The girls did not much mind the condition of the weather so long as they could see to make their purchases. They spent a considerable time in the princ.i.p.al fancy-work shop of the town, and tried the patience of the a.s.sistants by demanding articles that were quite un.o.btainable. A visit to a stationer's and a confectioner's almost completed their list of requirements, and only a few extras remained to be bought. Some of the party were standing in the entrance of a big general store, waiting while Miss Herbert executed commissions for Miss Walters, when Joyce was suddenly greeted by a friend, a lady who was just about to step into her motor.

"Why, Joyce!" she exclaimed. "Have you been shopping here? So have I--look at my pile of parcels! Have you finished? Are you going straight back to school? I shall pa.s.s Chilcombe on my way home, and can take you in the car if you like, and some of your schoolfellows too. There's room for four if you don't mind squeezing!"

It seemed much too good an offer to be refused. Joyce suggested, indeed, that she ought to consult Miss Herbert, who was in an upper department of the shop, but Mrs. Baldwin declared she could not wait.

"I don't see that Miss Herbert can mind. We're quite ready to go, and it will save one taxi," urged Bertha.

So it was hastily decided for Joyce, Bertha, Doris, and Carmel to go in the car, and Noreen ran upstairs to tell Miss Herbert of the arrangement. The latter, with Hester and Ida, was choosing lamp-shades and fancy candlesticks. It was only when Noreen had gone that Carmel remembered suddenly that she had never bought the packet of chocolates which she had promised to bring back for Dulcie. She stopped with her foot on the step of the car, and excused herself.

"There's something I still have to do!" she explained. "I must come back in the taxi with the others after all! I'm so sorry!"

Mrs. Baldwin had an appointment at home, and was impatient to start, so the door was slammed on Joyce, Bertha, and Doris, and they drove away all smiles, and waving a good-by through the window. There was a sweets department close at hand in the Stores, and Carmel bought a present of chocolate for Dulcie and of b.u.t.terscotch for Lilias, then went upstairs to the lamp-shade counter to rejoin Miss Herbert and the other girls. To her surprise she found they had gone. She searched for them all round the upper story of the shop, but did not see them anywhere. She had kept a watchful eye on the stairs when buying the sweets, and was quite sure that they had not pa.s.sed down while she was there. She returned to the lamp-shade counter and questioned the a.s.sistant, who told her that she had noticed the lady and the three girls in school hats walk down another staircase which led to a side door of the stores. In much alarm, Carmel hurried that way into the street, but not a trace of them was to be seen. She walked as far as the railway station, hoping to catch them there engaging a taxi, but not a solitary conveyance of any description was on the stand. She was indeed in a fix. She saw clearly that, of course, they all supposed she had gone with Mrs. Baldwin in the car, and by this time they were probably on the road to Chilcombe without her. It was n.o.body's fault but her own.

The feeling that she had only herself to blame did not make the situation any less unpleasant. She was four and a half miles away from school, and unless she could secure a taxi, she would be obliged to walk back. She inquired from a porter, but he shook his head, and said it was unlikely there would be any cabs at the station till the express came in at six o'clock.

Carmel thanked him, and turned away with her eyes full of tears. Owing to her Sicilian education she was not accustomed to going about by herself. England was still more or less of a strange country to her, and she did not know the ways of the land. Lilias, in her place, would have gone to the princ.i.p.al hotel, explained who she was, and asked the manager to find some sort of carriage to convey her back to school. Such a course never occurred to Carmel, however; instead, she tied her numerous parcels together, blinked back her tears, set her teeth, and started forth to walk.

Fortunately, there was no mistaking the high road, and it was still comparatively early. If she put her best foot foremost she might reasonably expect to reach Chilcombe before dark. She had soon left the houses of Glazebrook behind, and was pa.s.sing between hedges and fields.

For the first mile and a half all went well; she was a little tired, but rather pleased with her own pluck. According to Sicilian customs, which are almost eastern in their guardianship of signorinas, it was an unheard-of thing for a young lady in her position to take a country walk without an escort. The remembrance of the beggars and footpads that lurked about Sicilian roads gave her uneasy twinges, and though she had been told of the comparative safety of British highways, her heart beat considerably when she pa.s.sed anybody, and she scurried along in a flutter lest some ill-intentioned person should stop and speak to her.

The farther she went from the town the fewer people were on the road, and for quite half a mile she had met n.o.body at all. She had been going steadily down a steep hill, and at the bottom she stepped suddenly into a great belt of fog that lay like a white wall in front of her. It was as if she had pa.s.sed into a country of dreams. She could scarcely see the hedges, and all round was a dense ma.s.s of mist, clammy and cold and difficult to breathe. It was silent, too, for no sound seemed to travel through it, not a bird twittered, and no animal stirred in the fields.

Carmel felt as utterly alone as if she were on the surface of the moon.

All the familiar objects of the landscape were blotted out. It was still light, but this white thick mist was worse than darkness. She stamped along for the sake of hearing her own footsteps. She wished she had a dog with her. She kept to the left-hand side of the road, and followed the hedge, hoping that the fog was only in the valley, and that she would soon pa.s.s out of it. On and on it stretched, however, till she must have been walking through it for quite twenty minutes. Then she began to grow uneasy. There was a border of gra.s.s under the hedge bank wider than she remembered noticing on the road, and the suspicion a.s.sailed her that all unknowingly she must have turned down a side lane and have lost her way.

She went forward now with doubting footsteps. Where was the path leading her? If she could only find some cottage, she could inquire. But there was no human habitation, nothing but the endless hedges and an occasional gate into a field. What was that in front of her? She stopped, and drew back with a cry of fear. Across her track gleamed water. She had almost stepped into it. Whether it was stream, pond, or river the thick mist did not reveal, but it certainly barred her footpath. She shivered, and turning round, walked back in the direction from which she had come, hoping to regain the high road.

Then a wonderful atmospheric effect was displayed. A breeze sprang up and blew aside some of the fog, and the rising moon shone down on a land of white shadows. It was impossible to tell what was real and what was unreal. On the other side of the lane stretched what appeared to be a vast lake, but might only be mist on the meadows; cloud-like ma.s.ses shaped themselves into spectral forms and rolled away into the dim and nebulous distance, where they settled into weird domes and towers and walls, a veritable elf king's castle. It was so uncanny and silent and strange that Carmel was far more frightened than she had felt before.

Old fairy tales of her childhood crowded into her mind, memories of phantoms and ghosts and goblins, the legends of Undine and the water sprites, the ballad of the Erl-King in the haunted forest. She had learnt the poem once, and she found herself repeating the words:

"'Why trembles my darling? Why shrinks he with fear?'

'Oh Father, my Father! the Erl-King is near!

The Erl-King with his crown and his beard long and white!'

'Oh! your eyes are deceived by the vapours of night!'

"'I love thee, I dote on thy face so divine!

I must and will have thee, and force makes thee mine!'

'My Father! My Father! Oh hold me now fast!

He pulls me, he hurts, and will have me at last!'"

And as if that were not bad enough, the ballad of Lenore recurred to her:

"How swift the flood, the mead, the wood, Aright, aleft are gone!

The bridges thunder as they pa.s.s, But earthly sound is none.

"Tramp, tramp, across the land they speed, Splash, splash, across the sea; 'Hurrah! the dead can ride apace, Dost fear to ride with me?'"

By this time Carmel, alone among the magic mist and moonlight, had reached a state of fear bordering on panic. She longed for anything human, and would have embraced a cow if she had met one. Through the fog in front of her suddenly loomed something dark, and the sound of horse's hoofs rang on the road. A wild vision of Lenore's spectral bridegroom presented itself to her overwrought imagination, and she shrieked in genuine terror, and shrank trembling against the hedge. The rider of the horse dismounted, and slipping his wrist through the bridle, came towards her.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you hurt? Why, great Scott! It's never Carmel!"

"Everard! Everard!" gasped Carmel, clinging desperately to his arm. "Oh!

Thank Heaven it's you! I'm lost!"

Everard comforted her for a while without asking any questions; then, when she had recovered calmness, he naturally wished to know why his pretty cousin was wandering in the country lanes by herself on a winter's evening. Man-like, he blamed the school instead of Carmel.

"They ought to have taken better care of you!" he murmured. "Why didn't the mistress hold a roll-call, and count you all?"

"It wasn't her fault. It was my own mistake!"

"Well, whoever's fault it was, the fact remains the same. You'd better get on Rajah, and I'll take you back to Chilcombe."

"Oh! that would be lovely. I'm so tired."

Perched on Rajah's back, with Everard walking by her side, life seemed a very different affair from what it had been five minutes before. Carmel enjoyed the ride, and was almost sorry when they reached the great iron gates of the Hall.

"Won't you come in and see Lilias and Dulcie?" she asked, as Everard helped her to dismount at the door.

"I haven't time to-night. I must get home in a hurry. I've an appointment with Mr. Bowden, and he'll be waiting for me."

"And I've kept you from it! Oh, I'm so sorry, Everard!"

"I'm not. Look here, if you're ever in any trouble again anywhere, you come to me, and I'll take care of you. Don't forget that, will you?"

"I'll remember!" said Carmel, waving her hand to him as she watched him ride away down the drive. Then she turned into the house to set at rest the panic of anxiety which had arisen over her non-appearance with the other members of the shopping party.

CHAPTER XV

On the High Seas

There was quite a merry gathering at Cheverley Chase that Christmas. All the Ingleton children were at home, and with Cousin Clare and Mr.

Stacey, they made a jolly party of nine, a satisfactory number, large enough to act charades, play round games, and even to dance in the evenings if they felt inclined. Without exception everybody voted Mr.

Stacey "an absolute sport." He seemed to know a little about everything, and could help Bevis to arrange his stamp collection, or Clifford his moths and b.u.t.terflies; he could name Roland's fossils, give Dulcie tips for the development of her photos, and teach Lilias to use the typewriter. He was so cheery and good-tempered over it, too, and so amusing, and full of fun and jokes, that the young Ingletons buzzed round him like flies round a honey-pot. There are some people in the world whose mental atmosphere appears to act like genial sunshine.

Because their uplifting personality demands the best in others' natures, the best is offered to them. Mr. Stacey's lovable, joyous, enthusiastic temperament made a wonderful difference at Cheverley Chase. The constant squabbles and rivalries that had been wont to crop up seemed to melt away in his presence. Never had there been such harmonious holidays, or such pleasant ones. It was his idea to take advantage of a brief frost and flood the lawn, so that the family could enjoy skating there, though the ponds in the neighborhood were still unsafe. It was Carmel's first experience of ice, and she struggled along, held up by her cousins, feeling very helpless at first, but gradually learning to make her strokes, and enjoying herself immensely. Then there was scouting in the woods, and there were various expeditions to hunt for fossils in road heaps and quarries, or to explore hitherto unvisited parts of the district. There was no doubt that Mr. Stacey had a born knack with young folks, and as a leader of Christmas fun he was quite unrivaled.

Among the changes for the better at Cheverley Chase there was perhaps none so great as the marked difference in Everard. n.o.body could fail to notice it. Mr. Bowden considered that the six months spent as a chauffeur had "knocked the nonsense out of the lad, and done him a world of good." Cousin Clare said he had grown up, and the younger boys, while not exactly a.n.a.lyzing the altered att.i.tude, admitted that their eldest brother was "a good sort" these holidays.

"Everard always so loved to be 'top dog' before," Dulcie confided to Lilias. "I used to hate the way he bossed us all and arranged everything. He's far nicer now he doesn't pose as 'the young squire.'

Even when he used to tell us what he'd do for us when he owned the estate, it was in such a grand patronizing manner that it made me feel all bristles. I didn't want to be helped like that!"

"He is indeed very different!" agreed Lilias thoughtfully.

The only person who did not notice any change in Everard was Carmel, but she had never known him in the old days, so fixed him at the standard at which she had found him. The two were excellent friends. Under her cousin's teaching, Carmel learnt much of English country life; she had the makings of a plucky little horsewoman, and could soon take a fence and ride to hounds. She was very much interested in the gamekeeper's reports, in various experiments in forestry that were being tried, and in motor plows and other up-to-date agricultural implements that she saw in use on the farms.

"It's all different from Sicily," she said one day.