Part 5 (1/2)

The boy jumped out of the boat hastily.

”There, don't be frightened,” he said. He had caught a glimpse of Mary's face. ”Lady Anne won't mind. She's a good sort. You should see the hampers she sends me. The mater doesn't approve of school hampers. You must put the blame on me. It was my fault entirely, for I had a watch.”

They hurried along the path leading back to the open s.p.a.ce in front of the house. When they emerged into the open a breathless maid came towards them.

”I've been looking everywhere for you and the young lady, Sir Robin,”

she said. ”Lady Anne Hamilton is waiting for Miss Gray.”

Poor Mary! When they arrived in the drawing-room it was not with Lady Anne she had to count. Lady Anne sat with an air of humorous patience on her face, but Lady Drummond's brow was thunderous. The haughty indignation in her pale eyes terrified the very soul in Mary. She shrank away from it in terror.

”I had no idea you were with Miss Gray, Robin,” she heard the lady say in glacial accents.

”I discovered Miss Gray trying to find her way out of the library. No one could find those doors without knowing something about them. And we went to see the puppies and the pony and the other beasts.”

”We'd better be going, Mary,” Lady Anne said, standing up. ”You and Robin have made my visit quite a visitation.”

”The horses had to rest and the coachman to have his tea,” said Sir Robin, st.u.r.dily.

”You take too much care of your horses, Anne,” Lady Drummond said. ”They are too fat; they can't be healthy. And your coachman is very fat, too.”

”Oh, they take it easy, they take it easy,” Lady Anne said, laughing; ”they've only my temper to worry them.”

They left Lady Drummond looking as black as thunder in the drawing-room.

Sir Robin escorted them to their carriage.

”So sorry, Lady Anne,” he said, apologetically. ”It was my fault. I hope you won't be angry with Miss Gray.”

”It is your mother's annoyance has to be considered, my dear boy,”

answered Lady Anne, while he tucked the rug about her.

”All the same, Miss Gray and I had a rippin' time,” he said, flinging back his head with an air of humorous defiance. ”And--I say--you're too good to me, you know, you really are.” Lady Anne had pressed something into his palm. ”The mater doesn't see what boys want with so much pocket-money. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do only for you. There are so many things a fellow has to subscribe to.”

The carriage rolled off, leaving him bare-headed on the drive in front of the house.

”That's a good boy,” said Lady Anne, emphatically. ”He has his father's heart. He's getting the ways of the master about him, too. I can tell by Jennings' back that he's had a good tea. He'll be a good son, but the time will come when he'll choose for himself. Well, Mary, I hope you've enjoyed yourself. Matilda won't want to see me for a month of Sundays again. Nor I her, for the matter of that. Dear me, she can make herself unpleasant.”

Mary sat in a conscience-stricken silence during that homeward drive.

Yet Lady Anne was not angry with her--that was very obvious. She seemed to be enjoying herself, too, judging by the smile that played about her lips. Now and again she cast a humorous glance on Mary. Once she chuckled aloud.

”Never mind me, my dear,” she said, in answer to Mary's glance. ”I was only thinking of something Denis Drummond, Gerald Drummond's elder brother, said of her Ladys.h.i.+p. Ah, poor Denis! He'd face a charge of the guns more readily than he would her Ladys.h.i.+p. Odd, isn't it, Mary, how those thoroughly disagreeable women can make themselves feared?”

CHAPTER V

”OLD BLOOD AND THUNDER”

Sir Denis Drummond had been his brother Gerald's senior by some seven or eight years. He, too, was a soldier, and had inherited the baronetcy from his father, upon whom the t.i.tle had been bestowed by a grateful country for services in the field. A second baronetcy in the family had been specially created for Sir Gerald. It would not have been easy to say which was the finer soldier of the two brothers; for while Sir Gerald had made his name famous by the most dare-devil and brilliant feats, Sir Denis was rather the old type of soldier--cool as well as daring, always reliable and steady. Wors.h.i.+pped by his men, his name was one to be held in constant regard by the British public, which calls its heroes by their Christian names abbreviated, if they do not happen, indeed, to have a nickname for them.

”Old Blood and Thunder” was the name by which Sir Denis was known to his men, and that from a certain violence of speech of which he had never been able, or perhaps had never desired, to divest himself. This violence had somewhat annoyed his brother Gerald, who could get as much exhortation out of a verse of Scripture as ever he needed. Sir Denis, like many old soldiers, was quite a devout man in his way; but he had none of the zealot pa.s.sion of his younger brother. The hidden fires which had given Sir Gerald a certain haggardness of aspect, as though a sculptor had hewed him roughly in marble, had never burned in Sir Denis's breast. He was a red-faced, white-moustached veteran, as bl.u.s.tering as the west wind, but with a heart as soft as wax in the hands of his daughter Nelly, and, indeed, in the hands of anyone else who knew the way to it.