"I'm accustomed to it. Jean will be delighted with an ally. She pretends to disapprove. But Roger and I are generally too much for her."

"Is he a master, then?"

"Good gracious, no! But he has a lot of friends at the school. He ought to be interested--it's his land, you know. His people lived there for generations--the Lumsdens of Dene Compton. The head master has the old house, but the school itself is new--all those buildings you see. No, not those--" Alwynne's eyes were caught by a glitter of gla.s.s roofs--"those are Roger's houses. He's a gardener, you know. He lives for his bulbs and his manures."

The tiny cart rocked as the pony bucketed down the dip of the road and whirled it through the gates and up the short drive. Alwynne clutched the inadequate rail.

"He will do it," said Alicia resignedly. "He wants his tea. There's Jean. Mind the door."

She pulled up the rocketing pony as the ridiculous little door burst open and Alwynne and her baggage were precipitated on to the gravel.

A little woman ran out from the porch.

"Are you hurt? It always does that. I'm always asking Alicia to tell Bryce to take it to be seen to. Alicia--I shall speak to Roger if you don't. My dear, I hope you haven't hurt yourself. That pretty frock--but it will all brush off. And how is Elsbeth, and why didn't you bring her with you? Come in at once and have some tea. Alicia has driven round to the stables. It's Bryce's afternoon off."

Jean was a prim little red-haired woman, some years younger than Alicia, with brisk ways, and a clacking tongue. She had Alwynne in a chair, had given her tea, deplored her white looks, suggested three infallible remedies, recounted their effect on her own const.i.tution and Alicia's and her nephew's, and, digressing easily, was beginning a detailed history of Roger's health since, at the age of five or thereabouts, he had come under her care, before Alwynne had had time to realise more than that the room was very cheerful, Jean very talkative, and she herself very, very tired. She could not help being relieved when Alicia returned. Jean, with her neat dress and knowledgeable ways and little air of apologising for her slap-dash elder, should, by all the rules, have been the more reliable of the cousins. Yet Alwynne turned instinctively to Alicia; and Alicia, spread upon a chair, fanning herself cyclonically with her enormous hat, did not fail her.

"Jean! The child's as white as a sheet. You can ask about Elsbeth to-morrow, and Roger will keep. Take her up to her room, leave her to unpack and lie down in peace and quiet, and come back and give me my tea. Supper's at seven, Alwynne. Take my advice and have a good rest.

There are plenty of books--oh, yes, I know all about your likes and dislikes. Elsbeth's a talker too--on paper! Jean--if you're not down in five minutes, I'll come and fetch you."

Alwynne, half an hour later, curled comfortably upon a sofa, in front of a blazing fire, with a lazy hour before her and a Copperfield upon her knee, thought that Alicia was a perfect dear. And Jean? Jean, pulling out the sofa, poking the fire, pattering about her like a too intelligent terrier--Jean was a dear too.... They were a couple of comical dears.

And "The Dears" was Alwynne's name for them from that day on.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Alwynne settled down with an ease that surprised herself. Much as she loved the country, a country life would have bored her to death, Clare had often a.s.sured her, as a permanent state; but for a few weeks it was certainly delightful. She enjoyed pottering about the garden with Jean, and jogging into the village on her own account behind the obstinate pony, who, approving her taste in apples, allowed her to believe that she more or less regulated his direction and pace. She enjoyed the complicated smells of the village store, half post office, half emporium, and the taste of its gargantuan bulls'-eyes. She sent, in the first enthusiasm of discovery, a tinful heaped about with early primroses to Clare; but Clare was not impressed.

Clare disapproved strongly of Alwynne's holiday, needed her too much to allow it necessary. Her first letters were a curious mixture--half fretfulness over Alwynne's absence, half a.s.surance of how perfectly well she, Clare, got on without her. Alwynne would have been exquisitely amazed could she have known how eagerly Clare awaited her bi-weekly budget. Alwynne was afraid her letters were dull enough. She apologised constantly--

_Of course, Clare, this will seem very small beer to you--but little things are important down here. It's all so quiet, you see.

I've been perfectly happy this morning because I found a patch of white violets in a clearing, and Jean and Alicia were just as excited when I told them at lunch: and we went off with a tea-basket afterwards, and dug violet roots for an hour, or more, and then spread our mackintoshes over a felled trunk and made tea.

The ground was sopping, but it was fun. You'd love my cousins.

They're as old as Elsbeth but full of beans, and they've travelled and are interesting--only they will talk incessantly about this nephew they've got. It's "Roger" this and "Roger" that--he seems to rule them with a rod of iron--can't do wrong! He comes back next week. I rather wonder what he'll be like. The Dears make him out a paragon; but I'm expecting a prig, myself! There are photographs of him all over the place. He's quite good-looking._

But before Alwynne could tire of the lanes and village, of gardening with Jean, and hints of how Roger stubbed up roots and handled bulbs, Alicia had provided her with a new interest. She remembered her promise one morning and took her up to Dene Compton.

Alicia gave Italian lessons twice a week, and from her Alwynne had gleaned many quaint details of the school and its workings. What she heard interested her, though she was prepared to be merely, if indulgently, amused. She looked forward to the visit if only to get copy for a letter to Clare. Clare, too, liked to be amused.

The gong was clanging for the mid-morning break when Alicia, Alwynne in her wake, led the way into the main building, and waving her airily towards a mound of biscuits, bade her help herself and look about her for a while, because she, Alicia, had got to speak to--She dived into the crowd.

Alwynne, thus deserted, stood shyly enough in a roofed corner of the great brick quadrangle, munching a fair imitation of a dog-biscuit, and watching the boys and girls who swarmed past her as undisturbed by her presence as if she were invisible. At the boys she smiled indulgently as she would have smiled at a string of lively terriers, but of the girls she was sharply critical. They wore curious, and as she thought hideous, serge tunics: she jibbed at their utilitarian plaits: but she conceded a good carriage to most of them and was impressed by a certain pleasant fearlessness of manner. A couple of men, Alicia, and a bright, emphatic woman in a nurse's uniform, wandered through the crowd, which made way courteously enough, but seemed otherwise in no degree embarra.s.sed by their propinquity. Alwynne had a sudden memory of Clare's triumphal processions; compared them uneasily with the fashion of these quiet people.

She watched a small girl dash panting to the loggia at the opposite side of the quadrangle, where a slight man in disreputable tennis-shoes, leaned against a shaft and observed the pleasant tumult. There was a moment's earnest consultation, and the small girl darted away again and disappeared down a corridor. The man resumed his former pose--head on one side, smiling a little.

Alwynne ventured out of her corner and caught at Alicia as she pa.s.sed.

"Cousin Alice! I like all this. I'm glad you brought me. Who's that?"

She nodded towards the man in tennis-shoes.

"The Head."

"The head-master?"

"Why not?"

"But--but--when Miss Marsham comes in--you can hear a pin drop----Is he nice?"

Alicia laughed.

"I'll introduce you."

She did.

"Well," said Alicia with a twinkle as they walked home together later, "what did you think of him?"

Alwynne flushed, but she laughed too.

"Cousin Alice--it was too bad of you. He just said 'How do you do?' and smiled politely. Then he said nothing at all for five minutes, and then he clutched at one of the girls and handed me over to her with another smile--an immensely relieved one--and drifted away. I've never been so snubbed in my life."

"You're not the first one. So you didn't like him?"

"Oh--I liked him," conceded Alwynne grudgingly.

They walked on in silence for a while.

"What's that?" Alwynne pointed to a large grey building half way down the avenue.

"The girls' house, Hill Dene. They sleep there; and have the needlework cla.s.ses, and housewifery, I believe."

"Do they have everything else with the boys?"

"Practically."

"Does it answer?"

"Why not? Girls with brothers and boys with sisters have an advantage over the solitary specimens, everybody knows. This is only extending the principle."

Alwynne giggled suddenly.

"You know that girl he dumped me on to--she was showing me round, and we ran into some boys in the gym. I couldn't make out why, but she jolly well sent them flying."

"Out of hours, I expect."

"But the coolness of it, Cousin Alice! She was a bit of a thing--the boys were half as high again!"