The Laurel Walk

“I Don’t Quite Remember.”

The summons had come from one of the younger girls, for they had reached a point on the road to Scaling Harbour at which there was a question of two ways thither.

“Shall we take the sea-road?” said Eira, “or the higher one?”

Frances hesitated and glanced at Horace.

“Which do you think gives the best view, the most picturesque to newcomers?” she asked.

“The sea-road, I should say,” he replied, “decidedly so. Shall we lead the way?” he went on, addressing Betty as he hastened forward to where she, Eira, and Miss Charlemont were standing; and in a moment or two, Frances, who by this time had attached herself to Madeleine and the two other men, heard by the sound of their merry voices that Horace’s spirits were at their highest.

“How considerate he is!” she thought to herself, “so careful not to involve me in any kind of notice. I wish I could – I do hope – ” but then she put it all resolutely aside for the moment; the time had not yet come for a good thorough “thinking out” of it all, and in spite of Madeleine’s evident readiness to leave her undisturbed should she wish it, she joined with seeming interest in the talk going on around her, thereby winning still more golden opinions from her friend as to her unselfishness and self-control. For the little manoeuvres by which her brother had cleverly secured the coveted tête-à-tête had been by no means unperceived by his sister.

A few minutes’ quick walking now brought the party on to what was called the sea-road; another quarter of an hour and the queer little village lay close before them. Unanimously they came to a halt.

“It is indeed picturesque,” said Gertrude, whose taste lay in the direction of sketching.

“If only it were summer – not too cold for sitting still!”

“Wait till we have gone a little farther,” said Horace. “It isn’t only the place, the people themselves will tempt you still more.”

And when they found themselves in the one straggling street, where the reddish sandstone cottages looked much as they might have done at any time since the famous Armada days, when – so ran the legend – the strange little colony had first been founded, Miss Charlemont fully agreed with him. Here and there swarthy-faced men were seated at their cottage doors, occupied in the never-failing resource of a fisherman’s “off-hours” – mending their nets. A few women looking out, or here and there gossiping with each other, had a strangely un-English air, not only as to their, in most cases, black hair and eyes, but in the very colour and tone of their carelessly adjusted garments, in which a vivid blue and almost orange-scarlet, however stained and faded, still predominated. The very children, from the tumbling-about babies to the bare-legged, brown-skinned urchins of both sexes, who, considering the cold especially, seemed to take life uncommonly easily, all shared the same distinct and peculiar characteristics.

The strangers were much struck.

“Curious,” said Mr Charlemont meditatively, “how the Southern strain is still so predominant. It reminds me of – ” but his daughter interrupted him.

“It’s worth coming any distance to see,” she said enthusiastically. “Even the very smell of the place isn’t like an English village! Do you often come here?” she went on, turning to the Morion sisters.

“I don’t,” Betty replied. “I like our own poor people far better. But Frances and Eira – and Madeleine too – have taken to rushing off here this winter, as often as they can get; once or twice a week sometimes.”

“What for?” asked Miss Charlemont. “Sketching? I don’t mean out of doors, of course, but the people themselves?” and as, at that moment, a woman passing along the road – a young and handsome woman – looked up with a smile and a half-graceful, half-bashful gesture of greeting, she added, glancing at her, “Is she a model of yours?”

Frances and Eira smiled.

“Oh no,” said the latter, “we are not half as accomplished as you think us. It is for something quite different that we come. And but for Madeleine we should never have been able to do it at all.”

Eira and Gertrude were now walking together; Horace and Betty behind them. Madeleine, who was just in front, caught Eira’s words, and looked back with a smile of deprecation.

“Don’t praise me so undeservedly,” she said. “I assure you, Gertrude, it is all their doing. I have only helped in the smallest way. I don’t see how I could possibly have done less.”

“Tell me about it,” said Gertrude to her companion; and Eira, by no means unwillingly, gave her a rapid little sketch of their “plan” for helping and instructing the poor, neglected fisher-folk of this outlying little village.

Gertrude listened with interest, the greater perhaps for the impression made upon her by the uncommon aspect of her surroundings.

“So you see,” Eira concluded, with her usual frankness, “we couldn’t possibly have managed it without Madeleine’s help, though Mrs Ramsay’s money did come in for the first start. Madeleine has given us, I know, all she possibly could, out of her own money.”

“But she has plenty,” said Gertrude, though with no wish to decry one for whom her admiration was unbounded.

“Of course I know she is rich,” said Eira in a lower voice; “but then she does and helps such heaps of things already. It isn’t as if this were her home. I don’t know,” she went on reflectively, “if she will be able to continue things here when she leaves. It doesn’t do to look forward – we had never hoped to manage half we have already got done this winter.”

“But doesn’t the village belong to Mr Morion, Mr Ryder Morion I mean?” asked Gertrude, a practical little person in her way.

“Only part of it,” was the reply; “and he has never,” – she stopped abruptly. “Oh, Gertrude,” she exclaimed – for the two young things had already arrived at the Christian-name stage of intimacy – “oh, Gertrude, speak of – ” and again she stopped, for at that moment down a steep, rocky path, leading on to the main street from some cottages perched above, appeared two figures, those of the part-proprietor of the village and of Mr Darnley, the Craig Bay curate-in-charge, the eager aspirant to the same post at Scaling Harbour.

He was talking eagerly, with some explanatory gesticulation, to his companion as they came along. Mr Morion, on the contrary, looked cooler, almost colder, than his wont. It was he who first caught sight of the little procession of visitors. A shade, though but a slight one, of annoyance crossed his face: he had heard something of the projected expedition, but had hoped and intended to get his own business there completed in time to leave before coming across any of the others. But his investigations, even under Mr Darnley’s experienced guidance, had taken longer than he anticipated; taken longer and impressed him more deeply and more painfully than he had been in any way prepared for. But he was not the man to show this; on the contrary, he hastened forward with more than usual alacrity to meet the party.

“So there you are,” he said, in a pleasant but somewhat nonchalant manner. “I have had the start of you, however; indeed, I scarcely expected to see you down here.”

“But you will wait, now we have met, and walk back with us, won’t you?” said Madeleine. “You don’t know the treat that is in store for us all,” she went on, turning with her hearty smile to Frances and the others. “Tea and buns! half-past three, at Mrs Silver’s! I sent down about it this morning.”

“What a good idea!” “How nice!” were the exclamations that greeted this announcement. For the walk in the keen air and the very early luncheon had naturally an invigorating effect on everybody’s appetite.

“I am specially glad to hear of it,” said Mr Darnley, “on Mr Morion’s account. I’m afraid I have used you very badly,” he went on, turning to the person in question. “We have been at it since ten this morning, and you have had no luncheon at all. Though,” with a touch of admiration and pleasure that he was too young and enthusiastic to suppress, “I must say it wasn’t all my fault, you have gone into things so very thoroughly!”

A look of real annoyance flashed into Mr Morion’s eyes at these words, to be, however, as instantaneously expelled, for he caught sight of the flush of gratification on his companion’s eager, still boyish face, and he had not the heart to snub him. One person only, of those about him, saw and understood this little by-play, and that was Frances. And often in days to come she was glad that she had done so. For the memory of it helped to obviate, or at least modify, misconstruction of a character none too easy to interpret.

“And how about your own luncheon, my good fellow?” were the words genially substituted for the cold rejoinder which had been on the speaker’s lips. “You deserve at least three buns and two cups of tea. – Yes, Madeleine,” he went on, “yours was a capital thought, and if some one will lead the way to Mrs Silver’s we shall all gladly follow.”

“It is distinguished,” said Madeleine, “by being the cleanest cottage in the place, you will be glad to hear. Indeed,” catching sight of a slightly apprehensive look on Betty’s face, “it is more than that, it is really clean.”

“Thank goodness,” Betty murmured to herself, at which Horace, who was beside her, could not repress a smile.

“You don’t share your sister’s enthusiasm for – no, I won’t say ‘slumming,’ it is such a hateful word, and has been so abused,” he said.

“Slumming?” repeated Betty, “I don’t quite know what you mean.” And she looked up in his face naïvely.

The questioning in her eyes made her look even more childlike than usual. For a moment Horace seemed to have forgotten what they had been saying; then he pulled himself together, as it were.

“I am very glad you don’t,” he said, “and of course anything your sister does would be on quite different lines from that kind of sensational philanthropy. I only meant that you have a natural shrinking from – well, dirty cottages and people, and that sort of thing! I am sure I sympathise with you in it. Any one so sensitive – ”

But, rather to his surprise, Betty’s expression had grown somewhat shamefaced.

“Oh,” she said quickly, “it’s just selfishness, I’m afraid. I often think I am rather the spoilt one at home; Frances and Eira are so good, and never think about themselves. I dare say disagreeable things are quite as disagreeable to them as to me. But they always save me from them in every way. I believe it began by my not being as strong as they when I was quite a little girl. And even mamma petted me much more than the others.”

“I don’t wonder at it,” said Horace; “there are some people made to be petted, and the world would be a worse place than it is without them.”

“But,” said Betty, again scarcely seeming to notice his words, and with a funny little air of dignity, “I am really not so babyish as you might think! With such an elder sister as Frances, how could I be? I do help a little, even in what they do here. I write out a good deal. We have made large sheets of directions in printed letters of what to do in accidents and so on, copied from our books, of course, and the others say I can print better than they can. So that is something,” with a touch of satisfaction.

“Yes, indeed,” said her companion, “a pretty big something, I should say. It must be tiresome work. I hope,” he went on, with a little hesitation, “that now Ryder has seen things for himself more thoroughly than before – indeed, I doubt if he ever walked through this village before to-day – I hope that he will give some substantial help.”

“I hope so too,” said Betty dryly. “Oh,” she went on, with a little gasp, “it would be nice to be rich!”

Horace’s face fell a little.

“Do you feel that?” he said quickly. “Don’t you think that people are often quite as happy, or happier, who are not very rich, especially if they are without great responsibilities? Of course few things would be worse than to be a large proprietor with lots of people you should look after, and no means for doing it.”

“Yes,” Betty agreed, “it reminds me of what mamma has often told us about grandpapa’s and Uncle Avone’s difficulties in Ireland. But with your Mr Morion it is quite different, of course – isn’t he very rich?”

“I should say so,” said Horace.

“I don’t think I should wish to be very rich like that,” said Betty simply. “There would be such a lot of trouble about it, and I should not be clever enough to manage things well – even a woman’s part of things. Now Frances, for instance,” she went on thoughtlessly, “would be perfection in such a position.”

“I can well imagine it,” said Horace cordially; but, instantly realising that she had said one of the things she had better have left unsaid, Betty looked up at him with one of those sudden changes of expression peculiar to her, and by no means always easy to interpret.

“Oh, but don’t misunderstand about her,” she said. “She’s not a bit ambitious or fond of being important, or – or anything like that. She would be quite happy in a far simpler kind of life. Indeed, I don’t know any sort of life she couldn’t fit herself into, though Eira and I can’t help feeling that she is thrown away here, in this little out-of-the-way corner.”

“But yet what would you do without her?” said Horace. “Could you – can you imagine for yourself – we’ll say – the ever being happy away from her?”

“Oh yes,” said Betty, eager to remove any false impression she might have given. “She often says it would be better for me to have to depend a little more on myself.”

“I can scarcely picture your ever being very independent,” said Horace. “I should not like to do so. But – you may not always have her to take care of you, and yet not be left quite to your own devices!”

He glanced down at her as he spoke, with some scrutiny in his smile.

“No,” she replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, “of course there would still be Eira, though she says she would make me be the elder sister.”

Mr Littlewood turned away half abruptly. “Here we are,” he remarked, “this must be Mrs Silver’s abode!”

He was right. The young woman who was to act as their hostess, or, as she would have expressed it, “to serve tea to the gentlefolk,” was on the lookout for them. She was a pleasing-looking person, though of a slightly different type from the people about, with fairer hair and skin, which rather curiously contrasted with her dark eyes. For her mother had been an “inlander,” to use the term of the fisher-people for any one not purely of themselves. Her husband did not appear. He had been out for two days, she informed her visitors, on some remark being made about the weather and the fishing prospects, but she expected him home that evening.

“Isn’t it dreadfully dull for you when he is away?” asked Gertrude Charlemont, “and don’t you get terribly frightened if you hear the wind at night?”

The young woman shook her head with a little smile.

“We get used to it, miss,” she replied. And Mr Morion, whom the girl’s questions had struck as scarcely judicious, came to Mrs Silver’s assistance.

“Dwellers by the sea learn to have brave hearts,” he said; “and then there is always the pleasure of a safe home-coming to look forward to.”

“It will be an out-of-the-way pleasant one to-night, if all’s well, thanks to you, sir,” the young woman replied; and turning to Frances, she added, “It’s the pigsty I’m thinking of, miss. I’m that pleased about it. We’ve been wishing for one so long. It’ll be company for me when Joe’s away!”

It was impossible not to laugh at this, impossible for Mr Morion not to join, though he had been more than half-inclined to be vexed at the matter being mentioned.

“There must be something Irish about these good people as well as Spanish,” he said, in a lower voice, as Mrs Silver, to his relief, turned her attention to the tea-table.

“Scarcely so,” said Frances in reply. “In Ireland the absence of a sty would certainly not be any difficulty in the way of keeping pigs!”

“No,” Horace agreed, “they would be in and out all over the place. Genuine company if you like!”

This provoked another laugh, for when people are inclined to be happy it takes very little to give things a merry turn. And tea at Mrs Silver’s proved a great success. There was not much time to spare after it was over, if they were to get home by a reasonable hour. A little détour by the shore, sufficient to give them some idea of the picturesqueness of the rugged coast, was all that could be attempted, and Gertrude Charlemont declared that by hook or by crook she must come back to the neighbourhood in the long-day season, for sketching purposes.

“Oh, I wish you would,” said Betty eagerly. – “Craig Bay is quite a nice place to stay at, isn’t it, Mr Littlewood?” she went on, as, happening to glance round, she caught sight of him at her side, “and we should so enjoy having friends there!”

“I should say you could get very comfortable quarters there,” he agreed heartily; “and I hear there is excellent fishing – river fishing – a little way inland. I mean to find out about it, and come down here again, later on, perhaps, before my leave is up. You won’t think me too much of a bad penny if I do, I hope, Miss Betty?”

Betty raised her eyes to his with a half-inquiry in them, which he did not understand.

“Of course not,” she said, the little flush in her cheeks which came with the words rendering her very charming at that moment. “Of course not; we should be only too pleased to think that you like the place, though it is so dull and out-of-the-way. Your all being here this winter will have quite spoilt us, I’m afraid,” with a little sigh. “It has been – it is – so – delightful.”

“You delight me by saying so,” was the quick answer, heard by no one but Betty herself, for somehow or other by this time she found that he and she had drifted a little apart from the others.

“If only I were Eira,” thought Betty, “what a good opportunity I could make of this for finding out a little more! but I get so shy and silly immediately,” and when she spoke again it was with a little effort.

“It is very pretty about here in the summer,” she said. “Up at Craig-Morion – I mean down here the seasons don’t make so much difference in the look of things. I’m glad,” she continued, “that we don’t live nearer the sea; it frightens me.”

“You have never been a voyage, I suppose?” said her companion. “You would soon get used to it, I dare say. Now-a-days, with the splendid boats there are, many people go backwards and forwards from India for the mere pleasure of the thing, you know.”

“Thank you,” said Betty, laughingly. “I’ve no ambition of the kind! Dull as it is here, I should rather stay safe on dry land. Frances longs to travel, and I wish she had more chance of it! She is so clever, you know, she would find – ”

“But you yourself,” persisted Horace, “you don’t intend surely to spend all your life in this little nest of a place? The Eyrie, as Madeleine calls it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Betty. “If I must, I must! Don’t make me discontented. I am afraid I am rather so already,” with a touch of penitence.

“And why shouldn’t you be?” he responded eagerly. “Think how young you are, and how – ” here he checked himself – “how much there is to see in the world,” he added, rather lamely.

“But, you see,” said Betty, “I should scarcely be fit for it! – for making my way in society, or anything of that kind. I get frightened and stupid about nothing at all.”

She felt that he was looking at her with kindly sympathy, and, impressionable as she was, it encouraged her. Almost before she knew what she was about, she found herself giving him her innocent confidences to an extent which she had rarely, if ever, done to any one, certainly not to any man. And the way home seemed marvellously short that winter afternoon.

Long, it must be owned, it was not found by any of the little party. Gertrude and Eira were enjoying themselves under the escort of Horace’s friend, young French, who could make himself very entertaining; Mr Charlemont and Mr Darnley, on each side of Madeleine, were interesting her by a discussion on one of her pet hobbies in a philanthropic direction; and Frances, bringing up the rear with Mr Morion, found herself more nearly on common ground with him – thanks in part, no doubt, to the unexpected side-light Horace had thrown on his character – than a few hours previously she could have believed possible. And it was pleasant to her to feel that the young man’s influence bid fair to dissipate the prejudices she had half-unconsciously harboured. Once or twice even she glanced round with a half-formed wish that Horace should notice how well she and her far-off cousin were getting on. But he was some way ahead with Betty.

“I can tell him about it afterwards,” she thought, with a curious little thrill at the realisation of the confidence already existing between them. Though even without this new prepossession in his favour, Ryder Morion would probably have won his way towards her esteem and liking by the quiet, unassuming manner in which he told her of his increasing interest in, and sense of responsibility for, the till now almost terra incognita of his northern possessions. It would have been affectation for him to avoid the subject after what the curate-in-charge had said, and the meeting himself on the very spot where help was most needed. And despite her own preoccupation of mind, Frances was too well trained in habitual unselfishness not to feel warmly delighted, almost indeed breathlessly so, at the projects as to which he consulted her, and the means which he proposed to lay at the disposal of herself and Mr Darnley.

Altogether the expedition seemed to have been eminently successful, and no one felt this more heartily than Eira, whose spirits were always ready to rise, and not easily depressed, save perhaps by chilblains, or the apprehension of them!

“Betty,” she said, when they were dressing rather hurriedly for dinner, “isn’t it all going on too beautifully?”

Betty was seated on the end of her bed looking somewhat fagged.

“Yes,” she agreed, “we have had a very nice day; but I must be quick!” starting up as she spoke.

“I thought it so considerate of him,” continued Eira, “to walk home with you, not to make Frances, you see, too conspicuous, as it were. Was he talking of her all the way?”

“No – no, not all the way, I don’t think,” said Betty, in the intervals of coiling up her long black hair. “I – I don’t quite remember.”

“How tiresome you are!” said Eira; “you can’t have forgotten so quickly. I thought you’d have such a lot to tell me, and that you’d be in such high spirits.”

“I never feel in high spirits when I’m tired,” said Betty, “though no doubt it isn’t right. – I don’t know,” she added to herself, “why I don’t feel as happy about it as Eira does. He couldn’t have been nicer, but can it be that he’s only friendly about us all?”

Chapter Seventeen

The Laurel Walk Again

The Littlewoods’ guests left the next day, all, that is to say, except the owner of Craig-Morion himself, who, finding more to interest and occupy him than he had anticipated, was glad to avail himself of his hostess’ sincerely meant invitation to remain as long as it suited him to do so. For one reason or another he had called two or three times at Fir Cottage, and each time he had gained ground with his kinsman, more than once, indeed, inveigling the valetudinarian into a walk all over the property, such as for many years past he would have thought himself incapable of.

And the effect of this humanising influence on the elder man was of the happiest, not only as regarded himself, but for his family also. Yet in those days something at Fir Cottage felt out of gear; now and then it almost seemed as if Frances and her next sister had to some extent exchanged natures, Frances’ spirits were fitful and uncertain, at times verging on excitement, then again lapsing into unusual dreaminess and absent-mindedness, while Betty was quiet, self-possessed, and, to all outward appearance at least, calm and equable. She had, too, a fit of extreme industry: from morning till night she was busy about something or other, so that Eira found it difficult ever to buttonhole her for one of their “good long talks.”

“I don’t understand you, Betty,” she said one day. “Just now, when we have something more interesting to discuss than ever in our lives before, there is no getting a word out of you. What are you always fussing about? could almost fancy – ”