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Contents

I. OUR HOME AT FAIR HAVEN,

XVI.

XVII.

Chapter I. Our Home At Fair Haven

: OY dear, it is perfectly delightful to have you | back at home for good again!”

He smiled, and clasped his hands behind his head, looking out seawards with bright, eager eyes, and noting the wild, strong outline of the great headland which bounded our view on the one side, and the sweep of wood and moorland across the mouth of the harbour opposite ; and he too looked well pleased.

“It is a good place to live in,” he said at length. “Of course I don’t want to spend all my days here. I must go out into the world and do something there, some day. But since the Fates have decreed a period of idleness for me just now—vwell, I can’t say I shall make a trouble of it. Fair Haven is a good place to be in, and we will have some rare good times together— just you and I, as we did when we were kiddies, long ago.”

I clasped my hands together as a flood of reminiscence rushed over me. Since Roy had been so much from home, first at school and then at college, my life had been rather a lonely although always a happy one. I had no sister, and the place was a very quiet one to live in. Even in the holidays I did not always get Roy to myself. Sometimes he broucht home a friend with him, and when boys are together girls are voted a bore—though Roy was always tender towards my feelings—and later on, when the friends were Oxford undergraduates, mother had preferred my remaining at home with her when the boys went out fishing or boating. This had seemed to me rather hard, since Roy’s Oxford friends were so much nicer to me than his schoolfellows had been. But mother was rather strict with me, in her very gentle way, and I never rebelled against her rule.

But now I was to have Roy for my very own. He had done with Oxford. He had passed a brilliant examination. But the strain had been too much for him. He had been ill for several weeks. It was not till August came that we got him home, and then he came looking very frail and thin and white, although he declared himself “as fit as anything,” and laughed at me for wanting to nurse him.

“Aunt Joan gave me nursing enough to last a lifetime!” he would say laughingly. “She’s a rare old brick, Aunt Joan. It was awfully good of her to come

OUR HOME AT FAIR HAVEN. II to me and take me away to her place when I could move, and cocker me up till I could get home. I don’t quite know what I should have done without her, and that’s a fact.”

“TI begged and prayed to be allowed to go to you myself, Roy,” I said, with something like tears in my eyes; “but mother said it was quite, quite impossible—”

“Of course it was, Cissy—quite impossible. Why, I was four weeks in my rooms in college. Aunt Joan put up at The Mitre, and came backwards and forwards; and old Hawke stayed up with me, and they took care of me together: then Aunt Joan carried us both off to her house for a spell. She could live in Oxford and do things you couldn't. It was awfully good of her. And I was no end glad that she should take a fancy to poor old Hawke too. He’s a rattling good fellow, but such an odd fish. But they seemed to hit it off together; and he’s there still.”

“But it was horrid for us having you so ill—just when we thought you would be coming back covered with glory and renown! And to think that mother couldn’t go to you, and that I mightn’t! It is horrid sometimes to be a girl, and never allowed to do anything! If I had been old like Aunt Joan, I could have come to you directly.”

“ Well, that disease will cure itself in time,” said Roy, with a laugh. “I wanted you badly enough, Cis; I can tell you that, if it is any satisfaction to you to know.

I never was homesick before, since first I went to school. But I was horribly homesick as I lay in my hot little rooms, with my head splitting from morning to night, till I didn’t know how to bear the pain. I used just to long and long and long for the lap of the water against the terrace wall here, for the feel of the breeze blowing from Old Tom’s head there, for the power to plunge into the cool green waves, and feel them close over my burning head. I used to think that I should be well directly if they would let me go home. It was a great disappointment when I found I was only to go as far as Hurst Royal at first. But here I am at last; and now we will make up for lost time with a vengeance !”

He did not look like any very wild feats of strength even now. He was very, very thin and white, and his eyes looked too large for his face. But to have him back at all, able to sit about on the terrace and chatter to me of his doings at Oxford, or lounge in the boat with the tiller in his hand, whilst I managed the sail, was happiness for me. I had been so long alone, and Roy was so great a part of my life.

How handsome he was, I thought, as I sat opposite to him to-day. He was wonderfully like our delicate invalid mother in feature; and she had been a notable beauty twenty years ago, and was very lovely still. He had a very fine head, and a brow broad and intellectual, with beautiful hazel eyes, and silky brown hair with a crisp wave in it. His colouring was very bright when he was in health, almost like that of a girl; though now his face bore the traces of a serious illness. He was tall and slight, and looked more so than ever just now. But there was always a buoyant, breezy brightness about him which was invigorating, and which made his presence in the house a joy and delight.

“Tell me all the news,” he said, as he presently rose ; and we sauntered down the long flight of steps to the lowest of the three terraces, against the walls of which lapped the blue water of the harbour. Fair Haven was built upon the mouth of a tidal river, and just behind the promontory on our left lay the little fishing town, hidden entirely from us by the wood-crowned ridge. Opposite lay breezy moorlands and wooded slopes, reflected in the clear waters of the harbour; and away to the right was the open sea, guarded on either side by a magnificent headland—Old Tom and his wife, as the fisher folk called them, though on the map they went by more dignified names. Woods ran down to the sea on both sides of Fair Haven. It was one of the fairest spots in all the land, J think. I had never known a different home, and I had scarcely ever passed more than a few nights away from our sea-girt abode.

Our home itself was a long, low white house, with a pillared portico in front, looking due south over the waters of the harbour. From the house the ground fell away so steeply that our garden was little more than a succession of terraces, the last and lowest of which was also the largest, and was bounded by a low sea-wall, against which the water always lapped, save at very low spring-tides, and over which the spray sometimes dashed in winter storms, although, owing to the shelter of wooded heights above, we never had the sea dashing over into the garden.

This lowest terrace was my favourite place of resort. I had had a little study built there, where I sat for hours, with my books and the dogs for company. There were several great trees growing, which afforded pleasant shade in hot weather; and flowers bloomed brightly in beds the summer through, whilst the borders beneath the towering wall behind were always gay with tall lilies, brilliant phloxes, hollyhocks, dahlias, and rose-bushes of every sort according to season. The climate was so mild that we had flowers of one sort or another almost all the year round; and all up the great terrace walls fruit-trees had been trained, and we had only to stretch out our hands to gather luscious pears, hot yellow plums, or peaches downy and full of juice, according to the season.

Roy’s hands were full of plums now as he sat upon the terrace wall, looking down into the gently-lapping water.

“Ah! this is what I used to dream of as I lay in those little stuffy rooms at Oxford. Tell me all the news, Cissy. What has happened to everybody since I went away ?”

I told him all I could think of, all the little items of news respecting the fisher folk and simple village people with whom we had grown up. It would not be interesting to others, but it interested Roy. He and I had gone about amongst them since we were quite tiny children. Our nurse was a Fair Haven woman, and through her we had come to have an intimate knowledge of the place.

My collie dog came and laid his head against Roy’s knee, and wagged his feathery tail gently to and fro in response to the touch of a caressing hand. Chips, Roy’s fox-terrier, played an endless game upon the grass with my little red dachshund, who combined in amusing fashion the deep solemnity of the hound with the exuberant spirits of puppyhood. Chips and Wuppy (his real pedigree name was Cobus, but he had never been called anything but puppy or Wuppy) had begun to play immediately upon introduction four days ago, and they had hardly ceased since. When absolute exhaustion obliged them to pause, they would take refuge beneath the shade of separate trees, and lie looking at each other with wide-open mouths and lolling tongues. Then after a very short space Wuppy would commence rolling over on his back, uttering extraordinary sounds ; or Chips would stand very upright, as if on springs, quivering in every limb; and the next minute there would be a rush and a yap, and the game would be in full swing again.

As we talked together, we watched the dogs at their play, often pausing to laugh at their antics and gambols. Poor Monk, who was used to some of Wuppy’s attentions, was quite left out in the cold now. Wuppy was one of those dogs who always delight in fresh canine company. Monk was always there. He could play with him whenever. he liked, and he ruled the gentle collie with a rod of iron. But Chips was a new importation—new to Wuppy, whom I had only owned for a few months myself. Therefore he appeared to think he must bestow exclusive attention upon him, and as Chips was as full of play as a young monkey, the arrangement appeared to answer very well.

“And how about our friends the Lavenders’?” asked Roy, with a twinkle in his eye. “Is Lady Lavender as gushing as ever? And does mother still regard them as the sweetest people in the world ?”

“T fancy so,” I answered, with a little shrug of the shoulders ; “they are always sweet to her. But I don’t think anybody could help that, she is so sweet herself. Oh, they are just as usual. I am growing rather fond of Hilda, though. She used to be such a prickly creature one could never get at her. But I think she’s really got more in her than any of the rest. Lady Lavender thinks everything of Amy and nothing of Hilda; but I’ve come to a different conclusion.”

“And Nigel and Tom?” queried Roy.

“Tom’s not a bad sort of boy; but he’s not much at (934)

home. Nigel never changes the least. He’s a born prig, and I don’t think anything will ever get the priggishness out of him.”

“ He’s a good-looking chap too, and clever,” said Roy.

“ And doesn’t he know it too!” I retorted, with the intolerant scorn of youth.

The Lavenders were not only our nearest neighbours, but they were almost the only people in our own rank of life who lived anywhere at all near.

In addition to this, mother and Lady Lavender were both widows, and perhaps it was natural that they ‘should have drawn rather closely together in consequence. Both had children to bring up and property to look after; although our estate was a very small one, as from its position the house could not well command any extensive grounds; and we owned only a small part of the surrounding country, the rest being almost entirely the property of the Lavenders. __

Our eldest brother, Garth, of whom I have not yet spoken, because he was with his regiment and away from home, was about the same age as Nigel, the present Lord Lavender, and both were several years older than Roy. Nigel would be thirty next birthday, and Garth was Just twenty-nine. Roy was but twenty-two, and I was Just one year younger. We had always known the Lavenders very well in one way. They had been our friends and neighbours. I had done lessons with Hilda and Amy, and the boys had gone shooting and boating

(934) 2 | together in the holidays. But I don’t think that either Roy or I had ever cared very much for them. They had too much of what Roy used to call “the flavour of the paragon” about them to please us. And since I had grown out of going there for lessons, and the girls had been taken abroad and to London a good deal, I had seen considerably less of them.

We always stayed at home—at least mother and I did. She had been more or less of an invalid ever since I could remember. So that when the Lavenders took to going away for the London season, for country house visits, and for foreign travel, which happened when Hilda and Amy were both out of the schoolroom, the constant intercourse between us diminished very much. There had been years when I had hardly seen anything of them at all, and they grew in a fashion to be almost like strangers to me.

Latterly, however, they had come back, and talked of settling down at any rate for the autumn and winter. I had begun to see a little more of them since their last arrival, and, as I was telling Roy, I had begun to feel more interest in the elder daughter than I had ever done.

“Amy is engaged,” I went on. “Did I tell you in my letters? No? Well, she is. She is to be married next year to a rich man of good family. She fancies herself a good deal about it; but it isn’t interesting when one has never seen the creature! I suppose

OUR HOME AT FAIR HAVEN. 1g he'll come down in the shooting season and make the acquaintance of the neighbourhood. Amy is looked upon as a success, and Hilda as a failure. I suppose, perhaps, that is why I begin to like Hilda better !”

“She always had lots more in her than Amy.”

“Yes; only you couldn't get at it at once. But she begins to be more easy now. I think if I had her down here to myself I could make her talk. She’s not pretty and pink and white like Amy, but I call her much more interesting. Amy is nothing but a doll. I[ like Hilda’s face much better; though, when she is in one of her queer moods, she looks very dark and heavy. But _ when she does brighten up she can look very handsome. I’ve been quite surprised sometimes.”

Roy nodded assent.

“It’s often the way with those black-browed, darkskinned girls. They are ugly ducklings when they are young, and then turn out the beauties of the family. So Amy is engaged, is she? Well, she'll like that very much. Nigel hasn’t taken to himself a wife, of course ? I should have heard that news if he had. He and Garth seem of one mind in that. They are in no haste to enter into the bonds of matrimony.”

“T should think not; it must be much jollier to be free. Garth loves his soldiering, and they say he makes a very good officer. He wrote that perhaps he should be moved to Watchet Bay for the winter. If he is, we shall see lots of him. That would be delightful, would it not ?”

_

Roy’s eyes brightened. Both he and I were very fond and proud of our elder brother, as we had some cause to be. Garth’s career had been a brilliant one. He was in a rather dashing cavalry regiment, and had been a captain for some little time. He was very popular with his men, he was the chosen friend of his colonel, and everybody predicted a successful future for him. He had a rather large private income now, and had the reputation of being generous though wise in his liberality. We at home had reason to feel proud of him, although we saw very much less of him than we should have liked. When his leave came, he was inundated by invitations ; and although he always spent some of his time at Fair Haven, yet he could not altogether disregard other claims.

So the idea of having him stationed within a few miles was a very welcome one for us both.

“Tt would be first-rate,” said Roy. “Nothing could be better, just the winter that I shall be at home! We should have first-rate times. There would be all sorts of fun going on if his regiment were at Watchet Bay. Mother has never cared for you to go to the military balls or into that set before ; but if Garth were there, it would be quite different.”

“Of course it would; mother even said that herself. She said that it was really time I went out a little more. She said perhaps Lady Lavender would act as chaperon ; or else she would ask Aunt Joan to come.

So I think if you are at home and Garth at Waitchet Bay, we shall really have some fun in the winter for a change.”

“Oh, we'll have Aunt Joan across!” cried Roy. “I'd much sooner see you under her care than under Lady Lavender’s. No, no, Cis; don’t make a face over Aunt Joan. You don’t know her as I do now. I used to think she was rather queer; but it’s a sort of queerness that the world would do better for more of. She's a regular downright brick. You'll find that out for yourself one of these days.”

“Well, if you like her, Roy, I suppose I shall,” I admitted. “We generally do like the same people. And it was very good of her to go to you at Oxford. But, all the same, I have always had a notion that she is a sort of an ogress. We used to be horribly frightened at her as children, and I have hardly seen her since.”

“Ah yes! When she used to be called in of old, it was when mother had spoiled us till we had become unmanageable, and Aunt Joan was requisitioned to get us into order again. But that sort of thing has gone by now. We used to laugh over it together under the trees at Hurst Royal. By-the-bye, Cissy, Aunt Joan has told me that she has made me her heir. She wants me to live after her at Hurst Royal. She said it had been in her mind since the day she stood godmother for me and gave me my name. I had never thought of such a thing; but she has. Of course she isn’t old yet, and I should hope she would go on for years and years. But she has made up her mind that I am to come after her some day.”

“QO Roy, that is nice of her. I shall like her now for being fond of you. Mother always says that Hurst Royal is a beautiful place.”

“So it is; and you should see how she rules there! It has taught me a thing or two, I can tell you. And Aunt Joan is an awfully clever woman, too. You should hear old Hawke go on about her. And the library there—it’s just a paradise for a bookworm! When Hawke once got inside it he couldn’t tear himself away. I believe he sat up till daylight the first night. It was that which made Aunt Joan ask him to stay on whilst I came home. Otherwise I meant to have brought him ‘back with me.”

“Oh, Iam glad you did not, Roy—not just at first. I want you all to myself; and Mr. Hawke is quite old, isn’t he? I mean a good bit older than you—a, sort of don?”

“Well, he’s just got a fellowship these last months, and I’m awfully glad about it. He really deserves it, for he’s a splendid scholar ; but he’s always been handicapped by his poverty. I don’t think anybody knows tthe self-denial and struggle he went through during his course. Scholarships did a lot; but he had to supplement it by all sorts of shifts. I believe he often went without really sufficient food, because he had hardly money to pay his way sometimes!”

“O Roy!”

“Well, I know I had my suspicions. I used to make him come to my rooms. That was how we began to chum. He helped me no end, and I made him breakfast with me, and coach me. He had other pupils, too; but there are lots of expenses living up there, and prizes and exhibitions don’t do everything. However, he’s all right now, and he'll be as happy as a king in his quarters in college. Most likely he will be made librarian by-and-by, and then he will have nothing left to wish for.” |

“That would be rather dull, don’t you think ?” I said, laughing. “Half the fun of life is in looking forward and making plans about what we should like to do.”

“So itis. By the way, if old Garth should suddenly take it into his head to marry and settle down here, we should have to think about our favourite plan of establishing ourselves in the Hermitage over there, and having our own little independent establishment together.”

Roy looked across the harbour as he spoke,-towards a wooded creek not far from which plied the ferry between the opposite banks of the tidal river, upon the mouth of which Fair Haven was situated.

Over on the other side there were very few houses ; but there was just a tiny cluster of cottages near to the ferry, a few scattered farmsteads sprinkled over the downs, a tiny little old Norman church called Holy Cross, with an equally tiny, if not equally ancient, rectory house attached; and to the colony over the water the name of Pinetree Creek had been given, probably from the beautiful growth of pine trees that ran down almost to the water’s edge at that place.

There was one other house belonging to that little community, but it was hardly ever occupied. It went by the name of The Hermitage, and it well deserved its sobriquet.

The creek ran inland for about a quarter of a mile, and The Hermitage was at its farther end. No other house stood near it. It was quite alone, buried in wood on the land side, and with the water lapping the garden wall upon the other. The house itself lay in a little hollow, and was said to be hopelessly damp. The garden had long been a tangled wilderness. In our mild climate vegetation grew luxuriantly, and the flowering shrubs were a sight to behold in the spring and early summer. The garden of The Hermitage was a paradise of beauty at some seasons of the year; but with the fall of the leaf it became dank and dreary to a terrible extent, and no tenant had ever been found willing to remain a second winter there.

But Roy and I love the place. Jt had fascinated us from our childhood. It seemed a sort of “no man’s land,” where we could do anything we chose, and live free from all control or observation. Often and often had we taken the boat across and spent the whole day playing in the wild, unkept garden. We knew of a way by which the empty house might be entered, and to us it was our castle and fortress, where we played delightful games, and brought our secret treasures. We always declared that when we were grown up we would come here and live, whilst Garth and his wife (we used always to presuppose that Garth would marry in time) would live at Wyverne Court and take care of mother.

Wyverne Court belonged to Garth now, but mother had the right to live there during her lifetime; and I am sure that nobody Garth would have thought of marrying would wish to turn her away. Mother and Aunt Joan had been co-heiresses of the wealth of the Royals. Aunt Joan had the family property and a handsome income, and mother had a very large fortune, I believe. Perhaps that was the reason why both Roy and I came into a small income on attaining our majority. Father had arranged it so. He made Roy and me equal; and, though it was nothing very grand in the way of wealth, we always declared, and with truth, that it would keep us (with our dogs, and even a horse or two) in comfortable affluence in such a small and unpretentious place as The Hermitage.

We had not spoken of this childish dream for some years, | think—Roy having been taken up with college life, and Garth showing no disposition to make Wyverne Court his home. Now, when I saw him look over the water towards the thick group of pines, I cried out suddenly, —

“Q Roy—I never told you! I kept it till you should be back again. The Hermitage is let at last !”

“Let, is it? No, you never told me that. Well, I daresay it will be empty again before we want it.”

“JT daresay. Nobody stays. I don’t suppose Miss Lucas will either. She’s evidently queer.”

“Miss Lucas? An old maid, eh? What’s she like? and how long has she been there ?”

“She came about Christmas, they say; but we never heard a word about it till quite a long time afterwards. It’s a mercy you didn’t come home at Easter, or we might have gone prowling about her garden without a notion that anybody was there. Nobody knows her. Nobody calls. Old Mr. Phillimore pays a duty visit, people say, about once in two months; but everybody else fights shy.”

“Why ?”

“ Well, I suppose, because nobody knew at first. You know what The Hermitage is like. A dozen tenants might come and go, and if they chose to live like anchorites, we should be none the wiser. She draws supplies from Stark Ho, not from here or Watchet Bay, just as though she wanted not to be noticed or called upon. Nota creature knew of her existence till quite the spring; and then, as nobody knew anything about her, nobody called. I think everybody is rather afraid of her.”

“ Criminal in hiding, or lunatic in retirement?” suggested Roy, with a laugh.

“Well, perhaps. Anyhow it seems queer, and she has never been seen outside her own grounds, except on Sunday, when she goes to Holy Cross Church, where, of course, nobody from this side goes. I’ve never seen her crossing the ferry, and I don’t much think she’s ever been over to Fair Haven. It seems altogether queer ; and as Lady Lavender says to mother, ‘It is impossible for us to take notice of a person who hides away like that. Most likely she has only too good a reason for doing so. It would be impossible to call without knowing more, and there appears to be no way of obtaining information.’ ”

Roy laughed; for I had half-unconsciously mimicked Lady Lavender’s slow and slightly-mincing tones, and we had always made rather a jest of Lady Lavender from our childhood upward.

“ Poor old thing! it seems rather a shame though.”

“What does ?”

“Why, to leave her out in the cold, and for nobody to go near her. It can’t be very lively at The Hermitage, with never a soul to speak to from year’s end to years end. I never can see what it matters about who people are and where they come from. I go by what they are themselves.”

“Yes; but nobody knows Miss Lucas.”