.
you; my grandson has a severe attack of quinsy,” replied Mrs. de Tracy. “He is to have sick-leave whenever the Endymion returns to Portsmouth.”
“Oh! Carnaby will make short work of an attack of quinsy,” said Lavendar, genially.
“It would please me better,” retorted Mrs. de Tracy severely, “if my grandson showed signs of mental improvement as well as bodily health. His letters are ill-spelled, ill-written, and ill-expressed. They are the letters of a school-boy.”
“He is not much more than a school-boy, is he?” suggested Mark, “only fifteen! The mental improvement will come; too soon, for my taste. I like Carnaby as he is!”
The young man had seated himself beside his hostess in an attitude of perfect ease. Though bored by his present environment, he was entirely at home in it. Just because he greatly dared towards her and was never afraid, Mrs. de Tracy liked him. With the mere flicker of an eyelid, she dismissed the attendant Smeardon.
“There has been an offer for the land at Wittisham,” Lavendar said, when they were alone.
Mrs. de Tracy winced. “That is no matter of congratulation with me,” she said bleakly.
“But it is with us, for it is a most excellent one!” returned the young man hardily. “The firm has had the responsibility of advising the sale, which we consider absolutely unavoidable in the present financial condition of Stoke Revel. We have advertised for a year, and advertisement is costly. Now comes an offer of a somewhat peculiar kind, but sound enough.” Lavendar here produced a bundle of documents tied with the traditional red tape. “An artist,” he continued, “Waller, R. A.–you know the name?”
“I do not,” interpolated Mrs. de Tracy grimly.
“Nevertheless, a well known painter,” persisted Mark, “and one, as it happens, of the orchard scenery of this part of England. He has known Wittisham for a long time, and only last year he made a success with the painting of a plum tree which grows in front of one of the cottages. It was sold for a large sum, and, as a matter of sentiment, I suppose, Waller wishes to buy the cottage and make it into a summer retreat or studio for himself.”
“He cannot buy it,” said Mrs. de Tracy with the snort of a war horse.
“He cannot buy it apart from the land,” insinuated Mark, “but he is flush of cash and ready to buy the land too–very nearly as much as we want to sell, and the bargain merely waits your consent. The sum that has been agreed upon is of the kind that a man in the height of his triumph offers for a fancy article. No such sum will ever be offered for land at Wittisham again; old orchard land, falling into desuetude as it is and covered with condemned cottages.”
Mrs. de Tracy was sternly silent, and Mark awaited her next words with some curiosity. He felt like a torturer drawing the tooth of a Jew in the good old days. This sale of land was a bitter pill to the widow, as it well might be, for it was the beginning of the end, as the de Tracy solicitors could have told you. There had been de Tracys of Stoke Revel since Queen Elizabeth’s time, but there would not be de Tracys of Stoke Revel much longer,–unless young Carnaby married an heiress when he came of age–and that no de Tracy had ever done.
“The land across the river,” Mrs. de Tracy said at last, “was the first land the de Tracys held, but much of it went at the Restoration. Well, let this go too!” she added harshly.
Mark blessed himself that indecision was no part of the lady’s character and sighed with relief. “My father would like to know,” he said, “what you propose to do with regard to the old woman who is the present tenant of the cottage.”
“Elizabeth Prettyman is not a tenant,” said Mrs. de Tracy coldly. “She is practically a pensioner, since she lives rent-free.”
“True, I forgot,” said Mark soothingly. “I beg your pardon.”
“Do not suppose that it is by my wish,” continued Mrs. de Tracy coldly. “I have never approved of supporting the peasantry in idleness. This woman happened to be for some years nurse to Cynthia de Tracy, my husband’s younger sister, who deeply offended her family by marrying an American named Bean. I see no claim in that to a pension of any kind.”
“But your husband saw it, I imagine,” interpolated Mark quietly, and Mrs. de Tracy gave him a fierce look, which he met, however, without a sign of flinching.
“My husband had a mistaken idea that Prettyman was poor when she became a widow,” said Mrs. de Tracy. “On the contrary she had relations quite well able to support her, I believe. I never cross the river, in these days, and the matter has escaped my memory, so that things have been left as they were.”
“No great loss,” said Mark candidly, “since the cottage in its present state is utterly unfit for any tenant. As to Prettyman, is it your intention to give her notice to quit?”
“Unquestionably, since the cottage is needed,” answered Mrs. de Tracy. “She has occupied it too long as it is.” The speaker’s lips closed like a vice over the words.
“God pity Elizabeth Prettyman!” ejaculated Lavendar to himself. “Might is Right still, apparently, at Stoke Revel!” Aloud he merely said, “A weak deference to public opinion was never a foible of yours, Mrs. de Tracy; but I think I would advise you to consider some question of compensation to Mrs. Prettyman for the loss of the cottage.”
“If you can show me that the woman has any legal claim upon the estate, I will consider the question, but not otherwise,” said Mrs. de Tracy with such an air of finality that Lavendar was inclined to let the matter drop for the moment.
“The firm,” he said, “will communicate your wishes to Mrs. Prettyman by letter.”
“Prettyman cannot read,” snapped Mrs. de Tracy. “She must be told, and the sooner the better.”
“Well, Mrs. de Tracy,” said the young man with a short laugh, “provided it is not I who have to tell her, well and good. I warn you the task would not be to my taste unless compensation were offered her.”
Mrs. de Tracy’s features hardened to a degree unusual even to her.
“I am apparently less tender-hearted than you,” she said sardonically. “I shall, if I think fit, deal with Prettyman in person.” The subject was dropped, and Lavendar rose to leave the room, but Mrs. de Tracy detained him.
“The Admiral’s niece, Mrs. David Loring, is my guest at present,” she said. “It happens that she has crossed the river to Wittisham and is paying a visit to Prettyman. I should be obliged, Mark, if you would row across and fetch her back, as by some misunderstanding, my servant has not waited for her. You are an oarsman, I know.”
The young man consented with alacrity. “I shall kill two birds with one stone,” he said cheerfully, “I shall visit the famous plum tree cottage and see Mrs. Prettyman for myself; and I shall have the privilege of executing your commission as Mrs. Loring’s escort. It sounds a very agreeable one!”
“You have no time to lose,” said Mrs. de Tracy with a glance at the clock.
VII
A CROSS-EXAMINATION
Lavendar escaped from the house, where, even in the smoke-room, it seemed unregenerate to light a cigar, and took the path to the shore.
“I wonder if one woman staying in a house full of men would find life as depressing as I do cooped up here under precisely opposite circumstances,” he thought, as he made his way through the little churchyard. “It cannot be the atmosphere of femininity that bores me, however, for Mrs. de Tracy has a strongly masculine flavour and Miss Smeardon is as nearly neuter as a person can be.”
He took a couple of oars from the boat-house as he passed, and going to the little landing stage untied the boat and started for the farther shore.
It was good to feel the water parting under his vigorous strokes and delightful to exert his strength after the hours of stifled irritation at the Manor. It was a bright, calm close of day, when in the rarefied evening air each sound began to acquire