Robinette

“ Mrs. de Tracy was in her usual chair, knitting; Miss Smeardon sat by the table with a piece of fancy-work; Robinette had pulled a foot-stool to the hearthrug and sat as near the flames as she conveniently could. She shielded her face with the last copy of Punch, and let her shoulders bask in the warmth of the fire, which made flickering shadows on her creamy neck. Her white skirts swept softly round her feet, and her favourite turquoise scarf made a note of colour in her lap. She was one of those women who, without positive beauty, always make pictures of themselves. ”

“ Loring know of his arrival, as they had agreed he should do, he went along the flagged pathway into the garden, and sat down on the edge of the low wall that divided it from the river. Just in front of him was the little worn bench where he had first seen Robinette as she sat beside her old nurse with the tiny shoe on her lap. It was scarcely a fortnight ago; yet it seemed to him that he could hardly remember the kind of man he had been that afternoon; a new self, full of a new purpose, and at that moment of a new hope, had taken the place of the objectless being he had been before. ”

“ His sense of time must have suffered some strange confusion; in one way it seemed only an hour ago that he had arrived from the clangour and darkness of London to the silence of the country, the cuckoos calling across the river between the wooded hills, and the April sunshine on the orchard trees; in another, years might have passed since the moment when he first saw Robinette Loring sitting under Mrs. Prettyman’s plum tree. ”

“ You may be sure, after having eaten these good things, Robinette was always watching for the ladies, and he hopped beside them and sang to them as they walked or worked in the garden. He was soon tame enough to eat from their hands, and Polly, looking upon him as a great curiosity, wished to show him off to some gentlemen friends. But Robinette obstinately refused to be made a spectacle of. Not the most enticing crumbs would bring him to her hands if strangers were near, particularly of the male sex. He had no faith in men. ”

“ Robinette said, and Carnaby stared so hard at her, that to her intense annoyance she blushed hotly.
“Horrid lynx-eyed boy,” she said to herself as she ran upstairs, “He’s growing up far too quickly. He needs to be snubbed.” She dashed to the wardrobe, pulled out the black garment, and gave it a vindictive shake. “Old, dowdy, unbecoming, deaconess-district-visitor-bible-woman, great-grand-auntly thing!” she cried.
Then her eye lighted on a cherished lavender satin. ”

“ I’d wait a lifetime! There never was anybody like you in the world!”
The words were said half under the boy’s breath and the emotion in his tone was a complete and disagreeable surprise. Here was something that must be nipped in the bud, instantly and courageously. Robinette dropped Carnaby’s arm and said: “We’ll talk that over at once, Middy dear, but first you shall race me to the top of the twisting path, down past the tulip beds, to the seat under the big ash tree.––Come on!” ”

“ Robinette had seated herself on a low wall beside him. Her little embroidered futility of a handkerchief was in her hand once more. “A rose and a smile! that’s all we could give it,” she said; “and we would either of us share some of that burden if we only could.” She watched the merry, healthy children playing beside them, and added, “After all let us comfort ourselves that brown cheeks and fat legs are in the majority. Rightness somehow or other must be at the root of things, or we shouldn’t be a living world at all.” ”

“ Prettyman’s wrongs. Besides, he did not wish Robinette to be banished from the drawing room for a whole interminable evening. He contrived to silence Carnaby for the time being.
“Let’s bury the hatchet for a little while,” he suggested. “Have you forgotten, Mrs. Loring, that I made Mrs. de Tracy promise to show off the Stoke Revel jewels for your benefit this very night?”
“O! but now I’m in disgrace, she won’t!” said Robinette.
“Yes, she will!” said Carnaby. “Nothing puts the old lady in such a heavenly temper as showing off the jewels. Don’t you miss it, Cousin Robin! ”

“ Robinette had vanished soon after luncheon and the middy had been dull, so after loitering around for a while, he too had disappeared upon some errand 152 of his own. Lavendar walked very slowly toward the avenue gateway, then he turned and came back. He could scarcely believe his good fortune when he saw Mrs. Loring come out of the house, and pause at the door as if uncertain of her next movements. ”

“ Then she came and sat down again.
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“Tell me now, how much do you have to live on every week, Nurse?” she asked.
“Oh, Miss Robinette––ma’am, I should say––’t is wonderful how I gets on; and then there’s the plum tree––just see the flourish on it, Missie dear! ’T will have a crop o’ plums come autumn will about drag down the boughs! I don’t know how ’t would be with me without I had the plum tree.”
“Do you really make something by it?” Robinette asked.
The old woman chuckled again. “To be sure I makes; makes jam every autumn; a sight o’ jam. ”

“ Carnaby handled a boat well, for he had been born a sailor, as it were, and his long, powerful strokes took him along at a fine pace. But although he was going to look for Robinette and Mark, he was rather angry with both of them, and in no hurry. He rested on his oars indifferently and let the tide carry him up as it liked, while, with infinite zest, he unearthed a cigarette case from the recesses of his person, lit a cigarette, and smoked it coolly. ”

“ Loring. She’s a nice creature; I’m glad you like her!’”
Robinette’s imitation of Carnaby’s possible pomposity was so amusing and so clever that it drew a laugh from the boy in spite of himself.
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“Just let anyone try to call you a ‘creature’!” he exclaimed. “He’d have me to reckon with! Oh! I am so tired of being a boy! The inside of me is all grown up and everybody keeps on looking at the outside and thinking I’m just the same as I always was!”
“Dear old Middy, you’re quite old enough to be my protector and that is what you shall be! Now shall we go in? ”

“ Don’t step in!” shrieked Robinette, “I’ve confided a shoe already to the river-mud! I just put my foot in a bit, to test it, and down the poor foot went and came up without its shoe. Oh, Middy dear, if your young life––”
“Blow my young life!” retorted Carnaby. He was performing gymnastics on the edge of his boat, letting himself down and heaving himself up, by the strength of his arms. His legs were covered with mud.
“No go!” he said. “It’s as deep as the pit here; sometimes you can find a rock or a hard bit. We must just wait.” ”

“ Come on, Middy dear, let’s walk.”
Robinette wore a white serge dress and jacket, and her hat was a rough straw turned 118 up saucily in two places with black owls’ heads. Mrs. Benson and Little Cummins had looked at it curiously while Robinette was at breakfast.
“’Tis black underneath and white on top, Mrs. Benson. ’Ow can that be? It looks as if one ’at ’ad been clapped on another!”
“That’s what it is, Cummins. It’s a double hat; but they’ll do anything in America. It’s a double hat with two black owls’ heads, and I’ll wager they charged double price for it!” ”

“ He said them now, and the results seemed likely to be fatal to a dropsical animal so soon after a full meal.
“You’ll kill him!” whispered Robinette as they left the dining room.
“I mean to!” was the calm reply. “I’d like to wring old Smeardon’s neck too!” but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling eyes, belied these truculent words. In spite of infinite powers of mischief, there was not an ounce of vindictiveness in Carnaby de Tracy, though there might be other qualities difficult to deal with.
“There’s a man to be made there––or to be marred!” said Robinette to herself. ”

“ Robinette stared at the stretches of ooze, 166 and then stole a look at Mark Lavendar. “The idea of calling that man a jilt,” she thought. “Look at his eyes; look at his mouth; listen to his voice; there is truth in them all. Oh for a sight of the girl he jilted! How much it would explain! No, not altogether, because the careless making of his engagement would have to be accounted for, as well as the breaking of it. Unless he did it merely to oblige her––and men are such idiots sometimes,––then he must have fancied he was in love with her. ”

“ Robinette remarked 184 to Lavendar as they stood together at the doorway in the sunshine, while Carnaby chased the lap-dog round and round the lawn.
“I had only two letters; one was from my sister Amy, the candid one! her letters are not generally exhilarating.”
“Oh, I know, home letters are usually enough to send one straight to bed with a headache! They never sound a note of hope from first to last; although if you had no home, but only a house, like me, with no one but a caretaker in it, you’d be very thankful to get them, doleful or not.” ”

“ Lavendar and the boy would have prolonged their respite in the smoking room had they dared, but in these later days Lavendar found he wished to be below on guard. The thought of Robinette alone between the two women downstairs made him uneasy. It was as though some bird of bright plumage had strayed into a barnyard to be pecked at by hens. Not but what he realised that this particular bird had a spirit of her own, and plenty of courage, but no man with even a prospective interest in a pretty woman, likes to think of the object of his admiration as thoroughly well able to look after herself. ”

“ There! there!” cried Robinette, “the tide is coming up again, and the mud banks off in that direction are all covered with water! I see somebody in a boat, rowing towards us with superhuman energy. Oh! if I hadn’t worn a white dress! It will not come smooth; and my lovely French hat is ruined by the dampness! My one shoe shows how inappropriately I was shod, and whoever is 169 coming will say it is because I am an American. He will never know you wouldn’t let me go upstairs and dress properly.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” rejoined Mark, “because it is only Carnaby coming. ”

“ I’d stand the shame of it, if you could only know, but, alas, one can’t show off one’s worst moments to order; they must be hit upon unexpectedly.”
“I don’t believe thirty years of life would teach one about some people––they are so crevicey,” said Robinette musingly. She had risen and leaned against the plum tree for a moment, looking up through the white branches.
Lavendar rose and stood beside her. “Thirty years––I shall be getting on to seventy in thirty years.” ”

“ Robinette cried in her heart; then she saw a bevy of girls approaching; such nice-looking girls, happy, well dressed, but all unattended by their suitable complement of young men.
“For whom do they dress, here? They’ve a deal of self-respect, I think, to go on getting themselves up so nicely for themselves and the Celibate, the Paralytic, and Carnaby,” thought Robinette, as she watched them.
Presently another couple came across the lawn; the young woman was by no means a girl, rather heavily built, with a high fixed colour. She was attended by a man. “Not the Celibate certainly,” thought Mrs. ”

“ Affairs of the heart are like thunderstorms; the atmosphere may sometimes seem charged with electricity, and yet circumstances, like a sudden wind that sweeps the clouds away before they break, may cause the lovers to drift apart. Or all in a moment may come thunder, lightning, and rain from a clear sky, and there is nothing that is apt to precipitate matters like an unexpected parting.
When Lavendar announced that he had 182 to leave Stoke Revel, two pairs of eyes, Miss Smeardon’s and Carnaby’s, instantly looked at Robinette to see how she received the news, but she only smiled at the moment. ”

“ He had contrived to get hold of the Marie Antoinette pearls without his grandmother’s knowledge and to hang them around his neck; he had poised the Montmorency tiara on his own sleek head; he had forced a heavy bracelet by way of collar round Rupert’s throat, and now with that choking and goggling unfortunate held partner-wise in his arms, he was waltzing on tiptoe about the farther drawing 249 room behind the unconscious backs of Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon.
“He’s only a careless boy,” thought Robinette, “a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care, hare-brained youngster. ”

“ Robinette obediently accompanied his mother to the ground, and Mrs. Robin [14] was glad to see how cleverly he managed both legs and wings. They found Cock Robin still haranguing his unruly family; but on seeing his wife, he concluded his remarks thus,—
“You are old enough and strong enough to do for yourselves, so off you go. Your mother and I will look after Robinette, and keep an eye on you for a day or two to see how you get on. I hope the gardener will be considerate enough to leave those worm-enticing carrots in the ground, for then there will be plenty of food for us all. ”

“ They are the de Tracy jewels. When Carnaby takes his place as the head of the house, they will be his. He will see that his wife wears them on the proper occasions.”
“Carnaby’s wife!” thought Robinette. “Why! she mayn’t be born! He may never have a wife! And to think of all those precious stones hiding their brightness in these boxes like prisoners in a dungeon for years and years, only to be let out now and then by Bates and Benson, jingling their keys like jailers! ”