Patsy Part 18

"Just so," quoth Julian. "Now I do not know what plans you have for the future of the lad. I do not know Adam's mind. But even if your ideas happened to agree, which is unlikely--it would be a thousand times better for the young people to see something of life first. Let them have three years apart, meeting other people, getting little electric shocks which will surprise them amazingly, and then if you and Adam agree and the young people continue of a stable mind--why, there will be so much the less danger of their House of Life coming about their ears afterwards!"

The morning after the three Wise Men had sat in council together in the castle dining-room, Patsy Ferris and Louis Raincy climbed over opposite high walls and dropped almost simultaneously, and as naturally as ripe fruit falls, into the old orchard of Raincy. In the midst of the walled enclosure stood the marble mausoleum of the family, a heavily domed structure, drowned among high trees, through the narrow windows of which tombs and statues could be seen, and more than one De Raincy in his chain mail with his head on a marble pillow, his hands with the finger-tips joined, and a favourite dog at his feet.

The keys of the enclosure were in the Earl's own coffer, and the trees being too old for valuable fruit, the gardeners never went there, except once a year after the falling of the leaves, "to tidy up a bit, because one never knows what may happen," as old Steven the head gardener said.

Even then the Earl came, and, sitting on a chair, surveyed their labours jealously, before locking up after them and going in to put away the key in its place for another year.

Patsy and Louis did not greet each other, though they had not met that morning. In the house one said, "Good morning," "I hope you pa.s.sed a good night," and silly things like that, but not in the green shade of the old orchard. A weeping willow had been turned over in some winter gale many years ago, but had nevertheless managed to go on growing in its new position. It lay like a feathery plume along the side of the Raincy mausoleum. It was not the first time that Louis and Patsy had utilized it as a convenient seat.

The red squirrel who lived in one of the high pines dropped the husks of the larch ta.s.sels on which he was fond of browsing, upon their heads.

But he did not chatter at them any more. He recognized a not remote kins.h.i.+p with people who had sense enough to come here to be out of the way, and he said as much to his own mate who was lying lazily curled in a big nest high up the bole of the pine which overtopped the white marble roof of the little chapel and looked clear away to sea and back to the towers of Castle Raincy.

"Patsy," said Louis, "they are going to separate us--I am sure of it.

That was why your Uncle Julian came all the way from London."

"Well, let them," said Patsy, swinging her feet and poking at the gra.s.s with a branch she had stripped of willow leaves; "I suppose that even if you are at the castle and I at Cairn Ferris we can always come here or meet at the alder grove--why, there are a thousand places."

"Ah, but," said Louis, "I am to go into the army--and you are to go to London, to be taken care of by some great lady whom your Uncle knows!"

Patsy clapped her hands with sudden pleasure.

"Oh, that must be the Princess--Uncle Ju's princess--then I shall know her. It will be such fun!"

"No doubt--for you," said Louis, bitterly, "but since you are so glad to be away from me and with other people, you will the more easily forget all about me."

"Nonsense," said Patsy, "our people won't lock us in dungeons and feed us on bread and water. They don't do it now-a-days. And so will you like to go soldiering. Why, haven't you been moaning to me every day for years because your grandfather would not let you go to be an officer and see the world and fight? You owned that it was fun stopping the carriage and getting me out and riding home--"

"Oh, yes," said Louis, "I do not deny it a bit. I own I said so, but even there it was Stair Garland who had most to do with the real business."

"Well, you must own that he played the game pretty straight."

"Umph," growled Louis, "of course. So would any one!"

"Now, Louis," said Patsy, "don't be a hog. You know you have often said that Stair Garland was as good a gentleman as anybody. Of course, he is fond of me--"

"Has he told you?" cried Louis, starting up and glowering with clenched fists.

"What is that to you, sir?" Patsy retorted, biting her upper lip, while her black eyes shrank to glittering dots under the long lashes through which she considered the speaker. "Attend to your own business, Louis Raincy. It is no business of yours what Stair Garland has said to me, or what he may say!"

"But it is--it is!" cried Louis, shamelessly, stamping his foot.

Patsy swept her skirts aside and motioned with her hand.

"Sit down, little boy!" she said, "you are not built to sing on that key. I can. Your grandfather could, or Uncle Julian--"

"He has killed a man in a duel--another man, I mean--I heard them telling about it to-day in the stables...."

Patsy grew pale.

"Not the Prince!... He will be outlawed. Perhaps they will send him to prison or cut off his head."

"No, no," Louis broke in; "not the Prince, though that is a pity too. I should liked have a whack at him--"

"Well, never mind--Stair Garland had one, and they say that he will hardly ever walk straight again. But whom has Uncle Ju killed? I knew if he heard of it he would kill somebody. He did once before."

"Lord Wargrove. They fought on the beach at Calais. He came straight over to London to arrange about your going to his Princess, whoever she may be, and he arrived here at the castle while your father and my grandfather were sitting together after dinner spinning stories. He was for your going to London directly. He spoke to grandfather about me, too. Mother says he is a bloodthirsty wretch and no right Christian. But grandfather must have thought a lot of him or he would never have listened to a word about my going for a soldier. Now he has written to the Duke to get me a company, and there will be a lot of money to pay, also, which grandad won't like. I am to go to the _depot_ immediately to learn the drill and so on. It is a blessing I can ride."

"I don't believe you will be sent to the war at all," said Patsy, "at least not for a while. So don't get c.o.c.k-a-hoop. You will have a lot to learn, and you can persuade your grandfather, if you really want to see me, to open up his house in London, and then you can come and see me as often as you like."

"What, with a glorified Princess looking after you? I do not see myself, somehow!"

"Oh, you will learn," Patsy retorted carelessly. "Of course we have all got to do that. I don't want very much to leave all this. How should I?

It is my country and my life, but I suppose they know best, and at any rate if they keep me too long, I can always run away. You could not do that, of course, when you are a soldier, for that would be desertion, and they would shoot you as they did Admiral Byng."

The bad business of their exodus from the Glens began to wear a brighter aspect for Louis Raincy. London with Patsy partook of the unknown and certainly adventurous. Every young fellow of spirit longs for money in his pocket to see the world, and at the worst Patsy would be well away from the neighbourhood of Stair Garland.

Then the next moment Louis was ashamed of his thought and strove to make amends.

"I wonder what will become of Stair if you go," he said. "I am afraid he will go the pace wilder than ever, and as like as not get into bad trouble."

"Before I go I shall speak to Stair myself," said Patsy with great determination. "He shot a prince of the blood for my sake; perhaps I can make him keep the peace for the same reason. At least for a while."

At this Louis sulked a little, so little indeed that no one but Patsy could have noticed. But she was down upon him like a hawk on a field mouse.

"See here," said Patsy, "this is no stock-in-trade to start out on. You sulk at the first mention of a man's name. I shall see hundreds in London. You will see as many women. I am only a little country girl staying with a great Princess, while you will be the heir to an earldom, besides having all the prestige of the uniform. Oh, I shall like that part of it myself, I don't deny. But I am not going to have you sulking because I speak to this man or dance with that man, or even tell you that I like one man better than another."

She paused, but Louis did not speak. So Patsy, after a long look at him, continued. "I don't know yet whether I love you as you mean, Louis Raincy--or whether I shall ever love any man. Certainly I am not going to cry about you or about anybody. I like you--yes--I like you better than any one I know except Uncle Julian, but not a bit like the lovers in books. So I suppose I am not in love. I would not have you climbing balconies or singing ditties in boats for half this country. I should want to be in bed and asleep. Some day, maybe, I shall love a man, and then I shall love him for take and have and keep. But it has just got to happen, Louis--and if it comes for somebody else, why, I rather think it will be so much the better for you. Come now, it is time to go home.

Shake hands, and be friends--no, sir, nothing else. Wait a good quarter of an hour after I am gone. We don't know what is before either of us, but if you are going to whimper about what we can't help--I am not!"

She jumped on the first branches of the larch, still holding Louis's hand. As she let go she took a handful of his cl.u.s.tering curls and gave a cheerful tug to his head that brought the tears sharply to his eyes.

"Go off and try to fall in love with a dozen of the prettiest girls you can find in London, and if you don't succeed in three years, come back here and we will talk the matter all over again from the beginning."

She was now on the top of the wall. She turned her legs over deftly to the other side with a swirl of her skirts.

"Good-bye, Louis!" she said, waving a brown hand at him as she slid off into the wood. "Some day you will be more of a man than I, and then you will not let a girl put you down."

"Do you know what I think?" cried the boy, exasperated. "I think that you are a hard-hearted little wretch!"

But only the sound of Patsy's laughter rippled up mockingly from far down the glade.

CHAPTER XVII

PATSY HELD IN HONOUR