Part 1 — CHAPTER VI ROSEMARY

"And do I still annoy you very much?" asked Rosemary.

She had discarded her riding-breeches and donned a short navy-blue skirt that while proclaiming her sex did not succeed in making her look any older. She smiled at Bobby audaciously as she joined her by the kitchen fire. There was something very sweet and childish about her as she paused, awaiting her welcome.

Bobby, who was busy frying eggs and bacon for their supper, did not turn her head.

"You might get the dish out of the oven," she said. "Take the cloth! It's very hot."

Rosemary complied with an assiduity that testified to her desire for favourable treatment. "You run along and wash!" she said. "I'll finish the eggs."

It was her invariable habit to try to coax Aunt Bobby into overlooking an offence by being especially helpful in domestic matters. On ordinary occasions she took small interest in them.

Bobby, however, refused to desert her post. "No, I'll finish them now," she said. "Go and make up the parlour fire, dear! I shall be in directly."

Rosemary turned to obey; then abruptly paused. The endearing word had emboldened her. She suddenly sprang to Bobby's side and closely embraced her.

"Darling—darling Aunt Bobby!" she said.

Bobby did not resist her, but she made not the faintest response. She stood quite passive, enduring the warm kisses pressed upon her. "Run along now, Rosemary!" she said. "It is getting late."

"Won't you kiss me?" pleaded Rosemary, still holding her.

"Not now," said Bobby, with quiet decision.

"Why won't you?" urged the girl. "I haven't been horrid to you. You can't really mind how I treat a man like Silas Hickory who is always out of place whenever he comes here."

"I mind your behaving rudely to anyone," said Bobby, on the same decided note. "It doesn't matter who it is in the least."

"But you've got to be protected somehow," protested Rosemary. "If we all receive him with open arms, he'll come and take up his abode here for good."

"Now you are being ridiculous," said Bobby. "Please go and see to the parlour fire and try to behave sensibly!"

"You won't kiss me?" said Rosemary.

"No," said Bobby.

A gleam of mutiny shone unexpectedly in the girl's eyes. "I believe you're in a rage," she said. "You'd like to beat me. But I warn you, Aunt Bobby, I'm getting too old to be treated like a baby of three. What I did this evening, I did for you. And I shall do it again if I get the chance."

"Thank you for warning me," said Bobby with composure. "My only answer is that in behaving like a baby of three, you lay yourself open to being treated like one. That is all I have to say to you on the subject."

She closed her lips with the words, and, having extricated herself from Rosemary's relaxed hold, bent resolutely over the frying-pan.

Rosemary stood and watched her for a second or two with smouldering resentment, then swung round and walked from the room with her head held high.

A faint sigh escaped Bobby as the door closed, but the bacon had begun to hiss and she gave no other sign of depression.

When a little later she entered the parlour with the dish in her hand, her face was quite serene and free from strain.

Rosemary was sitting before the fire with a book. She did not offer to fetch the plates, and Bobby went back for them herself.

"Come along!" she said then, as Rosemary did not move. "We'll have it while it's hot."

The girl looked up, the cloud still on her brow. "Aunt Bobby!" she said.

"My dear," said Bobby quietly, "we are not going to discuss anything more for the moment. When you are ready to admit, what you know to be the case, that you have done wrong, I will listen to you, but not before. Now come and have supper! Will you cut the bread?"

Rosemary got up. Her girlish face looked drawn and worried. "I'm not at all sure that I have done wrong," she said.

"Cut the bread, dear!" said Bobby.

She complied and sat down at the table. "What about Aunt Matilda?" she said, after a moment.

"I have taken her tray up," said Bobby.

Rosemary made a small sound that expressed self-depreciation. "I'd have done that. Why didn't I think?" she said.

"I had to go up," said Bobby.

"I'm sorry," said Rosemary.

Supper when the fastidious Matilda was not present was always a very brief affair notwithstanding Rosemary's very healthy appetite. It was especially so to-night, for they ate in almost unbroken silence. Bobby spoke once to inquire after Jess and her pups, but after receiving a satisfactory though preoccupied answer she said no more. Her brow remained completely unruffled, and there was nothing about her to indicate that her mind was not wholly at rest.

Not so Rosemary! She ate rapidly, almost as if she did not know what she was doing, and there was an impatient frown above her eyes. Once or twice she bolted a mouthful as though on the verge of impetuous speech, but each time she checked herself and the words remained unuttered.

When the meal was over, she pushed back her chair and got up as though finding relief in action.

"You go to Aunt Matilda! I'll see to things," she said.

Bobby went quietly from the room without remark.

In her absence Rosemary clattered the supper-things together promiscuously and cleared the table by armfuls, bearing everything into the kitchen where she began to wash up with fierce velocity. The crash of a broken plate soon interrupted her labours, however, and when Bobby descended a little later she came upon her lying half-across the kitchen-table in a storm of tears.

"My precious baby!" said Bobby, and gathered her to her heart where Rosemary wept for several seconds with a fierce abandonment.

Bobby finally drew her back into the parlour, and they sat on the old settee together while Rosemary gradually recovered.

"I'm so sorry about the plate," were her first words, as Bobby dried her tears with a tender hand.

"Never mind about the plate, darling!" said Aunt Bobby.

"I didn't do it on purpose," said Rosemary, assuming the task of drying her own tears with more vigour. "It wasn't because I was in a temper either. The beastly thing simply jumped out of my hand."

"I understand, darling," said Bobby.

The girl turned impulsively and wound coaxing arms about her. "Aunt Bobby, will you kiss me now?"

Bobby hesitated for a single instant, then, as though she had it not in her heart to do otherwise, she complied.

Rosemary nestled down against her shoulder caressingly. "Thank you, Aunt Bobby darling! That was very sweet of you—just like you, in fact. I know I've been a pig and I'm dreadfully sorry to have upset you. But I can't help it—I simply can't help it when that awful lantern-jawed man comes round here. You—you—I don't think you realize what he's after. Aunt Bobby, can't you—can't you keep him at arm's length?"

"My dear," said Aunt Bobby, "if you are referring to Mr. Hickory, he has never been a single inch nearer than that, so far as I know."

Rosemary writhed. "He will be—at this rate. I know it! I know the signs. He is one of those horrible dog creatures that keep coming on however hard one may try to shoo them away. And I don't think you do try very hard, Aunt Bobby. You—you are so dreadfully nice to everybody. And I'm sure that makes him worse. It's getting a positive nightmare with me."

"But what are you afraid of?" said Bobby.

The girl's arms tightened about her. "Afraid of his getting a hold on you," she whispered, "and—dragging you away from us whether you will or not. Oh, Aunt Bobby, you don't understand these people—these primitive sort of animal men that live on the land. They are just like their own carthorses. They plod on and on and on till they get there. That's what Silas Hickory is doing. That's what frightens me."

"My dear silly child!" said Bobby.

"It isn't silly," breathed Rosemary. "It's the very fact that you can call it so that shows what a big danger it is. You don't know what you're reckoning with. Every time—every time he comes here, he manages somehow to strengthen his position. Oh, it isn't fancy! Indeed it isn't! I know what he is after. Mary knows too. I've seen it in her face though she has never spoken of it. I used to think that it was screamingly funny that a man like that should dare to lift his eyes to you. But I don't now, Aunt Bobby. I don't now. I think it's somehow dreadful."

"My dear child!" Bobby said again. Over Rosemary's bowed head she was faintly smiling, though her smile had in it more of sadness than of mirth.

Rosemary went on in the same hushed, rather desperate voice. "I do my best to drive him away and he knows it. But you—when you reprove me in front of him—apologize for me—" she writhed again—"you simply encourage him, and so he always comes again for more. He'll come again to-morrow. I know he will. He—he's rather like a tramp that sets his foot inside the door so that you can't shut it. Aunt Bobby, don't you think—oh, can't you see—that the time has come to try and shut the door? You are always so sweet to everybody, but you won't be able to keep on. You'll have to do it in the end. You'll simply have to shut him out soon."

"I don't see why," said Bobby quietly.

Something in her tone made Rosemary raise her head swiftly and gaze at her. "Aunt Bobby! Aunt Bobby!" she gasped. "You must see!"

Bobby checked her with a steady hand upon her arm. "Rosemary," she said, "listen to me! I have never wanted to discuss this subject with you, but for once I will. You have behaved very badly, but I know that your motive was not wholly bad, so I will not go into that any further except to tell you that there must be no more of it. I insist upon your treating Mr. Hickory from to-day forward as the gentleman that he is."

"Gentleman!" ejaculated Rosemary.

"Yes, gentleman!" Very emphatically Bobby repeated the word. "I am not speaking of birth or upbringing. I am simply speaking of the man himself. Silas Hickory is a gentleman, and as such he is always welcome wherever I have any voice in the matter. I have a great regard for him, and I am very pleased to reckon him as a friend as well as a neighbour. More than that of course he is not, and never can be. I have given him no reason whatever for thinking otherwise. But he is not to be insulted upon that account. He has always treated me with the utmost courtesy, and I know him well enough to be certain that he will always do so. Now that, Rosemary, is all that I have to say upon the matter. And I hope very earnestly that I shall never have to re-open the subject of your behaviour towards him again. There is nothing in the situation that could ever warrant such rudeness as you have shown. If you are right in your rather wild surmise, then all the greater consideration should be shown him. But right or wrong, my child, there is only one thing for you to do, and that is to behave with courtesy and dignity to him as to everyone else who comes to this house. You too, Rosemary, are born to a certain estate, and do not degrade yourself and me by forgetting it!"

She ceased to speak, and Rosemary, who had more than once restrained herself with difficulty from interrupting, broke into vehement speech.

"I don't forget, Aunt Bobby! And it's to save you from being degraded that I do it. Not that it would matter one jot if I did forget! There's no reason that I can see for remembering. If we're going to be treated as equals by all the yokels of the country-side we may as well descend to their level at once, and treat them in the way they can best understand."

"Rosemary!" said Bobby, and there was deep pain in her voice.

Rosemary paused, gazing at her. "Oh, why—" she began, and then suddenly, quite inexplicably, her resistance collapsed. She laid her head down upon Bobby's shoulder. "Oh, all right!" she said. "All right! Don't look like that! You've won! I'll—" she choked a little and swallowed hard—-"I'll be ever so nice to him to-morrow."

Bobby's hand came up and stroked her cheek. "Dear child, don't think I don't understand!" she said with a sigh.

Rosemary's arms were strained fast about her. "Aunt Bobby darling, don't—don't sigh like that! I'll be whatever you want to everyone. There! I promise. I'd do anything for you—anything. Nothing would be too hard. That's all right now, isn't it? You're not vexed or hurt or anything? Please, Aunt Bobby, say you're not! Do smile again!"

"Look up, darling!" said Bobby.

Rosemary hesitated a little, then very cautiously raised her head and took a glance at the beloved face.

"Thank goodness!" she said with relief. "I thought you were going to cry. I did really. But you're not, are you? You won't, will you? It simply tears my heart when you do."

She was looking straight into Bobby's eyes now with something very nearly approaching worship in her own.

Bobby took the fair head between her hands and looked back very fondly. All pain and vexation were put to flight. After a moment or two she bent forward and kissed the vivid, adoring face so like her own.

"Bless you, my sweet one!" she said.