Symford, innocent village, went to
bed very early; but early as it went long before it
had got there on this evening it contained no family
that had not heard of the arrivals at Baker’s
Farm. From the vicarage the news had filtered
that a pretty young lady called Schultz was staying
there with her uncle; from the agent’s house
the news that a lunatic called Neumann was staying
there with his niece; and about supper-time, while
it was still wondering at this sudden influx of related
Germans, came the postmistress and said that the boy
from Baker’s who fetched the letters knew nothing
whatever of any one called Schultz. He had, said
the postmistress, grown quite angry and forgotten
the greater and by far the better part of his manners
when she asked him how he could stand there and say
such things after all the years he had attended Sunday-school
and if he were not afraid the earth would open and
swallow him up, and he had stuck to it with an obstinacy
that had at length convinced her that only one uncle
and niece were at Baker’s, and their name was
Neumann. He added that there was another young
lady there whose name he couldn’t catch, but
who sat on the edge of her bed all day crying and
refusing sustenance. Appeased by the postmistress’s
apologies for her first unbelief he ended by being
anxious to give all the information in his power, and
came back quite a long way to tell her that he had
forgotten to say that his mother had said that the
niece’s Christian name was Maria-Theresa.
“But what, then,” said
the vicar’s wife to the vicar when this news
had filtered through the vicarage walls to the very
sofa where she sat, “has become of the niece
called Ethel?”
“I don’t know,” said the vicar,
helplessly.
“Perhaps she is the one who cried all day.”
“My dear, we met her in the churchyard.”
“Perhaps they are forgers,” suggested
the vicar’s wife.
“My dear?”
“Or anarchists.”
“Kate?”
The vicar’s wife said no more,
but silently made up her mind to go the very next
day and call at Baker’s. It would be terrible
if a bad influence got into Symford, her parish that
she had kept in such good order for so long.
Besides, she had an official position as the wife
of the vicar and could and ought to call on everybody.
Her call would not bind her, any more than the call
of a district visitor would, to invite the called-upon
to her house. Perhaps they were quite decent,
and she could ask the girl up to the Tuesday evenings
in the parish-room; hardly to the vicarage, because
of her daughter Netta. On the other hand,
if they looked like what she imagined anarchists or
forgers look like, she would merely leave leaflets
and be out when they returned her call.
Robin, all unaware of his mother’s
thoughts, was longing to ask her to go to Baker’s
and take him with her as a first step towards the
acquaintance after which his soul thirsted, but he
refrained for various discreet reasons based on an
intimate knowledge of his mother’s character;
and he spent the evening perfecting a plan that should
introduce him into the interior of Baker’s without
her help. The plan was of a barbarous simplicity:
he was going to choose an umbrella from the collection
that years had brought together in the stand in the
hall, and go boldly and ask the man Neumann if he had
dropped it in the churchyard. The man Neumann
would repudiate the umbrella, perhaps with secret
indignation, but he would be forced to pretend he
was grateful, and who knew what luck might not do for
him after that?
While Robin was plotting, and his
mother was plotting, that the next day would certainly
see them inside Baker’s, a third person was trying
to do exactly the same thing at Symford Hall; and this
third person was no other than Augustus, the hope
of all the Shuttleworths. Augustus he
was known to his friends briefly as Tussie had
been riding homewards late that afternoon, very slowly,
for he was an anxious young man who spent much of
his time dodging things like being overheated, when
he saw a female figure walking towards him along the
lonely road. He was up on the heath above Symford,
a solitary place of heather, and gorse bushes, and
winding roads that lead with many hesitations and
delays to different parts of Exmoor, and he himself
with his back to that wild region and the sunset was
going, as every sensible person would be going at
that time of the evening, in the direction of the
village and home. But where could the girl be
going? For he now saw it was a girl, and in a
minute or two more that it was a beautiful girl.
With the golden glow of the sky the sun had just left
on her face Priscilla came towards him out of the gathering
dusk of approaching evening, and Tussie, who had a
poetic soul, gazed at the vision openmouthed.
Seeing him, she quickened her steps, and he took off
his cap eagerly when she asked him to tell her where
Symford was. “I’ve lost it,”
she said, looking up at him.
“I’m going through it
myself,” he answered. “Will you let
me show you the way?”
“Thank you,” said Priscilla;
and he got off his horse and she turned and walked
beside him with the same unruffled indifference with
which she would have walked beside the Countess Disthal
or in front of an attending lacquey. Nor did
she speak, for she was busy thinking of Fritzing and
hoping he was not being too anxious about her, and
Tussie (God defend his innocence) thought she was
shy. So sure was he as the minutes past that
her silence was an embarrassed one that he put an
end to it by remarking on the beauty of the evening,
and Priscilla who had entirely forgotten Miss Schultz
gave him the iciest look as a reminder that it was
not his place to speak first. It was lost on
Tussie as a reminder, for naturally it did not remind
him of anything, and he put it down at first to the
girl’s being ill at ease alone up there with
a strange man, and perhaps to her feeling she had better
keep him at arm’s length. A glance at her
profile however dispelled this illusion once and for
ever, for never was profile of a profounder calm.
She was walking now with her face in shadow, and the
glow behind her played strange and glorious tricks
with her hair. He looked at her, and looked,
and not by the quiver of an eyelash did she show she
was aware of anybody’s presence. Her eyes
were fixed on the ground, and she was deep in thought
tinged with remorsefulness that she should have come
up here instead of going straight home to the farm,
and by losing her way and staying out so long have
given Fritzing’s careful heart an unnecessary
pang of anxiety. He had had so many, and all
because of her. But then it had been the very
first time in her life that she had ever walked alone,
and if words cannot describe the joy and triumph of
it how was it likely that she should have been able
to resist the temptation to stray aside up a lovely
little lane that lured her on and on from one bend
to another till it left her at last high up, breathless
and dazzled, on the edge of the heath, with Exmoor
rolling far away in purple waves to the sunset and
all the splendour of the evening sky in her face?
She had gone on, fascinated by the beauty of the place,
and when she wanted to turn back found she had lost
herself. Then appeared Sir Augustus to set her
right, and with a brief thought of him as a useful
person on a nice horse she fell into sober meditations
as to the probable amount of torture her poor Fritzi
was going through, and Augustus ceased to exist for
her as completely as a sign-post ceases to exist for
him who has taken its advice and passed on.
He looked at her, and looked, and
looked again. He had never seen any one quite
so beautiful, and certainly never any one with such
an air of extreme detachment. He was twenty-one
and much inclined to poetry, and he thought as she
walked beside him so tall and straight and aloof,
with the nimbus of flaming hair and the noble little
head and slightly stern brow that she looked like
nothing less than a young saint of God.
Tussie was not bold like Robin.
He was a gentle youth who loved quiet things, quiet
places, placid people, kind dogs, books, canaries even,
if they did not sing too loud. He was sensitive
about himself, being small and weakly, and took, as
I have said, great care of what he had of health,
such care indeed that some of his robust friends called
him Fussie. He hated the idea of coming of age
and of having a great deal of money and a great many
active duties and responsibilities. His dream
was to be left in peace to write his verses; to get
away into some sweet impossible wilderness, and sit
there singing with as much of the spirit of Omar Kayyam
as could reasonably be expected to descend on a youth
who only drank water. He was not bold, I say;
and after that one quelling glance from the young
saint’s eyes did not dare speak again for a
long while. But they were getting near Symford;
they were halfway down the hill; he could not let her
slip away perhaps suddenly from his side into the
shadows without at least trying to find out where
she was staying. He looked at her soft kind mouth
and opened his own to speak. He looked at her
stern level brows and shut it again. At last,
keeping his eyes on her mouth he blurted out, growing
red, “I know every soul in Symford, and every
soul for miles round, but I don’t know ”
He stopped. He was going to say “you,”
but he stopped.
Priscilla’s thoughts were so
far away that she turned her head and gazed vaguely
at him for a moment while she collected them again.
Then she frowned at him. I do not know why Robin
should have had at least several smiles and poor Tussie
only frowns, unless it was that during this walk the
young person Ethel Schultz had completely faded from
Priscilla’s mind and the Royal Highness was well
to the fore. She certainly frowned at Tussie
and asked herself what could possess the man to keep
on speaking to her. Keep on speaking! Poor
Tussie. Aloud she said freezingly, “Did
you say something?”
“Yes,” said Tussie, his
eyes on her mouth surely a mouth only made
for kindness and gentle words. “I was wondering
whether you were staying at the vicarage.”
“No,” said Priscilla,
“we’re staying at Baker’s Farm.”
And at the mention of that decayed lodging the friendly
Schultz expression crept back, smiling into her eyes.
Tussie stopped short. “Baker’s
Farm?” he said. “Why, then this is
the way; down here, to the right. It’s
only a few yards from here.”
“Were you going that way too?”
“I live on the other side of Symford.”
“Then good-bye and thank you.”
“Please let me go with you as far as the high-road it’s
almost dark.”
“Oh no I can’t lose myself
again if it’s only a few yards.”
She nodded, and was turning down the lane.
“Are you are you
comfortable there?” he asked hurriedly, blushing.
“The Pearces are tenants of ours. I hope
they make you comfortable?”
“Oh, we’re only going
to be there a few days. My uncle is buying a
cottage, and we shall leave almost directly.”
The girl Ethel nodded and smiled and
went away quickly into the dusk; and Tussie rode home
thoughtfully, planning elaborate plans for a descent
the next day upon Baker’s Farm that should have
the necessary air of inevitableness.
Fritzing was raging up and down the
road in front of the gate when Priscilla emerged,
five minutes later, from the shadows of the lane.
She ran up to him and put her arm through his, and
looked up at him with a face of great penitence.
“Dear Fritzi,” she said, “I’m
so sorry. I’ve been making you anxious,
haven’t I? Forgive me it was
the first taste of liberty, and it got into my feet
and set them off exploring, and then I lost myself.
Have you been worrying?”
He was immensely agitated, and administered
something very like a scolding, and he urged the extreme
desirability of taking Annalise with her in future
wherever she went ("Oh nonsense, Fritzi,”
interjected Priscilla, drawing away her arm) and
he declared in a voice that trembled that it was a
most intolerable thought for him that two strange
men should have dared address her in the churchyard,
that he would never forgive himself for having left
her there alone ("Oh, Fritzi, how silly,”
interjected Priscilla) and he begged her
almost with tears to tell him exactly what she had
said to them, for her Grand Ducal Highness must see
that it was of the first importance they should both
say the same things to people.
Priscilla declared she had said nothing
at all but what was quite diplomatic, in fact quite
clever; indeed, she had been surprised at the way
ideas had seemed to flow.
“So please,” she finished,
“don’t look at me with such lamentable
eyes.”
“Ma’am, did you not tell them our name
is Schultz?”
“But so it is.”
“It is not, ma’am. Our name is Neumann.”
Priscilla stared astonished. “Neumann?”
she said. “Nonsense, Fritzi.
Why should it be Neumann? We’re Schultz.
I told these people we were.
It’s all settled.”
“Settled, ma’am?
I told the woman here as well as the estate agent
that you are my brother’s child and that we are
Neumann.”
Priscilla was aghast. Then she
said severely, “It was your duty to ask me first.
What right have you to christen me?”
“I intended to discuss it during
our walk to the village this afternoon. I admit
I forgot it. On the other hand I could not suppose
your Grand Ducal Highness, left for a moment unprotected,
would inform two strange gentlemen that our name was
Schultz.”
“You should certainly have asked
me first,” repeated Priscilla with knitted brows.
“Why should I have to be Neumann?”
“I might inquire with equal
reason why I should have to be Schultz,” retorted
Fritzing.
“But why Neumann?” persisted Priscilla,
greatly upset.
“Ma’am, why not?”
said Fritzing, still more upset. Then he added,
“Your Grand Ducal Highness might have known that
at the agent’s I would be obliged to give some
name.”
“I didn’t think any more
than you did,” said Priscilla stopping in front
of the gate as a sign he was to open it for her.
He did, and they walked through the garden and into
the house in silence. Then she went into the
parlour and dropped into a horsehair armchair, and
leaning her head against its prickliness she sighed
a doleful sigh.
“Shall I send Annalise to you,
ma’am?” asked Fritzing, standing in the
doorway.
“What can we do?” asked
Priscilla, her eyes fixed on the tips of her shoes
in earnest thought. “Come in, Fritzi, and
shut the door,” she added. “You don’t
behave a bit like an uncle.” Then an idea
struck her, and looking up at him with sudden gaiety
she said, “Can’t we have a hyphen?”
“A hyphen?”
“Yes, and be Neumann-Schultz?”
“Certainly we can,” said
Fritzing, his face clearing; how muddled he must be
getting not to have thought of it himself! “I
will cause cards to be printed at once, and we will
be Neumann-Schultz. Ma’am, your woman’s
wit
“Fritzi, you’re deteriorating you
never flattered me at Kunitz. Let us have tea.
I invite you to tea with me. If you’ll order
it, I’ll pour it out for you and practice being
a niece.”
So the evening was spent in harmony;
a harmony clouded at intervals, it is true, first
by Priscilla’s disappointment about the cottage,
then by a certain restiveness she showed before the
more blatant inefficiencies of the Baker housekeeping,
then by a marked and ever recurring incapacity to
adapt herself to her new environment, and lastly and
very heavily when Fritzing in the course of conversation
let drop the fact that he had said she was Maria-Theresa.
This was a very black cloud and hung about for a long
while; but it too passed away ultimately in a compromise
reached after much discussion that Ethel should be
prefixed to Maria-Theresa; and before Priscilla went
to bed it had been arranged that Fritzing should go
next morning directly after a very early breakfast
to Lady Shuttleworth and not leave that lady’s
side and house till he had secured the cottage, and
the Princess for her part faithfully promised to remain
within the Baker boundaries during his absence.