Before tea was served, Martin and Elsie were using the swing alternately, vying with each other in the effort to touch with their toes the leaves of a tree nearly twenty feet distant from the vertical line of the rope. Angèle, of course, took no part in this contest; she contented herself with a sarcastic incredulity when Elsie vowed that she had accomplished the feat twice already.
Martin, stronger, but less skilled in the trick of the swing than the girl, strove hard to excel her. Yet he, too, fell short by a few inches time after time. At last, Elsie vowed that when she was rested after tea she would prove her words, and threw a pebble at the branch which she claimed to have reached a week ago.
Neither Mrs. Saumarez nor the vicar attached any weight to the somewhat emphatic argument between the two girls. It was a splendid contest between Martin and Elsie. It interested the elders for conflicting reasons.
To see the graceful girl propelling herself through the air in a curve of nearly forty feet at each pendulum stroke of the swing was a pleasing sight to her father, but it caused Mrs. Saumarez to regret again that her daughter had not been taught to think more of athletic exercises and less of dress.
While the young people were following their seniors to the drawing-room, Angèle said to Elsie:
“I think I could do that myself with a little practice.”
“You are not tall enough,” was the uncompromising answer, for Elsie’s temper was ruffled by the simpering unbelief with which the other treated her assurances.
“Not so tall, no; but I can bend back like this, and you cannot.”
Without a second’s hesitation Angèle twisted her head and shoulders around until her chin was in a line with her heels. Then she dropped lightly so that her hands rested on the grass of the lawn, straightening herself with equal ease. The contortion was performed so quickly that neither Mr. Herbert nor Mrs. Saumarez was aware of it. It was a display not suited to the conditions of ordinary costume, and it necessarily exhibited portions of the attire not usually in evidence.
Martin had eyes only for the girl’s acrobatic agility, but Elsie blushed.
“I don’t like that,” she said.
“I can stand on my head and walk on my hands,” cried Angèle instantly. “Martin, some day I’ll show you.”
Conscious though she was that these things were said to annoy her, Elsie remembered that Angèle was a guest.
“How did you learn?” she asked. “Were you taught in school?”
“School! Me! I have never been to school. Education is the curse of children’s lives. I never leave mamma. One day in Nice I saw a circus girl doing tricks of that sort. I practiced in my bedroom.”
“Does your mother wish that?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“I wonder you haven’t broken your neck,” said the practical Martin, who felt his bones creaking at the mere notion of such twisting.
Angèle laughed.
“It is quite easy, when you are slim and elegant.”
Her vanity amused the boy.
“You speak as though Elsie were as stiff as a board,” he said. “If you had watched her carefully, Angèle, you would have seen that she is quite as supple as you, only in a different way. And she is strong, too. I dare say she could swing with one hand and carry you in the other, if she had a mind to try.”
This ready advocacy of a new-found divinity angered Angèle beyond measure. Possibly she meant no greater harm than the disconcerting of a rival; but she slipped out of the room when Mr. Herbert sent Elsie to the library to bring a portfolio of old prints which he wished to show Mrs. Saumarez. Although it was never definitely proved against Angèle, someone tampered with the rope before a move was made to the garden after tea. The cause, the effect, were equally clear; the human agent remained unknown.
“Now, I’ll prove my words,” cried Elsie, darting across the lawn in front of the others.
“Here, it’s my turn,” shouted the boy gleefully. “I’ll race you.”
“Martin! Martin! I want you!” shrieked Angèle, running after him.
He paid no heed to her cries. Outstripping both girls in the race, he sprang at the swing, and was carried almost to the debated limit of the tree by the impetus of the rush. When he felt himself stopping he threw up his feet in a wild effort to touch the leaves so tantalizingly out of reach, and in that instant the rope broke.
He turned completely over and fell with a heavy thud on the back of his bent head. The screaming of the girls brought the vicar from his prints in great alarm, and his agitation increased when he discovered that the boy could neither move nor speak.
Elsie was halfway to the White House before Martin regained his breath. Once vitality returned, however, he was quickly on his feet again.
“What happened?” he asked, craning his head awkwardly. “I thought someone fired a gun!”
“You frightened us nearly out of our wits,” cried the vicar. “And I was stupid enough to send Elsie flying to your people. Goodness knows what she will have said to them!”
Promptly the boy shook himself and tried to break into a run.
“I must – follow her,” he gasped. But not yet was the masterful spirit able to control relaxed muscles; he collapsed again.
Mrs. Saumarez cried aloud in a new fear, but the vicar, accustomed to the minor accidents of the cricket field and gymnasium, was cooler now.
“He’s all right – only needs a drink of water and a few minutes’ rest,” he explained.
He bade one of the maids go as quickly as possible to the Bollands’ farm and say that the mischief to Martin was a mere nothing, and then busied himself in more scientific fashion with restoring his patient’s animation.
Unfastening the boy’s collar and the neckband of his shirt, Mr. Herbert satisfied himself that the clavicle was uninjured. There was a slight abrasion of the scalp, which was sore to the touch. In a minute, or less, Martin was again protesting that there was little the matter with him. He would not be satisfied until the vicar allowed him to start once more for the village, though at a more sedate pace.
Then Mrs. Saumarez, in a voice of deep distress, asked Mr. Herbert if the rope had really been cut.
“Yes,” he said. “You can see yourself that there is no doubt about it.”
“But your daughter charged Angèle with this – this crime. My child denies it. She has no knife or implement of any sort in her pocket. I assure you I have satisfied myself on that point.”
“The affair is a mystery, Mrs. Saumarez. It must be cleared up. Thank God, Martin escaped! He might be lying here dead at this moment.”
“Are you sure it was not an accident?”
“What am I to say? Here is a stout hempen cord with nearly all its strands severed as if with a razor, and the other torn asunder. And, from what I can gather, it was Elsie, and not Martin, for whose benefit this diabolical outrage was planned.”
The vicar spoke warmly, but the significance of the incident was dawning slowly on his perplexed mind. Providence alone had ordained that neither the boy nor the girl had been gravely, perhaps fatally, injured.
Mrs. Saumarez was haggard. She seemed to have aged in those few minutes.
“Angèle!” she cried.
The girl, who was sobbing, came to her.
“Can it be possible,” said the distracted mother, “that you interfered with the swing? Why did you leave the drawing-room during tea?”
“I only went to stroke a cat, mamma. Indeed, I never touched the swing. Why should I? And I could not cut it with my fingers.”
“On second thoughts,” said the vicar coldly, “I think that the matter may be allowed to rest where it is. Of course, one of my servants may be the culprit, or a mischievous village youth who had been watching the children at play. But the two girls do not seem to get on well together, Mrs. Saumarez. I fear they are endowed with widely different temperaments.”
The hint could not be ignored. The lady smiled bitterly.
“It is well that I should have decided already to leave Elmsdale,” she said. “It is a charming place, but my visit has not been altogether fortunate.”
Mr. Herbert remembered the curious phrase in after years. He understood it then. At the moment he was candidly relieved when Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle took their departure. He jammed on a hat and hastened to the White House to learn what sort of sensation Elsie had created.
A week later he made a discovery. He had a curious hobby – he was his own bootmaker, and Elsie’s, having taught himself to be a craftsman in an art which might well claim higher rank than it holds. When next he rummaged among his implements for a shoemaker’s knife it was missing. It was found in the garden next spring, jammed to the top of the hilt into the soft mold beneath a rhododendron. The tools were kept on a bench in the conservatory; so Angèle might have accomplished her impish desire in a few seconds.
On reaching the White House he was mildly surprised at finding Martin propped against the knee of a tall, soldierly stranger, who was consoling the boy with a reminiscence of a far worse toss at polo, by which a hard sola topi was flattened on the iron surface of an Indian maidan. Elsie, white, but much interested, was sipping a glass of milk.
“Eh, Vicar,” cried Mrs. Bolland, in whose face Mr. Herbert saw signs of recent excitement, “your lass gev us a rare start. She landed here like a mad thing, screamed oot that Martin was dead, an’ dropped te t’ flure half dead herself.”
“The fault was mine, Mrs. Bolland. There was an accident. At first I thought Martin was badly hurt. I am, indeed, very sorry if Elsie alarmed you.”
His words were meant to reassure the others, but his eyes were fixed on the girl’s pallid face. John Bolland laughed in his dry way.
“Nay, Passon, dinnat fret aboot Elsie. She’s none t’ warse for a sudden stop. She was ower-excited. Where’s yon lass o’ Mrs. Saumarez’s?”
“Gone home with her mother. I hear they are leaving Elmsdale.”
“A good riddance!” said John heartily. He turned to Martin. “Ye’ll be winded again, I reckon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I left my ash stick i’ t’ low yard. Mebbe you an’ t’ young leddy will fetch it. There’s noa need te hurry.”
This was an oblique instruction to the boy to make himself scarce for half an hour. With Elsie as a companion he needed no urging. They set off, happy as grigs.
“Noo, afore ye start te fill t’ vicar wi’ wunnerment,” cried Martha, “I want te ax t’ colonel a question.”
“What is it, Mrs. Bolland?”
Colonel Grant was smiling at the vicar’s puzzled air. These good people knew naught of formal introductions.
“How old is t’ lad?”
“He was fourteen years old on the sixth of last June.”
“Eh, but that’s grand.” She clapped her hands delightedly. “I guessed him tiv a week or two. We reckoned his birthday as a twel’month afore we found him, and that was June the eighteenth. And what’s his right neäm?”
“He was christened after me and after his mother’s family. His name is Reginald Ingram Grant.”
“May I ask who in the world you are talking about?” interposed the perplexed vicar.
“Wheä? Why, oor Martin!” cried Martha. “He’s a gentleman born, God bless him!”
“And, what is much more important, Mrs. Bolland, he is a gentleman bred,” said the colonel.
The scene in the kitchen of the White House had been too dramatic that some hint of it should not reach the village that night. Soon all Elmsdale knew that the mystery of Martin’s parentage had been solved, and great was the awe of the boy’s playmates when they heard that his father was a “real live colonel i’ t’ army.” A garbled version of the story came to Mr. Beckett-Smythe’s ears, and he called on Colonel Grant at the “Black Lion” next day.
He arrived in state, in a new Mercedes car, handled by a chauffeur replica of Fritz Bauer. Beckett-Smythe had hardly mastered his surprise at the colonel’s confirmation of that which he had regarded as “an incredible yarn” when Mrs. Saumarez drove up. She, too, recalling the message brought by Martin from her husband’s comrade-in-arms, came to verify the strange tale told by the Misses Walker. Angèle accompanied her, and the girl’s eyes shot lightning at Martin, who was on the point of guiding his father to the moor when Mr. Beckett-Smythe put in an appearance.
The lawyer had departed for London by the morning train; the three older people and the two youngsters gathered in the room thus set at liberty, Mrs. Atkinson having remodeled it into a sitting-room for the colonel’s use.
Mrs. Saumarez hailed the stranger effusively.
“It is delightful to run across anyone who knew my husband,” she said. “In this remote part of Yorkshire none seems to have ever heard of him. Believe me, Colonel Grant, it is positively a relief to meet a man who recognizes my name.”
She may have intended this for an oblique thrust at Beckett-Smythe, relations between the Hall and The Elms having been somewhat strained since the inquest. The Squire, a good fellow, who had no inkling of Angèle’s latest escapade, hastened to make amends.
“You two must want to chat over old times,” he said breezily. “Why not come and dine with me to-night? I have only one other guest – an Admiralty man. He’s prowling about the coast trying to select a suitable site for a wireless station.”
Now, Mrs. Saumarez would have declined the invitation had Beckett-Smythe stopped short at the first sentence. As it was, she accepted instantly.
“Do come, Colonel Grant,” she urged. “What between the Navy and the Intelligence Department it should be an interesting evening… Oh, don’t look so surprised,” she went on, with an engaging smile. “I still read the Gazette, you know.”
“And what of the kiddies?” said Beckett-Smythe. “They know my boys. Your chauffeur can bring them home at nine. By the way, the meal will be quite informal – come as you are.”
“What do you say, Martin?” said the colonel.
“I shall be very pleased, sir; but may I – ask – my mother first?”
The boy reddened. His new place in the world was only twenty-four hours old, and his ideas were not yet adjusted to an order of things so astounding that he thought every minute he would wake up and find he had been dreaming.
“Oh, certainly,” and a kindly hand fell on his shoulder. “I am glad you spoke of it. Mrs. Bolland is worthy of all the respect due to the best of mothers.”
“I’ll go with you, Martin,” announced Angèle suddenly.
Martin hesitated. He was doubtful of the reception Mrs. Bolland might give the minx who had nearly caused him to break his neck, and, for his own part, he wanted to avoid Angèle altogether. She was a disturbing influence. He feared her not at all as a spitfire. It was when she displayed her most engaging qualities that she was really dangerous, and he knew from experience that her mood had changed within the past five minutes. On alighting from the car she would like to have scratched his face. Now he would not be surprised if she elected to walk with him hand in hand through the village street.
His father came to the rescue.
“Let us all go and see Mrs. Bolland,” he said. “It is only a few yards.”
They went out into the roadway. Then Beckett-Smythe was struck by an afterthought.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll run along to the vicarage and ask Herbert and his daughter to join us,” he said.
Mrs. Saumarez bit her lip.
“I think I’ll leave Angèle at home,” she said in a low tone. “The child is delicate. During the past week I have insisted that she goes to bed at eight every evening.”
Colonel Grant understood why the lady did not want the two girls to meet, but it was borne in on him that she herself was determined not to miss that impromptu dinner party. In a vague way he wondered what her motive could be.
“Ah, that’s a pity,” he heard Beckett-Smythe say. “She can be well wrapped up, and the weather is mild.”
He moved a little ahead of the two. Martin, determined not to be left alone with Angèle, hastened to greet his friend, Fritz. The two chauffeurs were conversing in German. Apparently, they were examining the engine of the new car.
“Martin,” murmured Angèle, “don’t bother about Fritz. He’ll snap your head off. He’s furious because he lost a map the other day.”
But Martin pressed on. No longer could Angèle deceive him – “twiddle him around her little finger,” as she would put it.
“Hello, Fritz!” he cried. “What map did you lose? Not the one I marked for you?”
Fritz turned. The new chauffeur closed the bonnet of the engine.
“No,” he said, speaking slowly, and looking at Angèle. “It was a small road map. You haf not seen it, I dink.”
“Was it made of linen, with a red cover?”
“Yez,” and the man’s face became curiously stern.
“Oh, I saw you studying it one day at The Elms, but you didn’t have it on the moor.”
Fritz’s scowl changed to an expression of disappointment.
“I haf mislaid it,” he grunted, and again his glance dwelt on Angèle, who met his gaze with a bland indifference that seemed to gall him.
Colonel Grant drew near. He had been eyeing the two spick-and-span chauffeurs.
“Who is your friend, Martin?” he said. He was interested in everything the boy did and in everyone whom he knew.
“Oh, this is Fritz Bauer, Mrs. Saumarez’s chauffeur… Fritz, this is Colonel Grant, of the Indian Army.”
Instantly the two young Germans straightened as though some mechanism had stiffened their spines and thrown back their heads. The newcomer’s heels clicked and his right hand was raised in a salute. Fritz, better schooled than his comrade by longer residence in England, barely prevented his heels from clicking, and managed to convert the salute into a raising of his cap. There could be no doubt that he was flustered, because he said not a word, and the open-air tan of his cheeks assumed a deeper tint.
Apparently, Colonel Grant saw nothing of this, or, if he noticed the man’s confusion, attributed it to nervousness.
“Two Mercedes cars in one small village!” he exclaimed laughingly. “You Germans are certainly conquering England by peaceful penetration.”
Mrs. Saumarez elected, after all, not to visit the White House that afternoon, so Angèle, having said good-by to the colonel and Martin in her prettiest manner, was whisked off in the car.
“By the way, Martin,” said his father as the two walked to the farm. “Mrs. Saumarez is German by birth. Have you ever heard anything about her family?”
Martin had a good memory.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “She is a baroness – the Baroness Irma von Edelstein.”
The colonel was surprised at this glib answer.
“Who told you?” he inquired.
“Angèle, sir. But Mrs. Saumarez did not wish people to use her title. She was vexed with Angèle for even mentioning it.”
Mrs. Saumarez sent her car to bring Colonel Grant and his son to the Hall. She was slightly ruffled when Fritz told her that they had gone already, Mr. Beckett-Smythe having collected his guests from both the inn and the vicarage.
She might have been positively indignant if she had overheard Grant’s comments to the Admiralty official while the two strolled on the lawn before dinner.
“A couple of Prussian officers, if ever I saw the genuine article,” said the colonel. “Real junkers – smart-looking fellows, too. Mrs. Saumarez is the widow of a British officer – a fine chap, but poor as a church mouse – and she belongs to a wealthy German family. Verbum sap.”
“Nuff said,” grinned the sailor. “But what is one to do? No sooner is this outfit erected but it’ll be added to the display of local picture postcards, and the next German bigwig who visits this part of the country will be invited to amuse himself by ringing up Bremen.”
At any rate, Mrs. Saumarez was told that night that the Yorkshire coast was too highly magnetized to suit a wireless station. The sailor thought an inland town like York would provide an ideal site.
“You see,” he explained politely, “when the German High Seas Fleet defeats the British Navy it can shell our coast towns all to smithereens.”
She smiled.
“You fighting men invariably talk of war with Germany as an assured thing,” she said. “Yet I, who know Germany, and have relatives there, am convinced that the notion is absurd.”
“The Emperor has been twenty years on the throne and has never drawn sword except on parade,” put in the vicar. “There may have been danger once or twice in his hot youth, but he has grown to like England, and I cannot conceive him plunging a great and thriving country into the morass of a doubtful campaign.”
“Ninety-nine per cent of Englishmen like to think that way,” said the Admiralty man. “In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom, so let’s hope they’re right.”
When the young folk got together on the terrace, Frank Beckett-Smythe asked Martin why his neck was stiff.
“I took a toss off Elsie’s swing yesterday,” was the airy answer. Not a word did he or Elsie say as to Angèle, and the Beckett-Smythes knew better than to introduce her name.
Mrs. Saumarez left for the South rather hurriedly. She paid no farewell visits. She and Angèle traveled in the car; Françoise followed with the baggage. The Misses Walker were consoled for the loss of a valued lodger by receiving a less exacting one in the person of Martin’s father.
The boy himself, when his mental poise was adjusted to the phenomenal change in his life, soon grew accustomed to a new environment. Mr. Herbert undertook to direct his studies in preparation for a public school, and Martha Bolland became reconciled gradually to seeing him once or twice daily, instead of all day, for he, too, lived at The Elms.
Officially, as it were, he adopted his new name, but to the small world of Elmsdale he would ever be “Martin.” Even his father fell into the habit.
The colonel drove him to the adjourned petty sessions at Nottonby when Betsy’s case came on for hearing. Mr. Stockwell abandoned his critical attitude and concurred with the police that there was no need to bring Angèle Saumarez from London to attend the trial. Mrs. Saumarez gave no thought to the fact that the girl might be needed to give evidence, but the authorities decided that there were witnesses in plenty as to the outcry raised in the garden after Pickering was wounded.
It was November before Betsy appeared at the county assizes. When she entered the dock, those who knew her were astonished by the improvement in her appearance. It was probable that the enforced rest, the regular exercise, the judicious diet of the prison had exercised a beneficial effect on her health.
Her demeanor was calm as ever, and the able barrister who defended her did not scruple to suggest that it would create a better effect with the jury if she adopted a less unemotional attitude.
Her reply silenced him.
“Do you think,” she said, “that I will be permitted to atone for my wrongdoing by punishment? No. I live because my husband wished me to live. I will be called to account, but not by an earthly judge or jury.”
She was right. The assize judge held the scales of justice impartially between the sworn testimony of George Pickering and Betsy’s witnesses, on the one hand, and the evidence of Martin and the groom, backed by the scientists, on the other.
The jury gave her the benefit of the doubt and acquitted her, but it was noticed by many that his lordship contented himself with ordering her discharge from custody. He passed no opinion on the verdict.
So Betsy was installed as mistress of Wetherby Lodge, the trustees having decided that she was well fitted to manage the estate.
Tongues wagged in Elmsdale when Mr. Stockwell drove thither one day and solemnly handed over to Martin the sword and the double-barreled gun, and to John Bolland the pedigree cow bequeathed by George Pickering.
The farmer eyed the animal grimly.
“’Tis an unfortunate beast,” he said. “Mebbe if I hadn’t sold her te poor George he might nivver hae coom te Elmsdale just then.”
“Do not think that,” the solicitor assured him. “Pickering would most certainly have visited the fair. I know, as a matter of fact, that he wished to purchase one of your brood mares.”
“Ay, ay. She went te Jarmany. Well, if I’m spared, I’ll send a good calf to Wetherby.”
The lawyer and he shook hands on the compact. Yet Pickering’s odd bequest was destined to work out in a way that would have amazed the donor, could he but know it.
Martin was at Winchester – his father’s old school – when he received a letter in Bolland’s laborious handwriting. It read:
