to bother to teach her either. And I fancied I saw
myself playing with a girl who had never held a racquet in her hand
before."

"By the way," Maud went on, "I don't suppose you have much idea at
present what our family consists of, have you?"

"No, I have not," said Margaret, feeling that she was quite safe in
making that admission, for Eleanor had not known either.

"Well, there's mother, of course, to start with, and then, of the ones
who are at home, there's Geoffrey; he's a year older than me, and he's at
Sandhurst. Like me, he's fearfully keen on games, and like me too, he's
pretty good," added Maud, who, as Margaret had discovered by that time,
was not lacking in a good opinion of herself. "Then I come, then
Hilary--she's a year younger than me. Then come Jack and Noel--they're
fifteen and sixteen respectively, and one's at Osborne and one's at
Dartmouth; all they seem to care about at present is sailing and
fishing, and so we don't see much of them. Then there's Edward, he's
about fourteen, I think; he's mad keen on cricket--besides, he's got all
the brains of the family. Then two cousins of ours, Nancy and Joan Green,
are staying with us. They're not half bad girls, and Nancy would play
quite a decent game of tennis if she wasn't so lazy. She can hit jolly
hard, but she won't run, and she will talk, so I won't play with her.
Then there are the kids--your little lot, you know--and I wish you joy of
them; they're a jolly handful, and no mistake."

Margaret, who had been listening eagerly to this account of the family in
the midst of which she was to live for the next few weeks, puckered her
forehead over the last sentences.

"The--the kids," she queried in a puzzled tone.

"Yes, the infants; my eldest sister Joanna's children. You are going
to take them over and teach them, aren't you? At least, that is what
I believe mother gave me to understand."

"Oh yes, of course," Margaret said, so quickly that Maud had no suspicion
that she had never in all her life before heard children called kids.

"Yes, mother hopes great things from you," Maud chattered on. "She says
as you have been in a school you will understand discipline and all that.
But I believe Joanna won't have her darlings smacked, and they are such
troublesome little monkeys that a sound smacking would do them all the
good in the world," wound up their young aunt with a vigour that showed
the subject was one on which she felt strongly. "Not that you," with a
careless glance at Margaret's pale, thoughtful face, "look strong enough
to give them much of a whacking."

Margaret made no reply, simply because at the moment she felt absolutely
incapable of speech. Dismay at the thought that she was to be a governess
held her spellbound. She certainly had not gathered from anything that
Eleanor had said that she was expected to teach, and two naughty unruly
children into the bargain. No wonder that she grew paler even than her
wont at the appalling thought. Luckily for her, however, Maud was far
from guessing the dismay her casually given information was causing her
silent companion, and under cover of her chatter, Margaret had time to
recover a little from the shock she had received and to resolve to try
and make the best of it. Of one thing she was sure, Eleanor herself had
no idea of the services she had been expected to give in exchange for
being asked to spend her holidays at The Cedars. Neither had Mrs. Danvers
wished to get her there under false pretences. After all, had not her
letter said that she was both to enjoy herself and to make herself
useful. So she had no right to complain at the discovery that the latter
half of the sentence meant so much more than either she or Eleanor had
suspected. "To make yourself useful," Eleanor had said airily; "oh, that
means that you will be expected to arrange flowers for the dinner table,
and to write notes, and so on. Little things of that sort, you know."

So, naturally, it had been a great shock to discover that "little things
of that sort" included the entire control of two unruly children. It was
not the prospect of having to work that perturbed Margaret, it was the
knowledge of how incapable she felt to deal with children. Why, she had
scarcely ever spoken to a child in her life, and now she was to have the
entire charge of two thrust upon her. She could not help wondering what
Eleanor would have said or done in her place, but was unable to answer
the question satisfactorily. The situation, however, could hardly have
dismayed her as much as it was dismaying her substitute. To fill the post
of holiday governess to two small children would seem to her an easy task
after having taught for three years in a big school. Of one thing,
however, Margaret felt quite convinced. If Eleanor had known of the
predicament in which Margaret was placed, she would, after a moment or
two of consternation, have gone off into fits of laughter. And no doubt
the situation had its comic side; even Margaret, full of alarm as she
was, could not restrain a smile as she thought of the very queer
governess that she would make.

"You look pretty young to be a governess, don't you?" said Maud. "Did you
ever have any difficulty in keeping order?"

"No, never," said Margaret, truthfully enough.

"How many girls were there?"

"Twenty boarders, forty day girls, and five governesses when I--when
I----" this came out with a gulp, for Margaret found the first falsehood
she had been obliged to tell most distasteful to her--"went there. But
the school has been going down the last few years, and last term there
were only seven boarders and ten day girls."

"Sounds rather a poor sort of show, doesn't it?" said Maud with a yawn.
"I say, what a slow horse we have got, haven't we? We shall be all night
getting home at this rate. What sort of place was Putney or Hampstead, or
wherever the school was to live in?"

"Miss McDonald's school was at Hampstead, which is a suburb of London and
is situated high up. It is celebrated for its Heath, which is a great
holiday resort for the lower orders--the 'Arrys and 'Arriets, you
know--on Bank Holidays, at which time it is advisable for quieter members
of society to keep off it. But at other times it affords an excellent
exercise ground for all the young ladies' schools in the neighbourhood.
The air is fine and invigorating, and there is no reason why, with the
help of a little imagination, one should not fancy oneself in the heart
of the country, and many miles away from the greatest metropolis in the
world. The sunsets can, by those who appreciate the beauties of Nature,
be viewed from that portion of the Heath which commands a view of the
western sky, and----"

"Very interesting indeed," broke in Maud, who had been listening with
astonishment to this flow of instructive discourse.

At first she had thought that Margaret was, to use her own phrase,
"rotting her," but a glance at the serious face beside her was sufficient
to dispel that theory, and she came to the conclusion that young though
she was, Margaret was a typical governess, who rejoiced in framing
stilted sentences and in letting them flow from her lips in an even,
monotonous voice.

"You speak like a well-informed guide-book," she added, with another
yawn.

Margaret took the semi-impertinent remark as a compliment.

"I can tell you a great deal more than that about Hampstead if you would
like to listen," she said, for her wonderfully accurate memory had
enabled her to retain every word of the banteringly given description
of Hampstead with which Eleanor had furnished her. Needless to say,
Eleanor had had no idea that Margaret would think it necessary to repeat
it word for word, but had thought that Margaret would only pick out facts
here and there to help her in any emergency that might arise.

"Not on any account, thanks," said Maud hastily; "let's talk about
something more interesting."

"Something more interesting" proved to be her own self, and from that
point onwards until they reached their destination Maud talked
exclusively of her own doings. And as she appeared to do little else but
play games, and as Margaret's knowledge of all games was "nil," it
followed that very much of what Maud said was as unintelligible as though
she had talked Chinese. But though she never knew when Maud was talking
of golf, or when of tennis, or again, when hockey was under discussion,
so that handicaps, and sliced balls, and American services, and good
forearm drives, and double faults, and poor passing, and good shooting,
and half-volleys, were terms that were all jumbled up in absolutely
inextricable confusion, her expression of rapt attention as she jotted
them down on the tablets of her mind, resolving to acquaint herself with
the meaning of each when occasion served, convinced Maud that she had a
properly appreciative listener. A person even more ignorant of games than
Margaret would have gathered from all she said about them that Maud
excelled in each and all.

And that was no vain boast either. Her golf handicap was four; she played
an exceedingly good, hard game at tennis, and had twice played hockey in
International matches. But it was of billiards she was talking during the
last few minutes of their drive. It appeared from what she said that she
had promised to play a game with Geoffrey immediately after dinner, but
that she had not only broken that promise but had been obliged to come
away in the middle of dinner to meet the train.

"Oh, I am so sorry to have caused you this inconvenience," said Margaret.
"But it was most kind of you to come and meet me."

"Oh, I didn't come down to meet you," said Maud, with perfect frankness.
"I wanted to hear how Anna had got on at Surbiton. Then I luckily
remembered that you were coming by this train, and so got a lift home
in your cab, and killed two birds with one stone."

The little laugh with which Maud accompanied this candid explanation of
her presence at the station robbed her words of much of their sting, yet
Margaret was conscious of a feeling of mortification that Maud's errand
had not been undertaken solely on her behalf. Indeed, she had been given
to understand that she was by far the smaller and the least important of
the two bird's that Maud's stone had brought down; and the knowledge made
her feel very forlorn indeed. Up to that moment she had been under the
impression that Maud had been anxious to meet her and make her
acquaintance. Well, if not hers, that of the girl she represented, and
the casually given information that it was only because she happened to
travel by the same train as the Finches that she had been at the station
to greet her quite took away the pleasant feeling she had had that there
was at least one person in the big, strange household she was entering
who was eager to show herself kindly disposed towards the new holiday
governess.

They had long ago left the neighbourhood of the town behind them, and
had been driving through the deepening dusk towards the downs, which,
looking in that dim light like a high green wall, run inland from the
sea. Most of the roads hereabouts were wide and bordered by trees, and
on either side houses which had for the most part large gardens
surrounding them lay back from the road. Even Margaret, unversed as she
was in the knowledge of what made the difference between a good and bad
neighbourhood in the town, could perceive that the further they went the
more prosperous and consequential looking the houses became.

At last, when they were almost underneath the downs, the long, straight
road they had been following for some time turned abruptly to the right,
and going through a white gate they entered a long drive lined on either
side with a hedge of evergreens close clipped and of great thickness.
Here and there openings like doorways had been cut in the hedge, but it
was now too dark to see what lay beyond them.

Almost before the cab had time to draw up before the lighted doorway,
Maud had jumped out.

"Here we are at last," she said, with a big sigh of relief, "and here you
are, Martin," as a portly looking butler came forward. "That's all right.
Thanks ever so for the lift, Miss Carson. You'll excuse me now, won't
you, though. I expect Geoffrey is tearing his hair in the billiard-room."
And with that Maud vanished at top speed, and Margaret was left to
Martin's guidance. Though Maud's sudden desertion came as an unwelcome
surprise to her, Margaret was too tired by this time even to feel shy,
and she followed Martin through the hall without any inward tremors of
nervousness.

"Miss Carson, Madam," he said, throwing open a door at the far end of the
big, square hall they had traversed, and ushering her into a drawing-room
whose open French windows gave on to the lawn. The only light in the
room, and that was not very much, came from outside, and in the
semi-darkness Margaret could just make out a figure seated in a low
easy chair partly in and partly out of the window.

A gentle snore was the only reply to the butler's announcement, and
Margaret was conscious of a quick fear lest he might retire and leave her
with her sleeping hostess.

But Martin was evidently acquainted with his mistress's habits, and he
advanced slowly up the long room repeating "Miss Carson, Madam," and
coughing gently behind his hand at intervals until he had reached her
side.

Then she awoke.

And once awake she gave Margaret a very cordial greeting.

"My dear," she said, extending her hand but not offering to rise from her
chair, "I am very pleased to see you. Turn up the lights, Martin; I was
asleep when you came. But I was not snoring, was I? The boys and Maud
accuse me of that, I know. The nap every evening after dinner I do not
deny, but the snoring I do deny most emphatically. Just reassure me my
dear, by telling me that I was not snoring."

"It was a very gentle, quiet snore," said Margaret politely.

Mrs. Danvers broke into a soft, chuckling laugh which was as pleasant and
amiable as her voice, and Martin having now turned on the light Margaret
saw that her hostess's face and appearance matched her voice and laugh.
She was a stout, not to say exceedingly stout, middle-aged woman, with a
round, rosy face, on every line of which good-temper, combined with an
easy, indolent disposition, were expressed.

"Excuse my getting up, my dear," she said, "but truth to say, I do not
get up as easily as I could wish. 'J'y suis, j'y reste,' ought to be,
though it is not, my family motto. And so you missed your train. Very
trying to miss trains, is it not? And you must be tired, my dear. I hope
Maud saw that you had enough to eat, and that you like your room."

"Miss Carson has only this minute arrived, Madam," interposed Martin from
the door. "And Miss Maud directed me to take her straight to you."

"And you have had nothing to eat since you arrived!" Mrs. Danvers
exclaimed in a horrified tone. "Why, my dear, you must be starving! Come
with me to the dining-room at once."

She got slowly up out of her capacious chair as she spoke, and as she did
so a piece of knitting slid from her lap to the floor, while a big ball
of worsted rolled away under the nearest sofa. Margaret first picked up
the knitting and then pursued the ball and restored both to their owner,
an action which, although she did not know it at the time, she was
destined to perform very often for Mrs. Danvers, for that lady was very
rarely unaccompanied by a piece of knitting, which she invariably dropped
when she rose; to knit, she said, soothed the nerves, and gave an added
pleasure to conversation. Reading she was not fond of, and scarcely ever
opened a book or a newspaper, but she would knit and talk, chiefly about
her children, for hours at a stretch. When her knitting had been restored
to her now, and half a row of stitches dropped in the fall picked up, she
led the way into the dining-room. She was kindness and hospitality
itself, but though her incessant flow of talk obviated all necessity
for Margaret to contribute more than the merest monosyllables, the strain
of listening and being ready to say Yes or No in the right places
fatigued Margaret so greatly that by the end of the meal her brain was in
a whirl, and if Mrs. Danvers had put to her one-tenth of the questions to
which Eleanor had supplied ready-made answers, her replies would have
been so extraordinarily muddled up that the deception the two girls were
practising would have been found out at once.

But Mrs. Danvers, like her daughter Maud, was far more interested in her
own concerns than in those of any one with whom she might come in
contact.

But her conversation did differ from Maud's in that it was not of herself
she mainly spoke. It was evident, even to Margaret's tired brain, that
Mrs. Danver's whole being was wrapped up in her children. She would talk
about them and praise them literally by the hour together, and Margaret
was given to understand that there never were such manly, clever boys as
her sons, or such charming girls as her daughters. If Geoffrey did not
eventually rise to be Commander-in-Chief, and if Noel and Jack did not
become Admirals of the Fleet, it would not be their fault. On the other
hand, Edward's brains would get him into Parliament, and there was no
reason at all why he should not be Prime Minister one day. As for Maud,
there was simply nothing she could not do in the way of games Daisy and
David were dear children, too, if taken in the right way, and not unduly
thwarted. Daisy and David Margaret concluded, were the two grandchildren
to whom she was to fill the position of holiday governess and she
thought to herself ruefully enough, as Mrs. Danvers went on to say what
high-spirited children they were, that she was quite sure she would never
have the courage to thwart them however naughty they were.

When Margaret could eat no more, and indeed she had finished her supper
long before Mrs. Danvers became aware of the fact, the latter suggested
that if Miss Carson had really had enough they should go into the
billiard-room and watch the game that was in progress there. She had
already been told that Maud was playing a level game with Geoffrey. They
had started the game before dinner, and Maud had been 120 to his 80 odd
when the gong brought play to a standstill. She had made four breaks of
10, two of 12, and one of 15, and though every word of this was Greek to
Margaret, she gathered from the air of pride with which Mrs. Danvers
spoke that it was all greatly to Maud's credit.

So when Mrs. Danvers' knitting had been picked up from the floor, and the
ball, which had rolled under the dining-room table this time, retrieved,
Margaret followed her hostess out of the room.

A tremendous clapping and cheering, and the noisy stamping of cues on the
ground, fell on Margaret's ears as Mrs. Danvers threw open the door of
the billiard-room, and it did not cease until they had both been some
minutes in the room.

To Margaret's dazed, shy eyes the room seemed full of young people,
although as a matter of fact there were only one or two friends of the
Danvers present, the rest of the group of young people being the Danvers
themselves. Maud, of course, was still in the tweed skirt in which she
had gone to the station, but the other girls were in pretty white evening
frocks, and the bigger boys were in dinner jackets, and the smaller ones
in Etons. Maud was perched on the edge of the billiard-table with one
foot on the ground and the other swinging to and fro, and it was evident
both from her pleased, self-conscious air and the fact that she was the
only person in the room who was not clapping, that all the applause was
meant for her.

"Yes, I have beaten him handsomely, Mumsy," she said, when at length Mrs.
Danvers could make her voice heard. "It was a close thing though. Fancy
Geoffrey was 193, and he must needs go and miss one of the easiest shots
you ever saw, and then I ran out with a break of 22."

"Fancy that!" Mrs. Danvers said, turning to Margaret with a proud,
beaming face. "Maud ran out with a break of 22."

Then a momentary silence fell in the room, and everybody present
seemingly became aware for the first time that there was a stranger among
them. She coloured up nervously, and then feeling it incumbent upon her
to say something, for, or so at least it seemed to her, every one seemed
waiting for her to speak, she stammered out nervously, addressing Maud:--

"I hope you did not hurt yourself."

"Hurt myself--how?" said Maud, in wide-eyed surprise.

"By running out and breaking yourself; or," becoming miserably aware,
from the expressions on everybody's faces that she had said something
incredibly foolish, "was it your stick that you broke?"

An audible titter ran round the room, and as Margaret stood there, the
focus of all eyes, the titter changed to literal shouts and shrieks of
laughter. The boys doubled themselves up into knots, the girls staggered
helplessly about, and Mrs. Danvers just sank into the nearest chair and
laughed until the tears ran down her face. The room fairly rang with
their laughter, and in the middle of them all Margaret stood alone with
crimson cheeks, and eyes to which the tears had begun to start.

But no one had the slightest pity for her cruel mortification; only now
and then one or other of them would glance from her to Maud and go off
into fresh shrieks.

At last Margaret could stand her position no longer, but crying out in
a high, choking voice, that was plainly heard even above the din that
prevailed: "Oh I hate you all! I hate you all!" she dashed from the room,
and ran, still with the sound of their laughter behind her, down the
passage which led to the billiard-room into the hall. Even at that
distance she could hear the shouts and yells of laughter, which seemed to
be increasing rather than diminishing, for if there was an unusual lull
in the noise, some one would ask Maud if her run had broken her or her
stick, and that would be sufficient to start them all off again.

The noise they all made even at that distance was tremendous, but The
Cedars was evidently a house to which uproarious mirth was no novelty,
for Martin, by whom Margaret had brushed in her hasty flight from the
billiard-room, exhibited no signs of surprise at the sound of it.

In the hall, simply because she did not know where to go next, Margaret
came to a pause in her headlong flight, and, sinking on to a chair,
covered her face with her hands. Even though the length of the whole
house separated her now from the billiard-room, she had not escaped from
the sound of the shouts and squeals to which her remarks had given rise,
for fresh peals were still ringing out with unabated force.

"Oh, will they ever stop laughing at me!" Margaret said half-aloud, in
a tone that was fraught with extreme misery. "Oh, how I wish I had never
come here! And I had been so looking forward to being friends with girls
and boys of my own age. Oh, how shall I bear it if they go on laughing at
me for days and days!"

"Oh, but they won't go on for as long as that, no matter how good the
joke. They'll have a dozen fresh jokes by this time to-morrow, and this
one will be forgotten. Unless, of course, it was an extra good one. By
the way, what was the joke? You are Miss Carson, aren't you? I am Nancy
Green. Take a chocolate and tell me all about it."

Margaret, who had believed herself to be alone, turned in surprise as
this unexpected voice fell on her ears, and glanced about her in a
startled fashion until, in a cosy nook close to her and half hidden by a
tall palm and a screen, she saw a big Chesterfield couch on which a girl
was stretched full length, with a book in one hand and a box of
chocolates in the other.

"I do not exactly know what is making them laugh," Margaret said,
declining the chocolates with an unhappy shake of her head. "They were
playing billiards, and Miss Danvers said she had run away and broken
something, and I hoped she was not hurt, and then they all began to
laugh, and have not stopped yet," she added resentfully, as a fresh peal
of laughter reached her ears. "And you are laughing, too," she said,
glancing at Nancy's twitching lips.

"Only a very little," Nancy said hastily, "and it was rather a funny
mistake you made, you know. I will try and explain. You see, a break in
billiards does not mean a fall; it means that you go on scoring."

"Oh!" said Margaret, in the same dejected accents, and not feeling at all
enlightened, "and what does going on scoring mean?"

"Why, that it is still your turn to play, of course," said Nancy, and her
tone was so surprised that Margaret thought it wiser to ask no more
questions in case she displayed an ignorance so great as to rouse
suspicion as to where she could have been brought up.

"I wish they would stop laughing at me," she said miserably.

"Why! Do you mind being laughed at so much as all that," Nancy said. "I
should have thought that as a governess in a school you would have got
used to it. For schoolgirls are awful quizzes. Perhaps, though, as you
were a governess they did it behind your back."

"They certainly did not do it to my face," Margaret said.

"Oh, well, they will here," said Nancy. "Everybody chaffs everybody else
in this house pretty freely. What you must do is to chaff back; but if
you don't feel equal to that just at first, just grin, and let them think
you don't care a rap."

At that moment heavy footsteps were heard in the passage and Mrs. Danvers
came into the hall.

"Ah, here you are, Miss Carson. I could not think where you had got to.
I just stopped to tell my shameless young folk what I thought of them for
laughing like that at a stranger. Nancy, you lazy girl, you ought to have
been watching the match instead of lying here. It was a close thing. Maud
won. Really she has a wonderful eye. There is simply no game she cannot
excel in if she chose. She----" But then Mrs. Danvers catching sight of
Margaret's miserable expression pulled herself up short just as she had
been about to launch forth into a glowing account of her daughter's
skill. "But all the same, it was shameful of them to laugh at you like
that, Miss Carson. Your first night too, when you are not used to them."

"Just what I said, Aunt Mary," chimed in Nancy, who had seen that Mrs.
Danvers casual treatment of the incident which had brought such
mortification to the new governess was making the latter feel still
more lost and ill at ease. "She'll soon get used to it though, and will
care just as little as anybody when her turn comes to be rotted."

"And above all things keep your temper, my dear," said Mrs. Danvers.
"But that remark," she added hastily, seeing that Margaret looked more
miserable even than before, "is not intended as a reproof, for the way
they went on was enough to make any one lose their temper, but as a
friendly warning. They'll tease you unmercifully if they find you lose
your temper, and I shan't be able to stop it. And now, my dear, unless
you like to come back to the billiard-room and show them that you don't
care a rap for their laughter, I'll take you to your room. Which would
you like to do?"

"Oh, go to my room, please," said Margaret hastily, who felt that on no
account would she face any one of the Danvers' family again that night.

"Did you lose your temper?" inquired Nancy. "Then I'm jolly glad to hear
it. Listen to the wretches laughing still. So many to one wasn't fair.
I hope you gave it to them hot. They deserved it."

"So they did," said Mrs. Danvers heartily, and Margaret, who had yet to
learn Mrs. Danvers always sided with the last speaker, took courage from
that remark. It showed at all events, she thought, that her sudden
passionate outburst had not caused Mrs. Danvers to take a dislike to her.

"I have put you in the big spare room," Mrs. Danvers said, as with
Margaret following in her wake she led the way slowly upstairs. "Nancy
and Joan have the other spare rooms, and I was really keeping this for an
old aunt of mine, who may come later. If she does come while you are
here, you won't mind turning out for her, will you, and going into the
dressing-room opening out of this? There is a bed in it, and really it is
quite a fair-sized little room; but I thought as this was empty I should
like you to have it for the time being anyway. A nice room, isn't it?"
Mrs. Danvers was so evidently well pleased with herself for having given
a mere holiday governess the best bedroom in her house that Margaret
hastened to admire it.

It was indeed a luxuriously furnished room, perfect in all its
appointments, and its handsome solid old mahogany furniture looked well
against the dull blue Axminster carpet and the blue silk hangings of
the big double bed. The walls were blue also.

"Yes, I think you will be comfortable," Mrs. Danvers said, glancing
round. "You see there is a sofa and an armchair and a writing-table, so
that if at any time you want to get away from the noisy young folk
downstairs you have got a nice retreat to come to. They have unstrapped
your trunk I see; but as Collins, the head housemaid, is out to-night,
your unpacking has not been done for you."

"Oh, but thank you very much, I can do that myself," said Margaret
hastily, wondering within herself as she spoke what would have happened
supposing Collins had not been out, and had insisted upon unpacking her
things, and had seen that all her linen was marked with a name quite
different to the one she had come in. The thought of the danger she had
escaped made her turn quite pale. This sudden pallor was not lost upon
Mrs. Danvers who, attributed it, not unnaturally, to extreme fatigue,
and who thereupon hastened her own departure from the room, with a kindly
expressed wish as she left, that Margaret would sleep well.

But tired though Margaret was, she felt that she could not go to bed
until she had removed her own name from every article of her underlinen,
and so having unpacked her trunk she took a pair of scissors and set to
work. Fortunately for her purpose, her things had not been marked in ink
but with tapes bearing her name in woven letters, and these she carefully
ripped off one by one, and making a little pile of them burned them all
in the grate. Then, if any maid saw them before Margaret had time to
remark them with the ink and tapes that she meant to buy, the most she
would feel would be a mild wonder that any young lady having such nice
undergarments as Miss Carson had, should risk losing them at the wash by
having no name upon them.




CHAPTER IX

THE DANVERS FAMILY


In spite of her settled conviction that, weary though she was, she was
far too miserable to close an eye that night. Margaret's slumbers were
sound. A vigorous banging on a door in the near neighbourhood of her
own, a banging which was answered by a sleepy and irritable yell, roused
her about six o'clock the next morning. Otherwise she could have slept on
for another hour or more. But once awake further sleep was impossible.
Not only were her neighbours exceedingly noisy--from snatches of
conversation shouted across the passage as they dressed, Margaret
gathered that most of the junior members of the house were going down to
the sea to bathe--but her own thoughts were of themselves sufficient to
keep her awake. She had fallen asleep the night before with the dismal
thought in her mind that though her long desired wish to stay in a house
full of young people had been most unexpectedly realised, the very first
thing she had done was to declare enmity with all of them, and the
depressing fact came vividly before her mind the instant she awoke. She
found herself wishing most fervently that she had been content to remain
Margaret Anstruther, and had never met Eleanor Carson, or conceived the
mad idea of changing places with her. However, as it was obviously too
late to entertain reflections of that sort now, she made an effort to
dismiss that unprofitable wish from her mind, and in order to divert her
thoughts the more effectually, resolved, early though it was, to get up.

As soon as the sound of many feet clattering noisily downstairs told her
that the coast was clear, she found her way to the bathroom, and having
bathed and dressed felt more courage to face the trials of the day that
lay before her.

There was no one about as she went downstairs, and she passed out through
the open front door and went into the garden.

The Cedars--described by the local house agents as one of the finest
residential mansions in Seabourne--stood in about three acres of ground,
which, though to Margaret accustomed to the big gardens of the country,
seemed a small enough piece of land to belong to such an imposing looking
house as The Cedars, was in reality unusually large for a town where
property was so valuable and ground rents as enormous as they were in
Seabourne. The grounds had been laid out to the utmost advantage. A wide
lawn, planted here and there with clumps of flowering shrubs, sloped
slightly away from the front of the house, and at the bottom of it lay
two sunk tennis courts surrounded by high wire-netting. On the other side
of the drive were kitchen and fruit gardens.

Her tour of the grounds finished, Margaret conceived the idea of going on
to the downs, the foot of which were scarcely a stone's throw away from
the gate, and seeing if she could discover in which direction Windy Gap
lay. It was still quite early and she had plenty of time at her disposal
before breakfast. It was a stiff climb to the top of the downs and took
longer than she had thought, even though she left the white road that
went zigzagging to the summit and took a short cut up an exceedingly
steep footpath. But the view that she got when she reached the top
brought a little cry of amazed wonder to her lips, and she felt amply
repaid for her long, toilsome climb. Accustomed as she had been all her
life to the flat, tame scenery that surrounded her native village, she
had had no idea that anything as lovely as this could exist. Never had
she seen anything like it. The wide downs appeared to stretch away for
miles and miles in front of her forming undulating hills and valleys.
Below, at the foot of the high white cliffs that now rose to a dizzy
height sheer above the water, and now dipped almost to its level, lay the
sea glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. For the most part the downs
were bare and wind-swept, but in the hollows small villages nestled with
here and there a square grey tower rising through the trees that
surrounded the tiny hamlets. One of these she felt sure must be Windy
Gap, because looking eastwards she could see the flat, marshy ground
through which the train had taken them the day before, and though of this
she could not be certain, for a light mist veiled the distant view, she
even thought she could descry the long white road leading upwards to the
downs from the plain beneath them.

Somewhere over there, then, Eleanor was at that moment, and whatever else
she might be doing she was not roaming at her own sweet will on the
hillside as she, Margaret, was at that moment doing. And her intense
satisfaction at the thought of her own freedom swept away the few
uncomfortable doubts and fears that had been harassing her ever since she
awoke that morning. Come what might, she would enjoy herself she thought
determinedly.

But as a matter of fact the invigorating, bracing air, the brilliant
sunshine pouring down on land and sea, had already acted like a tonic
upon Margaret's spirits, her troubles seemed to roll away of their own
accord and she felt that it would be impossible not to be happy at The
Cedars.

So, much the better for her walk, she presently climbed down the hill
again, and turned into the road that led homewards. The windows of the
dining-room looked on to the drive, and as she passed them she saw that
every one was seated at breakfast, and it was with an inward and very
rapid sinking of the heart that she realised that she would have to go in
late and face the entire assembled party.

An access of terrible shyness rushed over her at the thought, and to
delay the evil moment as much as possible she went up to her room and
took off her hat and smoothed her hair. But she could not linger over
that operation indefinitely, especially as a housemaid who had already
arrived to do her room volunteered the information that the breakfast
gong had sounded nearly a quarter of an hour ago. With slow, reluctant
feet that halted at every step Margaret went down the wide, shallow
stairs. If any one had told her three days ago that she would go thus
laggingly to resume acquaintance with a room full of young people she
would have found difficulty in believing them. A buzz of talk and
laughter struck loudly on her ear as she pushed the door open and went
in.

Every member of the family, except Mrs. Danvers who never came down to
breakfast, were assembled in the room, and, or so at least it seemed to
Margaret as she hung for a moment unperceived in a hesitating manner on
the threshold, they were all talking together.

In addition, Maud, who presumably occupied her mother's place at the head
of the table, but who had vacated it for the time being, was balancing
herself on the fender reading out scraps of news from a letter she held
in her hand.

One of the two cadets had evidently only just made his appearance at
breakfast, for he was standing at the sideboard, complaining, as he
lifted the covers and inspected the contents of the hot dishes, that not
a single thing worth eating had been left for him.

"You shouldn't be such a lazy person then," called a girl who was seated
near Geoffrey. "Of course, the early birds get all the worms."

"I am sorry, Miss Joan, that you liken our good food to worms," said the
boy, as, having passed the contents of all the dishes in review, he slid
a couple of poached eggs and a few rashers of bacon on to his plate, and
took his seat beside the girl who had called out the remark.

"I was speaking comparatively," she said in a condescending tone, as she
tilted her nose in the air. "I have heard before that one should not
speak comparatively to boys of your age, and now I know."

At that there arose a delighted shout of laughter, and Maud called across
from the fireplace that little girls should not use words they could not
understand. "You meant figuratively, my dear Joan," she said.

Joan, who looked about sixteen, tossed the long, fair pigtail in which
she wore her hair over her shoulder and began readily enough to join in
the laughter to which her mistake had just given rise. But all of a
sudden her countenance changed, and appearing to fly into a violent
passion she started up from her chair, and stamped her foot and cried
out:--

"I won't be laughed at, I won't, I won't! I hate you all!"

And burying her face in her handkerchief, she raced across the room, and
dashed full tilt into Margaret who was still hesitating unperceived in
the doorway.

At that a sound like a little gasp went up from the others, and though
the gasp was in some cases followed by a little giggle, to their credit
be it said most of the young faces wore a look of concern that Margaret
should have made her appearance just in time to hear her outburst of the
night before mimicked for the general amusement. Would she get angry
again, or would she burst out crying? From what they had seen of her the
night before, she was quite as likely to do one as the other. But to the
general surprise she did neither, and for the simple reason that she had
failed to grasp the fact that Joan's grief was all a sham, and that it
was she herself who was being made game of. Joan, after one swift glimpse
to see against whom it was she had so violently cannoned, turned away,
and dropping her face in her handkerchief, again appeared to cry
violently. Margaret felt quite sorry for her, and forgetting all her
shyness tried to comfort her.

"I know how unpleasant it is to be laughed at," she whispered in her ear;
"but if you pretend not to mind and laugh back you will not mind it so
much."

But Margaret's sympathy, far from making Joan ashamed of herself, amused
her immensely, and keeping her face turned away from Margaret, she looked
up out of her handkerchief and winked at the others and giggled. But when
she found that no one else was laughing, her own giggles died away, and
she began to sidle uncomfortably towards her chair.

Though none of the others had heard what Margaret had whispered to her,
they had guessed, from the sympathetic expression of her face, that she
had taken Joan's pretence of rage for a real outburst, and was comforting
her; and that in spite of that, Joan should still wish to make game of
her seemed to them horribly unfair. Geoffrey was the first to show his
disapproval of Joan's conduct. A joke was a joke, he thought, but his
young cousin must be taught that she could not make game of a fellow
guest--not without their sanction, at any rate. So getting up and coming
round the table, he shook hands with Margaret, wished her good morning,
and found a place for her next him.

"Come back to the table and do your duty, Maud," he said, as his sister
showed no signs of moving from the fireplace; "or if you want to go off,
let Hilary take your place. There are several of us wanting more tea.
Will you have tea or coffee, Miss Carson?"

"I'll pour out for you, Maud," Hilary said, starting up.

"No, you won't, my dear," Maud said, coming back to her place. "I haven't
half finished my brekker. But I thought you had had breakfast ages ago,
Miss Carson, with the kids in the nursery."

"Oh, ought I to have had my breakfast there?" Margaret said
uncomfortably, letting the fork she had just taken up fall with a clatter
on to her plate.

Maud shrugged her shoulders. "There is no ought about it," she said
carelessly. "But the kids do have their breakfast in the nursery, and
I believe the idea was that you should have yours there with them."

"Well, any way, Miss Carson," put in Geoffrey pleasantly, "you show your
good taste in preferring our society to theirs. Our manners may leave a
good deal to be desired"--though he did not glance at Joan, that young
person knew well that her recent behaviour was in his mind, and got very
red--"but theirs are worse. Their sense of humour is distinctly inferior,
and they think it awfully funny to put salt in your tea, and to mix
mustard with your pudding when you aren't looking, and things of that
sort, you know."

No one knew better than her brother that Maud's remark had not been
intended to convey a hint that Miss Carson's place as governess was with
her young charges. The disagreeable habit of implying things was not one
of Maud's faults. Innuendos were beneath her--what she wanted to say she
said outright. But sometimes, as in this case, her brother wished she was
not so utterly indifferent to the effect her bluntness produced. It was
because he had seen Margaret wince under it that he had exerted himself
to remove any unpleasant impression that her words might have left on the
holiday governess's mind.

"I--I do like your company best, of course," Margaret said. Then, with a
heightening colour, and in a stammering, choked voice which showed what
an effort it was to overcome her shyness and speak so that every one
could hear, she said, "I beg your pardon for saying last night that I
hated you all. Of course, it was not true."

"That is a great weight off our minds," said Maud in a tone of
raillery. "Now we can breathe again. We were so afraid that you
hadn't--well--exactly taken to us last night."

The light-hearted way in which she spoke quite robbed the words of any
sting they might otherwise have conveyed, and Margaret was able to join
in the laughter which this very mild way of describing the feeling she
had shown the previous night evoked.

She was finding out that very little made the Danvers laugh, and when she
came to think it over, she arrived at the right conclusion that she found
this surprising, not because they laughed more than other young people,
but because she had been used to the society of people who laughed so
very much less. But anything seemed to serve with them as a cause for
laughter. If the joke were a good one it evoked hearty laughter, if it
were a bad one the perpetrator was laughed at; and if fresh jokes, good
or bad, ran short, there was seemingly an endless store of old ones to be
drawn upon, supplemented by catchwords and phrases from the latest
musical comedy. These, of course, were even more unintelligible to
Margaret than the rest of the queer, scrappy talk that made up the bulk
of their conversation; but as she made no attempt to share in it, the
fact that even their most everyday slang expressions were strange to her,
passed unnoticed. For the most part, however, they were too much occupied
with their own affairs to have much attention to spare for her; and it
dawned upon Margaret, before even that first meal in their society was
ended, that she need not have been afraid that they would bear malice
against her for her outburst of the night before. They were really
scarcely interested enough in her to do that. Under cover of the brisk
chatter that went on round her, she took the opportunity of glancing
round the table and studying the various members of the household.

With the exception of herself they numbered eight, and though there
had been considerably more young people than that present in the
billiard-room last night, she gathered from the conversation that was
going on round her that, during the holidays at least, Mrs. Danvers kept
a sort of open house for all the friends of her own children.

Opposite Margaret, on Geoffrey's other hand, sat Joan Green. Though she
was only fifteen, she looked at least a year older, in spite of the fact
that she wore her hair in a long, thick plait down her back. Margaret,
who was still under the impression that Joan had been flying from the
room in a rage as she came in, and that she had been the means of
soothing her back to a better temper, was a little hurt and puzzled at
the studious way in which Joan's eyes avoided hers. Once when she had
caught their glance for a moment, and had smiled a friendly recognition
into them, she had been rewarded by a cold glare that had quite startled
her. Next to Joan sat Hilary, and the two girls had seemingly a great
deal to say to each other, for though now and again they joined in the
general conversation, for the most part they talked together in
undertones audible to themselves alone. Hilary's face was a pale likeness
of Maud's. Her eyes were not so blue, nor was her complexion so tanned as
her sister's, and though her features resembled Maud's sufficiently
closely to cause them to be easily recognised as sisters, Hilary's face
lacked the look of sparkling vivacity which made Maud's face so
attractive. On the other side of Hilary and next to Maud sat Jack, with
his brother Noel, the other naval cadet, facing him. Then came Nancy, the
girl who had offered Margaret chocolates and advice the previous evening,
and when she caught Margaret's eyes now she smiled and nodded as much as
to say she quite understood the latter's desire to find out what they
were all like.

Nancy was not the only person who had noted the way in which Margaret's
eyes had been travelling round the table, for when the turn of the boy
next to her came to be inspected, she was startled to hear Geoffrey on
the other side of her say:--

"Don't waste time on him, Miss Carson. He's not worth it, I assure you;
that's only Edward--Silly Ned as we call him. You must call him that too;
he never answers to any other name."

"Oh!" said Margaret, glancing with some apprehension at the small boy on
her left as though she feared that he might think she was really going to
call him anything of the sort.

Though he, too, was unmistakably a Danvers, he was more like Hilary than
any of the others. He was a small, thin, delicate-looking boy, and he
wore spectacles.

"Yes, we call him Silly Ned because he has all the brains of the family.
He looks a mere child, doesn't he? But he's a sixth form boy at his
college, and he got a Mathematical Exhibition last term. He's also a
brilliant member of the cricket eleven. We try to take him down a peg or
two in the holidays, but it isn't much good. His prizes and his cricket
combined have made him too big for his boots. A nice little boy ruined,
that's what he is."

"Oh, shut up, Geoffrey," Edward said; "sarcasm isn't really your line,
you know."

"Meaning that it is his, or one of his," commented Geoffrey; "you see for
yourself what a bumptious babe it is, Miss Carson. Well, and now that you
have taken silent stock of us all, won't you tell us what you think of
us? But answer me one thing to start with. Which, in your opinion, makes
the most noise at breakfast, a girl's school, or the Danvers family?"

"Oh, I do not know, because I have never----" began Margaret, and then
stopped in great confusion, realising that she had been about to say that
she had never seen a girl's school at breakfast, and conscious that Joan,
who had overheard Geoffrey's question and her answer, was staring across
at her in obvious astonishment.

"Why, I thought you had come fresh from a school, Miss Carson," she said.

Before Margaret had time to answer a shout of laughter from Maud and the
two boys on either side of her drowned all chance of any one making their
voice heard at the other end of the table, and by the time comparative
quiet was restored Margaret had collected her wits, and had remembered
the part she was playing. She did not even look disconcerted when
Geoffrey, whose attention had been momentarily diverted from her by the
noise at the other end of the table, said thoughtfully:--

"You know, if the remark isn't rather a personal one--which it is by the
way--you aren't my idea of a governess a bit."

For it was so evident that he entertained no suspicion at all of the real
facts of the case that she saw there was no occasion for alarm. She even
smiled as she asked him in her prim, old-fashioned way in what respect
she then differed from the picture of a governess he had in his mind's
eye.

"Well, it isn't exactly that you look too young, for I know governesses
at girl's schools are young nowadays, and that they play games, and all
that. But you don't look to me quite self-confident or self-opinionated
enough. Eh! What do you think, Joan? Is Miss Carson your idea of a school
governess either?"

"No," said Joan promptly; and then Margaret, who could not know that Joan
had answered in the negative with the idea of giving the reply that she
fancied Margaret would like least, did change countenance a little. For
Joan's "No" was so very decisive. And it did not make her feel any the
more comfortable to know that Joan's eyes were fixed unblinkingly, and
pitilessly, on her blushes. For a moment Joan stared and Margaret
blushed, the latter miserably conscious meanwhile that if she wanted to
draw down suspicion upon herself she had only to continue to sit there
and look the picture of guilt, and the thing was done.

"Not a bit," Joan added with much emphasis, and in the amiable hope of
seeing Margaret look still more out of countenance.

But then Margaret pulled herself together. There had suddenly flashed
into her mind the recollection of the words Eleanor had used when she,
Margaret, had found it hard to believe that Eleanor had been a pupil
teacher and a governess for the last six years. And her excellent memory
coming to her aid, she quoted them now, exactly reproducing even the
light, bantering tone Eleanor had used.

"You write to Miss McDonald," she said, "and ask her what sort of a
governess Miss Carson was. I think she would bristle with indignation if
she were to hear any one doubt that she would have a governess in her
school who was incapable of keeping order. So please throw no cold doubts
on my abilities. The profession of a governess is the only one I am
fitted to follow, and if I was no good at that I should be hard put to it
to earn a living."

"Upon my word," murmured Maud to one of the boys, "the silent Miss Carson
is making quite a speech down at the other end of the table."

"I promise never to doubt your capabilities again," said Geoffrey with
mock solemnity. "We are satisfied that Miss Carson really is a governess,
aren't we, Joan?" he added, turning to his cousin.

"Oh, quite," said Joan slowly. Though she had not yet put the thought
into words Joan thought dimly that it was rather curious of Miss Carson
to insist so strongly on the fact that she had been a governess. Of
course, they all knew that beforehand, so why make such a point of it.

Hilary and Joan were the first to get up from table, and with linked arms
they sauntered out on to the terrace, their heads close together.

Margaret felt certain from a backward glance they threw in her direction
as they went out that they were whispering about her, and the knowledge
made her vaguely uncomfortable.

"Well, I suppose you two are off sailing again," said Maud to the two
cadets. "I should have thought you would have had enough of the sea in
term-time, and be glad enough to stay on shore when you got a chance."

"And that from a girl who thinks she knows everything," said one of the
boys in disgusted accents. "Did she think, then, that Osborne is a
sailing ship, or what?"

"Oh, well, you know what I mean," said Maud equably.

"I'll stay on shore, as you call it, like a shot, Maud," said Jack, "if
you'll give us a game of tennis. Come on now, you and I against Noel and
Nancy."

"Not taking any, thanks," was Maud's retort. "Get Hilary instead of me,
and the set would be all right."

"Oh, Hilary plays a rotten game!" said Jack, with true brotherly
frankness. "She can't play for nuts, and she talks all the time, and
won't run, and loses her temper."

"Hilary would be pleased if she heard you," remarked Maud lazily, as she
rose and strolled across to the fireplace.

"Oh, I hear, and I don't care two straws," called her sister from the
terrace. But her face, which was as black as thunder, looked as if she
did care nevertheless.

"Catch me wasting a whole day playing tennis," said Geoffrey. "I'm as
keen on a game as any one in the afternoon, but I am not going to be
glued to one little patch of grass all day."

"Of course not," put in Edward; "your favourite form of amusement we all
know nowadays, is to lie flat on your back on a dusty road tinkering at
your old motor-bike."

"And yours, apparently, to try and be funny at the expense of your elders
and betters," retorted Geoffrey. "Say much more, young man, and I'll take
you out in the trailer."

"Oh, but I wish you would, Geoffrey."

"Not much. The mater says she can't spare any of us yet, and certainly
not the "Hope of His Side." So trot away to your Latin essays, my son,
and don't waste time in idling like the rest of us."

"As a matter of fact, I'm going down to the cricket-ground with Tommy to
practice at the nets a bit with the professional," said Edward, nettled
at the imputation that he was going to spend the morning indoors. He was
not vain of his brains, but he was of his cricket, and though wild horses
would not have dragged from him the confession that he read Greek for
pleasure long after he ought to have been asleep, he would brag of his
batting averages to any one who would listen.

At that moment a maid entered the room and approached Margaret.

"If you please, Miss," she said, "the mistress says, will you wait for
her in the morning-room. She will be down in a moment, and wishes to
speak to you before you go out."

Margaret jumped up at once, glad of an excuse to leave the room, for
though she had finished her breakfast long before any of the others, she
had been too shy to rise and go away. Besides, she had not the least idea
where she ought to go, or what she ought to do.

"No need for you to hurry, Miss Carson," Maud called after her. "Mother's
minutes generally mean hours."

And in that Maud proved to have been right, for an hour and a quarter
passed before Mrs. Danvers made her belated appearance in the
morning-room. But as there was a goodly supply of magazines and
illustrated papers, Margaret did not find the time hang heavily on her
hands.

Truth to say, she was glad to be alone, and the knowledge that such was
the case depressed her very much. She had looked forward to the society
of other young people as the greatest happiness earth could give her, and
it was discouraging to find that the realisation of her wish was as yet
bringing her very little pleasure. She felt awkward and terribly shy in
their company, and she had an uneasy consciousness that they looked upon
her as a poor sort of creature, and very uninteresting--what, in short,
she said sadly to herself, for she was already picking up some of their
expressions--they would have called a bore.

When at last Mrs. Danvers did make her appearance she was full of
apologies for having kept Margaret waiting so long.

"You must blame the cook, my dear," she said cheerily, "not me. Oh, dear,
I am glad to sit down!"

She sank into a low easy chair with an air of fatigue, and Margaret
seeing her look round for a footstool, brought her one and placed it
under her feet.

"Thank you, my dear," she said, "and now if you will get me my knitting
from that table in the corner we will have a nice, cosy chat. Thank
goodness my work for the day is all done!" Ten minutes spent in the
kitchen assenting to all that a very excellent cook-housekeeper suggested
constituted Mrs. Danvers "work for the day." "There are many things I
wanted to ask you about my old friend and cousin, Miss McDonald. By the
way, what do you think of the children?"

When Margaret answered that she had not yet seen them, Mrs. Danvers,
after a short pause of astonishment, gave a vexed laugh. At least, to
start with, the laugh was tinged with vexation; but as she continued to
laugh the feeling of annoyance was merged into one of hearty amusement.

"That's Hannah all over," she said. "Hannah is jealous of you. She is
their nurse, you know, and has been with them since they have been born.
She's the only person who can manage them. I can't, and their mother
can't, though Joanna would be very angry if she heard I had said that.
But I told Hannah to bring the children down to see you here after
breakfast. However, as she did not choose to do so, it is no good
annoying her by saying anything about it. I will take you up to the
nurseries presently, when we have had that nice little chat about my dear
cousin. But Joanna," she said, reverting to her daughter and her
children, "is always going in for new systems with them. At one time her
theory was that they must not be spoiled by having any notice taken of
them. During that period they lived entirely in the nursery. I remember I
was staying there at the time, and I thought I had never enjoyed a visit
to my daughter so much. Next time I went the children were being brought
up in the fashion of their great-grandmothers. They were taught to say
'Ma'am' to their mother, and 'Sir' to their father, and were not allowed
to sit down in their presence, and never, never to speak unless they were
spoken to. I enjoyed that visit too. But the latest and the reigning idea
is that they are not to be thwarted or crossed in any way, and as for
being punished such barbarity is not to be thought of. If detected in
naughtiness they are to be reasoned with only, and if the naughtiness
is persisted in it is to be taken for granted that the small sinners are
ill, and must be gently nursed into good health and goodness again."

As she listened to this Margaret came to the conclusion that their mother
must be an extraordinarily silly woman, but when Mrs. Danvers went on to
add that Joanna, after expounding her new theory in detail, had gone away
to Norway to fish with her husband, and left her mother to find out how
it worked, Margaret smiled outright.

Mrs. Danvers laughed too. "It is rather funny," she said in her
good-natured way, "and the worst of it is that Joanna made me promise to
give her system a fair trial, and as I never broke my word to any of my
children yet, I am giving it a fair trial. And that is why, my dear, I am
so glad of your help. When Miss McDonald wrote to me and asked me if I
could find a holiday engagement for one of her governesses, I jumped at
the chance of having you. For, I said to myself that a governess of
Gertrude McDonald's would, of course, have discipline and all that sort
of thing at her fingers ends."

"Of course," said poor Margaret rather feebly, as Mrs. Danvers paused not
so much for a reply as to gain breath.

"Unyielding firmness without harshness on your side, implicit obedience
without fear on theirs is what Joanna aims at I believe," said Mrs.
Danvers cheerfully, "and it certainly sounds a delightful method. By the
way, if you get on with the children, Joanna has an idea of asking you to
stay with her permanently. She is going out to California next spring,
and will have to look out for a governess to go with her, as, of course,
she is taking the children. Would you like to go, or do you prefer
school-work?"

"I--I don't know," stammered Margaret, who totally unprepared for such
a proposition, did not know what answer to make. "I should have to ask
El----(my friend, I mean) what she thought of it. Ask her advice, I
mean."

"Quite so, quite so," Mrs. Danvers said. "But that's all in the future,
of course. The first thing you have to do is to make the acquaintance of
the children, and, as I said, Hannah has evidently carefully kept them up
in the nursery this morning. She is devoted to them, and can't bear the
idea of having to share her charge of them with a governess. So I am
afraid you may have a little unpleasantness to put up with at first. But
she is a good creature, and if you exercise a little t

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