Silverbeach Manor (12 page)

Pansy is
right. To the cottager she represents only "gentlefolks", and she
is treated with extreme reverence, the dame apologizing for chipped
plates, and remarking that she knows the kind of "chiney" fitting
for quality like them, having lived kitchen maid with the Tatlocks.
They take their provisions to a grassy knoll overlooking the water.
Marlow brings out his painting, and the ladies admire and make
comments, Pansy presently availing herself of his materials to
sketch on her own account, though with a shaking hand. Presently
they hear the rumble of wheels and a cart comes by containing the
driver, an elderly lady, and a younger one, who alights to gather a
few water lilies.

Pansy moves a
little for the stranger to pass, and their eyes meet -- Pansy's in
fear and dismay, Martha Sotham's in delighted recognition.

"If it isn't
Pansy! Why, whoever would have known you, Pansy, dressed out like
that? Who'd have thought to see you look so fine? Mother, it's
Pansy! She's hard of hearing, Pansy. Come right along and speak to
mother."

"She is a
country girl I used to take some notice of," says Pansy to Miss
Ashburne. Marlow is filling a little phial with water at the
stream, and is intent upon his work.

"Bless me, so
it's little Pansy Piper!" says Mrs. Sotham, as Pansy rushes up to
the cart to be out of hearing of the others.

"How loud she
speaks," says Pansy. "Well, Martha, how are you all? You look just
the same as of old."

"Well,
you
don't," says Martha
bluntly. "Fine feathers make fine birds. You look quite the lady,
Pansy. Have you heard about my sister Ellen? She's quite the lady,
too. She married the hairdresser over at Firlands, with the wax
heads in his window always going round."

"Martha," says
Pansy, determining inwardly to avoid that shop, "where is Aunt
Temperance living now? Is she well? How does she live? "

"If
you
don't know, I don't, Pansy.
We always thought she was with you. A few months after you left she
had an illness which affected her head a little. She could not
attend to business, and it went down. Father lent her money
sometimes, but she could not get along at all. She just seemed to
have no heart in it. So a year or two went by, and then she started
off one day all alone, talking very strangely about going to find
her little Pansy. Deb went right off after her. I don't know if she
ever found her, poor soul. Some said you refused to do anything for
her, and some said she lived with you. Well, the pony won't wait.
Goodbye, Pansy. I just wish Ellen could see how your skirt is
draped."

And the
Sothams drive off, smiling and nodding, leaving behind them a
trembling, unhappy, dazed-looking young woman.

That
excursion so thoroughly unnerves Pansy that she pleads a headache,
and goes to lie down immediately on returning to the hotel.
Her
fiancé
looks after her anxiously as
she ascends the staircase, and longs for the time to come when his
frail, fair Pansy will be within his own care and
keeping.

A burst of
tears somewhat relieves Pansy's headache, and on consideration she
cannot see that Martha Sotham's recognition has done her any harm.
Marlow was too much engrossed in his painting to hear her awkward
greeting, and if Miss Ashburne's wonderment were at all aroused, as
Pansy suspects, she knows it is to that lady's interest to ask no
questions and make no inquisitive remarks.

"Lady Grace
Summit, if you please, miss," says the maid who has accompanied her
to Firlands, knocking at her door. "And Miss Ashburne says would
you please to take a cup of tea?"

"Let a tray be
taken into the drawing room," says Pansy, hastily rising from the
bed and bathing her eyes. She is glad of the change of thought this
visit will bring, and she puts on her prettiest tea gown, and
descends to her private sitting room.

"I am so
sorry you have such a wretched headache, darling," says Lady Grace,
embracing Pansy who is one of her special pets. "I heard from Major
Grenville -- an old friend of Mr. Summit's -- that you were here,
and I have just run in to congratulate you. I am charmed, Pansy.
Fancy marrying a poet! I fairly adore Mr. Holme's poetry, you know,
and it will be delightful to have him at Silverbeach. You must
persuade him to live at Silverbeach, of course. We do not want
strangers at the Manor. And Mr. Summit and I want you to do us a
favour, Pansy. I do so enjoy getting up a wedding. We want you to
be married from our house, and it shall be the prettiest wedding
ever seen in the country. It is not to be for some time yet? Well,
when it
does
come off, remember it is to
be from our house, and I will help you meanwhile to get your
trousseau.
But I think you are looking very
poorly, Pansy. You never quite got over that sad shock of losing
poor dear Mrs. Adair. Yes, I
will
take
some tea, thank you, Miss Ashburne."

So Lady Grace
Summit glides on, while her husband murmurs acquiescence in
hospitable invitation, and eats pound cake on the ottoman. Pansy
cheers up in discussing the interesting event which at some future
time is to excite the neighbourhood of Silverbeach, but she elects
to dine in private today. She feels unequal to undergoing possible
recognition from the old gentleman who sat near her yesterday at
dinner.

The following
day she notices that the head waiter at the hotel regards her
attentively, and the suspicion crosses her mind that his parents
live at Polesheaton, and she has sometimes served him across the
post office counter. Another time she meets old Farmer Sotham
himself on the hotel steps, bringing poultry and butter, and once
in a Firlands shop she sees an assistant with whom she used to play
as a child on Polesheaton Green. Altogether she resolves to make a
pretext to leave before her week is out, and she heartily repents
that she ever ventured back to this neighbourhood of memories.

A Plea for Charity

THE
Wilberforce Hotel
has placed one of its most elegant
and expensive chambers at the disposal of Miss Adair of
Silverbeach, but Pansy believes that the humblest maid beneath the
roof of the hotel has calmer, sweeter sleep at night than she whose
windows are graced by costly curtains, whose bed is luxurious as
money and care can procure, and whose walls are tasteful with
artistic paper showing golden lilies in the light of the tinted
night lamp.

Now that Pansy
is alone and has time to think, her heart aches in the remembrance
of Martha Sotham's words, that the little business in Polesheaton
grew gradually less and less, and illness came upon Aunt Temperance
and weakened her energies till at last she spoke in a wandering way
of seeking her little Pansy, and left her old home and her friends
to roam in bewilderment -- whither? What has become of her? She may
be in need and difficulty. She may be ill. Surely it would not be
counted as "voluntary communication" with her to send her
assistance through some mutual friend.

Though
their paths forever lie apart, Pansy feels she must in some way
ensure that the aunt who cared for her childhood is in ease and
comfort. Oh, if she had told Marlow the truth from the beginning,
but she knows his horror of deceit. She feels she
cannot
bring herself to reveal to him
that
she
is the miserably ungrateful
favourite of fortune of whom he spoke in their drive.

One day when
Marlow Holme is engaged for some hours on YMCA business, and Miss
Ashburne is in bed with an influenza cold which prevents all idea
of travelling to London for the present, Pansy wanders among the
pines for a while. Later she shops a little with Lady Grace,
excusing herself from the hairdresser's, for within there she
catches sight of her former companion, Ellen Sotham the farmer's
daughter, now wife of the proprietor, and looking extremely elegant
in black satin and a gold chain, her hair quite a marvel of
professional skill.

Finally, her
restless thoughts decide her to engage a pony carriage from the
hotel and drive alone -- how well she remembers the way -- to
Farmer Sotham's to ask further concerning Aunt Temperance, and to
endeavour through the farmer to provide her aunt with money. Even
Marlow would not be in the way today. She is glad he is absent from
her side. For once she will be Pansy Piper again, and feel free to
learn all she can about the little shop, and prove to her old
friends that she has not wholly forgotten her aunt's love and
kindness.

She provides
herself in Firlands with a graceful wool shawl of French grey as a
gift for Mrs. Sotham, and a black velvet cap for the farmer to
protect his head from draughts, and a pretty brooch for Martha,
besides a box of confectionery for the younger members of the
household.

The pony goes
slowly, having but lately come to the Wilberforce Temperance Hotel
stables from other ownership, and showing a tendency to stop and
graze beside any wayside tavern. At last the chimneys of the old
farm are visible, and Pansy passes the stile over which she has
climbed so often, to take a short cut to the kitchen door. She
arrives through the gate causing great commotion among the poultry
in the yard, and almost as much excitement in the breasts of Mrs.
Sotham and Martha.

The latter
leads the way to the best parlour, and brings a tray with milk and
seed cake.

"Now, this is
kind of you, Pansy," says Mrs. Sotham, "not to be above calling on
your old friends, when they do say you could curl your hair in bank
notes, and that you've the loveliest possible place London way -- a
finer place than Tatlock Grange itself."

"Silverbeach Manor is very beautiful," says Pansy, "and Mrs.
Adair has left me well off." She makes no mention of the
condition
of her wealth. "But, Mrs. Sotham, I
did not come to talk about myself. I want to do something for poor
Aunt Temperance. Do you mean to say nobody knows where she is?
"

"Polesheaton
people don't know," answers the farmer's wife when Pansy has
repeated her inquiry in louder tones. "Martha, my dear, we might
put up a jar of that quince jelly for Pansy. She'll remember the
old quince tree, and how many a time you girls have climbed into
it. Ah, you wouldn't be seen climbing the quince tree now, would
you, my dear? "

"I am grown up
now," says Pansy, yet with half a sigh for the days of fun and
freedom. "Then you can give me no advice, Mrs. Sotham, as to how I
could possibly provide for poor Aunt Piper's support?"

"My dear
child, we don't even know that she's alive, though many's the time
her name is brought up at prayer meeting, and I doubt not she's
somewhere under the good Lord's care. Mr. Sotham did his best to
look after her, Pansy, though what with bad harvests, and a big
family, and having to keep the place in repair, there's not too
much money in my husband's pockets, I assure you. But your poor
aunt would have been welcome to more than the little she had from
us, if only she'd have let us know in a neighbourly way she were so
dreadfully badly off. Away she went, without so much as 'by your
leave' or
'
with your leave', and Deb
found a scrap of writing to say she'd gone seeking for you, and the
landlord could have her stock and bits of furniture to settle what
she owed for rent."

"She'd be
proud to know you were trying to find her out, Pansy," says Martha.
"I'll speak to Father, and maybe he will get news of her yet, for
he meets a many in the markets, and he shall make inquiries for
you. I suppose you'd have her to live with you at Silverbeach? I'd
like to get a sight of where you live, Pansy. Do tell us about it,
and what you do all day."

"My days are
not nearly as useful as yours, Martha. I dare say you have charge
of the dairy now? "

"That I
have, and we supply cream and butter to that grand hotel where your
pony chaise belongs. But just think of Miss Piper living with you
at Silverbeach. It's no more than you
ought
to do, Pansy. I'm always one to speak my mind, as you know,
but it will be a rare good thing for the poor soul after all her
ups and downs. And there's nobody we love better in Polesheaton
than your Aunt Temperance, Pansy."

"I could not
arrange for her to live with me," says Pansy, flushing. "My idea
was to provide for her comfortably, so that she wanted for nothing.
But my household arrangements do not depend on myself, Martha. I am
engaged to be married."