Part 2 — CHAPTER III RAVENCOMBE

The return of Rosemary, eager and excited over the day's happenings, put an end to the discussion. She burst in upon them like a child just home from school, though her expression at sight of Silas was not of a very flattering description.

"I made them hurry back," she said to Bobby, "because I thought you'd be alone. But I suppose I might have known you wouldn't be."

"Aunt Matilda is in the next room," said Bobby tranquilly. "Darling, will you please take off those boots before you go upstairs? And don't forget that Mr. Hickory is here!"

Rosemary turned towards him with obvious reluctance. "How do you do?" she said distantly, and sat down to remove her boots.

"Can I help?" said Silas unexpectedly.

She looked at him with grudging acknowledgment. "I can manage, thanks."

But Silas, with his own peculiar air of refusing to be beaten, approached and, as it were, took her feet from her.

Rosemary leaned back at once. "Oh, if you want to, you can. I'm dog tired. Please, Aunt Bobby, can I have my tea?"

"You can," said Bobby, "when you have washed and made yourself respectable. Thank you very much, Mr. Hickory, for taking the trouble."

"No trouble, I assure you! It's a pleasure," declared Rosemary airily. "Don't interrupt him on any account! By the way, Mr. Hickory, I met a friend of yours—a very dear friend—to-day. Can you guess who it was?"

"Haven't a notion," said Silas.

Rosemary laughed mischievously. "I'll give you a hundred guesses—" she made a playful kick at him with the foot he had just released, and met Bobby's frown with an impish wink—"and you'll never get there."

Silas took no notice whatever, but continued his self-imposed task much as he would have continued to groom a skittish animal.

"I'll tell you," said Rosemary, as he loosened the second boot, "not because you want to know, but because it would be good for you. It was—Lord Ravencombe!"

"Rosemary!" said Bobby sharply.

Silas said nothing until he had removed the boot and set it beside its fellow. Then he looked full at her from under his beetling brows and said briefly, "he's no friend of mine."

"No, I gathered that," said Rosemary smoothly. "The poor old thing is a bit balmy, of course, as we all know; but he seemed quite rational on that point. He hates you like poison."

Aunt Bobby very suddenly took a share in the conversation, her tone quick and decided. "Rosemary, if you can't speak courteously, I won't have you speak at all. Thank you, Mr. Hickory! Thank you very much!"

She stooped to pick up the discarded boots, but he prevented her, his own hand upon them. "Oh, don't stop her!" he said. "I know what she means. Who generally cleans these?"

Bobby evaded the question. "They must be dried first," she said. "Please let me have them!"

"They're all mud. You shan't touch 'em!" said Silas with determination.

Rosemary leaped abruptly to her feet. "Here, give them to me!" she said, and whisked them from his hold. "Whoever cleans them, you won't! That's quite certain. Aunt Bobby won't either. So you needn't trouble yourself about that."

She strode across the brick floor in her stockings, and dumped them down in the chimney-corner. Then she faced round upon Silas with an electric sparkle in her eyes.

"If you want to know what Lord Ravencombe said, I'll tell you," she said. "I went through a gate marked Private and came face to face with him in his bath-chair. He looked awful, like a man that's been dead and buried and dug up again. He said I was trespassing, and asked where I came from. And when I said Little Staple, next to Staple Farm, he raved, and said wasn't that where Silas Hickory lived and why wasn't he in hell where he ought to have been for the past twenty years or more. I couldn't answer that question, so I came away. But he called you quite a lot of choice names while I was going. I'll tell you some of them if you like."

"Rosemary!" For once Bobby's voice sounded actually harsh. "If you say another word upon this subject, you will learn the whole of one of Schiller's plays by heart during the holidays."

"My hat!" said Rosemary. "But, Aunt Bobby, I really think he ought to know. Besides, he wants to, so it's only kind to tell him. I didn't understand all the old thing's remarks. He was too indignant to be very distinct, and his attendant was trying to shut him up. But he did manage to call him a crawling, poisonous snake and a damned dirty scoundrel who seduced women whose shoes he wasn't fit to black. That's why he isn't going to clean mine," she ended on a virtuous note. "I hope you like your description, Mr. Hickory. I'm going upstairs to change now. Good night!"

She was at the door before Bobby spoke again, this time very quietly. "Rosemary, I shall set you that task, and you will not come down again to-night."

"Right ho!" said Rosemary lightly. She was in one of her dare-devil moods in which nothing mattered. "But I had to tell him. He asked for it. The old fellow is quite mad of course, but I expect he had some reason for his hatred. No smoke without some fire, eh, Mr. Hickory? I've never seen anyone quite so consumed by rage before. He literally writhed with it. It's a pity you weren't there to see. Percy and The Old Bean were in the background and they thought he was having a fit."

"Very edifying for all concerned," said Silas.

"It was," she agreed. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Yes, Aunt Bobby, I'm going. Don't look so severe! I'll learn a dozen Schiller plays if you like,—that is, if I live long enough which I doubt." She opened the door with the words. "You will let me have some tea, won't you? Or I really shall die without further notice."

She was gone, and somehow the kitchen seemed empty and still. Bobby's faint sigh as she set the irons on the hearthstones to cool was scarcely enough to break the silence.

Silas, watching her, was in no haste to do so. His dark face showed a deep absorption. Perhaps he was scarcely thinking even of her in that moment.

He spoke as she stood up again. "Yes, it's true, old Ravencombe is not keen on our family. He's no particular cause to be. But he's been raving mad for the past forty years, so they say. So perhaps his opinion isn't of much importance."

"None whatever, I should imagine," said Bobby. "I didn't know that anyone ever saw him."

"No one does as a rule. But there has always been one meet held there every season from time immemorial. He probably likes to see it, and they take him to some place where he can see without being seen." Silas still spoke thoughtfully, as if half to himself. "Poor old fellow! It's a bit hard to be made to go on living in that state. I saw him once, and he did look exactly like a man who had been buried and dug up again."

Bobby shivered a little. "Rosemary's descriptions are so vivid, but really she is not so unfeeling as she sounds. She always hides her real self from everyone but me." She paused a moment, then: "It was good of you to bear with her so patiently," she said.

"Oh, I don't mind Rosemary now," said Silas. "In fact, I think I'm on her side. I hope you'll let her off her task. There's no need to punish her on my account."

Bobby shook her head resolutely. "No, she will have to pay the penalty this time. I have tried to take your advice, but she only grows wilder and more unruly every time. I must get her back under control. I am very uneasy about her."

"Pulling her in won't help," said Silas. "And after all, what did she do? Merely repeated a sentence or two spoken by a lunatic. There's nothing to take seriously there."

"I am afraid I don't agree with you," said Bobby firmly. "I am very sorry. But I think her behaviour was outrageous."

"You are unreasonable," said Silas. "Why shouldn't she repeat it? Most people know the reason for Lord Ravencombe's objection to my family. There's nothing in it to be ashamed of, that I can see."

"I don't think I know it," said Bobby. "But please don't imagine that I am asking to know!"

"There's nothing about me that I wouldn't like you to know," said Silas with simplicity. "His grudge began with my father who married a cousin of his—the daughter of a younger branch—in the teeth of her family. Lord Ravencombe was saner in those days than he is now, but he never got over it."

"That was your mother?" asked Bobby.

"My mother, yes. I never saw her. She died when I was born. But I survived. That was an almost worse offence, I imagine." A grim note of humour sounded in Silas's voice. "However, I still survive."

"Then he is—a sort of cousin?" questioned Bobby.

"A thousand times removed, thank heaven!" said Silas. "It's a very distant relationship. My mother was the daughter of his first cousin whom—tradition says—he was wild to marry in his early days. And he adopted my mother when her mother died and brought her up as his own daughter."

"And she failed him, too!" said Bobby. "That was sad."

He looked at her. "Yes, you would see it like that. It was sad, I suppose. But I fancy she was not unhappy while it lasted. My father worshipped her. He only married Peter's mother for convenience, though I suppose you would have said that she was a more suitable wife for him than Betty Thorgrave."

"Betty who?" said Bobby, and suddenly, unexpectedly, a great wave of colour that was like the glow of a flame spread over her as she stood facing him.

"Thorgrave," he said, "Thorgrave. Do you know the name?"

She spoke rather breathlessly. "Yes, I know it! But I didn't know—I never knew—they were related to Lord Ravencombe." She paused a moment; then: "It's all very long ago now," she said more quietly. "It was only the name that rather surprised me. It must have been another branch of the family that we used to know. So you are related to Lord Ravencombe!"

"I have that honour," said Silas very grimly. "But it is not one of which I am at all proud."

Her clear eyes expressed sympathy. "He is quite mad, I believe," she said. "I don't know much about him."

"Nor I," said Silas. He looked at her very directly. "Tell me what you know of the Thorgraves!" he said.

Bobby made a small movement as of backing away. "Oh, very little really," she said. "There was a man of that name in my father's regiment. He may not have been any relation at all. It's very long ago—nearly twenty years. He went abroad and we lost sight of him. I think," her voice dropped a little, "he is probably dead." She turned with the words to lay her ironing on the dresser.

Silas was watching her, but he said nothing. There was something about her that pleaded for silence at that moment.

When she turned round again, she was smiling. "It would be funny, wouldn't it," she said, "if by any chance you stepped into the title?"

"I!" said Silas. A sudden growling note sounded in his voice. "Do you think I'd touch it—or anything whatever to do with it—after being despised all my life for being my father's son?"

"Oh, no, I don't indeed!" said Bobby, distressed. "Please forgive me for saying that! I didn't mean to hurt you."

His grimness passed. "I know that all right," he said. "You never mean to hurt anyone. That's the lovely part of you. Well," he picked up his cap, "I must be going. But I want you to consider that partnership question really seriously. You will, won't you?"

"Yes. I will—consider it," said Bobby dubiously.

His sudden smile showed itself. "Don't worry about it!" he said. "Just consider it! I shall stick to what I've said. I'll never pester you. It's business only. Everything will be on a legal basis. But don't forget you'll have much more time to look after Rosemary and keep her out of mischief if you consent!"

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Bobby. "And she's waiting for her tea! I'd forgotten!"

"Tea and a lecture!" said Silas at the door. "But if I were you, I'd make her get the one for herself and let her off the other."

He tramped away, slamming the door behind him, and Bobby was left with a very thoughtful face to prepare the tea.