for sale."
"It's that one by the gate," said Priscilla, slightly turning her head
in its direction.

"Is it for sale? Dear me, I never knew Lady Shuttleworth sell a
cottage yet."

"I don't know yet if she wants to," said Priscilla; "but Fr--, my
uncle, will give any price. And I must have it. I shall--I shall be
ill if I don't."

The vicar gazed at her upturned face in perplexity. "Dear me," he
said, after a slight pause.

"We must live somewhere," remarked Priscilla.

"Of course you must," said Robin, suddenly and so heartily that she
examined his eager face in more detail.

"Quite so, quite so," said the vicar. "Are you staying here at
present?"

"Never at the Cock and Hens?" broke in Robin.

"We're at Baker's Farm."

"Ah yes--poor Mrs. Pearce will be glad of lodgers. Poor soul, poor
soul."

"She's a very dirty soul," said Robin; and Priscilla's eyes flashed
over him with a sudden sparkle.

"Is she the soul with the holes in its apron?" she asked.

"I expect there are some there. There generally are," said Robin.

They both laughed; but the vicar gently shook his head. "Ah well, poor
thing," he said, "she has an uphill life of it. They don't seem
able--they don't seem to understand the art of making both ends meet."

"It's a great art," said Robin.

"Perhaps they could be helped," said Priscilla, already arranging in
her mind to go and do it.

"They do not belong to the class one can help. And Lady Shuttleworth,
I am afraid, disapproves of shiftless people too much to do anything
in the way of reducing the rent."

"Lady Shuttleworth can't stand people who don't look happy and don't
mend their apron," said Robin.

"But it's her own apron," objected Priscilla.

"Exactly," said Robin.

"Well, well, I hope they'll make you comfortable," said the vicar; and
having nothing more that he could well say without having to confess
to himself that he was inquisitive, he began to draw Robin away. "We
shall see you and your uncle on Sunday in church, I hope," he said
benevolently, and took off his hat and showed his snow-white hair.

Priscilla hesitated. She was, it is true, a Protestant, it having been
arranged on her mother's marriage with the Catholic Grand Duke that
every alternate princess born to them was to belong to the Protestant
faith, and Priscilla being the alternate princess it came about that
of the Grand Duke's three children she alone was not a Catholic.
Therefore she could go to church in Symford as often as she chose; but
it was Fritzing's going that made her hesitate, for Fritzing was what
the vicar would have called a godless man, and never went to church.

"You are a member of the Church of England?" inquired the vicar,
seeing her hesitate.

"Why, pater, she's not English," burst out Robin.

"Not English?" echoed the vicar.

"Is my English so bad?" asked Priscilla, smiling.

"It's frightfully good," said Robin; "but the 'r's,' you know--"

"Ah, yes. No, I'm not English. I'm German."

"Indeed?" said the vicar, with all the interest that attaches to any
unusual phenomenon, and a German in Symford was of all phenomena the
most unusual. "My dear young lady, how remarkable. I don't remember
ever having met a German before in these parts. Your English is really
surprising. I should never have noticed--my boy's ears are quicker
than my old ones. Will you think me unpardonably curious if I ask what
made you pitch on Symford as a place to live in?"

"My uncle passed through it years ago and thought it so pretty that he
determined to spend his old age here."

"And you, I suppose, are going to take care of him."

"Yes," said Priscilla, "for we only"--she looked from one to the other
and thought herself extremely clever--"we only have each other in the
whole wide world."

"Ah, poor child--you are an orphan."

"I didn't say so," said Priscilla quickly, turning red; she who had
always been too proud to lie, how was she going to lie now to this
aged saint with the snow-white hair?

"Ah well, well," said the vicar, vaguely soothing. "We shall see you
on Sunday perhaps. There is no reason that I know of why a member of
the German Church should not assist at the services of the Church of
England." And he took off his hat again, and tried to draw Robin away.

But Robin lingered, and Priscilla saw so much bright curiosity in his
eyes that she felt she was giving an impression of mysteriousness; and
this being the last thing she wanted to do she thought she had better
explain a little--always a dangerous course to take--and she said, "My
uncle taught languages for years, and is old now and tired, and we
both long for the country and to be quiet. He taught me
English--that's why it's as good as it is. His name"--She was carried
away by the desire to blow out that questioning light in Robin's
eyes--"his name is Schultz."

The vicar bowed slightly, and Robin asked with an air of great
politeness but still with that light in his eyes if he were to address
her, then, as Miss Schultz.

"I'm afraid so," said Priscilla, regretfully. It really sounded gross.
Miss Schultz? She might just as well have chosen something romantic
while she was about it, for Fritzing in the hurry of many cares had
settled nothing yet with her about a name.

Robin stared at her very hard, her answer seemed to him so odd. He
stared still more when she looked up with the air of one who has a
happy thought and informed him that her Christian name was Ethel.

"Ethel?" echoed Robin.

"It's a very pretty name, I think," said Priscilla, looking pleased.

"Our housemaid's called Ethel, and so is the little girl that wheels
the gardener's baby's perambulator," was Robin's impetuous comment.

"That doesn't make it less pretty," said Priscilla, frowning.

"Surely," interrupted the vicar mildly, "Ethel is not a German name?"

"I was christened after my mother," said Priscilla gently; and this
was strictly true, for the deceased Grand Duchess had also been
Priscilla. Then a feeling came over her that she was getting into
those depths where persons with secrets begin to flounder as a
preliminary to letting them out, and seized with panic she got up off
the slab.

"You are half English, then," said Robin triumphantly, his bright eyes
snapping. He looked very bold and masterful staring straight at her,
his head thrown back, his handsome face twinkling with interest. But a
person of Priscilla's training could not possibly be discomposed by
the stare of any Robin, however masterful; had it not been up to now
her chief function in life to endure being stared at with graceful
indifference? "I did not say so," she said, glancing briefly at him;
and including both father and son in a small smile composed
indescribably of graciousness and chill she added, "It really is damp
here--I don't think I'll wait for my uncle," and slightly bowing
walked away without more ado.

She walked very slowly, her skirts gathered loosely in one hand, every
line of her body speaking of the most absolute self-possession and
unapproachableness. Never had the two men seen any one quite so calm.
They watched her in silence as she went up the path and out at the
gate; then Robin looked down at his father and drew his hand more
firmly through his arm and said with a slight laugh, "Come on, pater,
let's go home. We're dismissed."

"By a most charming young lady," said the vicar, smiling.

"By a very cool one," said Robin, shrugging his shoulders, for he did
not like being dismissed.

"Yes--oddly self-possessed for her age," agreed the vicar.

"I wonder if all German teacher's nieces are like that," said Robin
with another laugh.

"Few can be so blest by nature, I imagine."

"Oh, I don't mean faces. She is certainly prettier by a good bit than
most girls."

"She is quite unusually lovely, young man. Don't quibble."

"Miss Schultz--Ethel Schultz," murmured Robin; adding under his
breath, "Good Lord."

"She can't help her name. These things are thrust upon one."

"It's a beastly common name. Macgrigor, who was a year in Dresden,
told me everybody in Germany is called Schultz."

"Except those who are not."

"Now, pater, you're being clever again," said Robin, smiling down at
his father.

"Here comes some one in a hurry," said the vicar, his attention
arrested by the rapidly approaching figure of a man; and, looking up,
Robin beheld Fritzing striding through the churchyard, his hat well
down over his eyes as if clapped on with unusual vigour, both hands
thrust deep in his pockets, the umbrella, without which he never, even
on the fairest of days, went out, pressed close to his side under his
arm, and his long legs taking short and profane cuts over graves and
tombstones with the indifference to decency of one immersed in
unpleasant thought. It was not the custom in Symford to leap in this
manner over its tombs; and Fritzing arriving at a point a few yards
from the vicar, and being about to continue his headlong career across
the remaining graves to the tree under which he had left Priscilla,
the vicar raised his voice and exhorted him to keep to the path.

"Quaint-looking person," remarked Robin. "Another stranger. I say, it
can't be--no, it can't possibly be the uncle?" For he saw he was a
foreigner, yet on the other hand never was there an uncle and a niece
who had less of family likeness.

Fritzing was the last man wilfully to break local rules or wound
susceptibilities; and pulled out of his unpleasant abstraction by the
vicar's voice he immediately desisted from continuing his short cut,
and coming onto the path removed his hat and apologized with the
politeness that was always his so long as nobody was annoying him.

"My name is Neumann, sir," he said, introducing himself after the
German fashion, "and I sincerely beg your pardon. I was looking for a
lady, and"--he gave his spectacles a little adjusting shove as though
they were in fault, and gazing across to the elm where he had left
Priscilla sitting added with sudden anxiety--"I fear I do not see
her."

"Do you mean Miss Schultz?" asked the vicar, looking puzzled.

"No, sir, I do not mean Miss Schultz," said Fritzing, peering about
him at all the other trees in evident surprise and distress.

"A lady left about five minutes ago," said Robin.

"A tall young lady in a blue costume?"

"Yes. Miss Schultz."

Fritzing looked at him with some sternness. "Sir, what have I to do
with Miss Schultz?" he inquired.

"Oh come now," said the cheerful Robin, "aren't you looking for her?"

"I am in search of my niece, sir."

"Yes. Miss Schultz."

"No sir," said Fritzing, controlling himself with an effort, "not
Miss Schultz. I neither know Miss Schultz nor do I care a--"

"Sir, sir," interposed the vicar, hastily.

"I do not care a _pfenning_ for any Miss Schultz."

The vicar looked much puzzled. "There was a young lady," he said,
"waiting under that tree over there for her uncle who had gone, she
said, to see Lady Shuttleworth's agent about the cottage by the gate.
She said her uncle's name was Schultz."

"She said she was Miss Ethel Schultz," said Robin.

"She said she was staying at Baker's Farm," said the vicar.

Fritzing stared for a moment from one to the other, then clutching his
hat mechanically half an inch into the air turned on his heel without
another word and went with great haste out of the churchyard and down
the hill and away up the road to the farm.

"Quaint, isn't he," said Robin as they slowly followed this flying
figure to the gate.

"I don't understand it," said the vicar.

"It does seem a bit mixed."

"Did he not say his name was Neumann?"

"He did. And he looked as if he'd fight any one who said it wasn't."

"It is hardly credible that there should be two sets of German uncles
and nieces in Symford at one and the same time," mused the vicar.
"Even one pair is a most unusual occurrence."

"If there are," said Robin very earnestly, "pray let us cultivate the
Schultz set and not the other."

"I don't understand it," repeated the vicar, helplessly.




VII


Symford, innocent village, went to bed very early; but early as it
went long before it had got there on this evening it contained no
family that had not heard of the arrivals at Baker's Farm. From the
vicarage the news had filtered that a pretty young lady called Schultz
was staying there with her uncle; from the agent's house the news that
a lunatic called Neumann was staying there with his niece; and about
supper-time, while it was still wondering at this sudden influx of
related Germans, came the postmistress and said that the boy from
Baker's who fetched the letters knew nothing whatever of any one
called Schultz. He had, said the postmistress, grown quite angry and
forgotten the greater and by far the better part of his manners when
she asked him how he could stand there and say such things after all
the years he had attended Sunday-school and if he were not afraid the
earth would open and swallow him up, and he had stuck to it with an
obstinacy that had at length convinced her that only one uncle and
niece were at Baker's, and their name was Neumann. He added that there
was another young lady there whose name he couldn't catch, but who sat
on the edge of her bed all day crying and refusing sustenance.
Appeased by the postmistress's apologies for her first unbelief he
ended by being anxious to give all the information in his power, and
came back quite a long way to tell her that he had forgotten to say
that his mother had said that the niece's Christian name was
Maria-Theresa.

"But what, then," said the vicar's wife to the vicar when this news
had filtered through the vicarage walls to the very sofa where she
sat, "has become of the niece called Ethel?"

"I don't know," said the vicar, helplessly.

"Perhaps she is the one who cried all day."

"My dear, we met her in the churchyard."

"Perhaps they are forgers," suggested the vicar's wife.

"My dear?"

"Or anarchists."

"Kate?"

The vicar's wife said no more, but silently made up her mind to go the
very next day and call at Baker's. It would be terrible if a bad
influence got into Symford, her parish that she had kept in such good
order for so long. Besides, she had an official position as the wife
of the vicar and could and ought to call on everybody. Her call would
not bind her, any more than the call of a district visitor would, to
invite the called-upon to her house. Perhaps they were quite decent,
and she could ask the girl up to the Tuesday evenings in the
parish-room; hardly to the vicarage, because of her daughter Netta. On
the other hand, if they looked like what she imagined anarchists or
forgers look like, she would merely leave leaflets and be out when
they returned her call.

Robin, all unaware of his mother's thoughts, was longing to ask her to
go to Baker's and take him with her as a first step towards the
acquaintance after which his soul thirsted, but he refrained for
various discreet reasons based on an intimate knowledge of his
mother's character; and he spent the evening perfecting a plan that
should introduce him into the interior of Baker's without her help.
The plan was of a barbarous simplicity: he was going to choose an
umbrella from the collection that years had brought together in the
stand in the hall, and go boldly and ask the man Neumann if he had
dropped it in the churchyard. The man Neumann would repudiate the
umbrella, perhaps with secret indignation, but he would be forced to
pretend he was grateful, and who knew what luck might not do for him
after that?

While Robin was plotting, and his mother was plotting, that the next
day would certainly see them inside Baker's, a third person was trying
to do exactly the same thing at Symford Hall; and this third person
was no other than Augustus, the hope of all the Shuttleworths.
Augustus--he was known to his friends briefly as Tussie--had been
riding homewards late that afternoon, very slowly, for he was an
anxious young man who spent much of his time dodging things like being
overheated, when he saw a female figure walking towards him along the
lonely road. He was up on the heath above Symford, a solitary place of
heather, and gorse bushes, and winding roads that lead with many
hesitations and delays to different parts of Exmoor, and he himself
with his back to that wild region and the sunset was going, as every
sensible person would be going at that time of the evening, in the
direction of the village and home. But where could the girl be going?
For he now saw it was a girl, and in a minute or two more that it was
a beautiful girl. With the golden glow of the sky the sun had just
left on her face Priscilla came towards him out of the gathering dusk
of approaching evening, and Tussie, who had a poetic soul, gazed at
the vision openmouthed. Seeing him, she quickened her steps, and he
took off his cap eagerly when she asked him to tell her where Symford
was. "I've lost it," she said, looking up at him.

"I'm going through it myself," he answered. "Will you let me show you
the way?"

"Thank you," said Priscilla; and he got off his horse and she turned
and walked beside him with the same unruffled indifference with which
she would have walked beside the Countess Disthal or in front of an
attending lacquey. Nor did she speak, for she was busy thinking of
Fritzing and hoping he was not being too anxious about her, and Tussie
(God defend his innocence) thought she was shy. So sure was he as the
minutes past that her silence was an embarrassed one that he put an
end to it by remarking on the beauty of the evening, and Priscilla who
had entirely forgotten Miss Schultz gave him the iciest look as a
reminder that it was not his place to speak first. It was lost on
Tussie as a reminder, for naturally it did not remind him of anything,
and he put it down at first to the girl's being ill at ease alone up
there with a strange man, and perhaps to her feeling she had better
keep him at arm's length. A glance at her profile however dispelled
this illusion once and for ever, for never was profile of a profounder
calm. She was walking now with her face in shadow, and the glow behind
her played strange and glorious tricks with her hair. He looked at
her, and looked, and not by the quiver of an eyelash did she show she
was aware of anybody's presence. Her eyes were fixed on the ground,
and she was deep in thought tinged with remorsefulness that she should
have come up here instead of going straight home to the farm, and by
losing her way and staying out so long have given Fritzing's careful
heart an unnecessary pang of anxiety. He had had so many, and all
because of her. But then it had been the very first time in her life
that she had ever walked alone, and if words cannot describe the joy
and triumph of it how was it likely that she should have been able to
resist the temptation to stray aside up a lovely little lane that
lured her on and on from one bend to another till it left her at last
high up, breathless and dazzled, on the edge of the heath, with
Exmoor rolling far away in purple waves to the sunset and all the
splendour of the evening sky in her face? She had gone on, fascinated
by the beauty of the place, and when she wanted to turn back found she
had lost herself. Then appeared Sir Augustus to set her right, and
with a brief thought of him as a useful person on a nice horse she
fell into sober meditations as to the probable amount of torture her
poor Fritzi was going through, and Augustus ceased to exist for her as
completely as a sign-post ceases to exist for him who has taken its
advice and passed on.

He looked at her, and looked, and looked again. He had never seen any
one quite so beautiful, and certainly never any one with such an air
of extreme detachment. He was twenty-one and much inclined to poetry,
and he thought as she walked beside him so tall and straight and
aloof, with the nimbus of flaming hair and the noble little head and
slightly stern brow that she looked like nothing less than a young
saint of God.

Tussie was not bold like Robin. He was a gentle youth who loved quiet
things, quiet places, placid people, kind dogs, books, canaries even,
if they did not sing too loud. He was sensitive about himself, being
small and weakly, and took, as I have said, great care of what he had
of health, such care indeed that some of his robust friends called him
Fussie. He hated the idea of coming of age and of having a great deal
of money and a great many active duties and responsibilities. His
dream was to be left in peace to write his verses; to get away into
some sweet impossible wilderness, and sit there singing with as much
of the spirit of Omar Kayyam as could reasonably be expected to
descend on a youth who only drank water. He was not bold, I say; and
after that one quelling glance from the young saint's eyes did not
dare speak again for a long while. But they were getting near Symford;
they were halfway down the hill; he could not let her slip away
perhaps suddenly from his side into the shadows without at least
trying to find out where she was staying. He looked at her soft kind
mouth and opened his own to speak. He looked at her stern level brows
and shut it again. At last, keeping his eyes on her mouth he blurted
out, growing red, "I know every soul in Symford, and every soul for
miles round, but I don't know--" He stopped. He was going to say
"you," but he stopped.

Priscilla's thoughts were so far away that she turned her head and
gazed vaguely at him for a moment while she collected them again. Then
she frowned at him. I do not know why Robin should have had at least
several smiles and poor Tussie only frowns, unless it was that during
this walk the young person Ethel Schultz had completely faded from
Priscilla's mind and the Royal Highness was well to the fore. She
certainly frowned at Tussie and asked herself what could possess the
man to keep on speaking to her. Keep on speaking! Poor Tussie. Aloud
she said freezingly, "Did you say something?"

"Yes," said Tussie, his eyes on her mouth--surely a mouth only made
for kindness and gentle words. "I was wondering whether you were
staying at the vicarage."

"No," said Priscilla, "we're staying at Baker's Farm." And at the
mention of that decayed lodging the friendly Schultz expression crept
back, smiling into her eyes.

Tussie stopped short. "Baker's Farm?" he said. "Why, then this is the
way; down here, to the right. It's only a few yards from here."

"Were you going that way too?"

"I live on the other side of Symford."

"Then good-bye and thank you."

"Please let me go with you as far as the high-road--it's almost dark."

"Oh no--I can't lose myself again if it's only a few yards."

She nodded, and was turning down the lane.

"Are you--are you comfortable there?" he asked hurriedly, blushing.
"The Pearces are tenants of ours. I hope they make you comfortable?"

"Oh, we're only going to be there a few days. My uncle is buying a
cottage, and we shall leave almost directly."

The girl Ethel nodded and smiled and went away quickly into the dusk;
and Tussie rode home thoughtfully, planning elaborate plans for a
descent the next day upon Baker's Farm that should have the necessary
air of inevitableness.

Fritzing was raging up and down the road in front of the gate when
Priscilla emerged, five minutes later, from the shadows of the lane.
She ran up to him and put her arm through his, and looked up at him
with a face of great penitence. "Dear Fritzi," she said, "I'm so
sorry. I've been making you anxious, haven't I? Forgive me--it was the
first taste of liberty, and it got into my feet and set them off
exploring, and then I lost myself. Have you been worrying?"

He was immensely agitated, and administered something very like a
scolding, and he urged the extreme desirability of taking Annalise
with her in future wherever she went--("Oh nonsense, Fritzi,"
interjected Priscilla, drawing away her arm)--and he declared in a
voice that trembled that it was a most intolerable thought for him
that two strange men should have dared address her in the churchyard,
that he would never forgive himself for having left her there
alone--("Oh, Fritzi, how silly," interjected Priscilla)--and he begged
her almost with tears to tell him exactly what she had said to them,
for her Grand Ducal Highness must see that it was of the first
importance they should both say the same things to people.

Priscilla declared she had said nothing at all but what was quite
diplomatic, in fact quite clever; indeed, she had been surprised at
the way ideas had seemed to flow.

"So please," she finished, "don't look at me with such lamentable
eyes."

"Ma'am, did you not tell them our name is Schultz?"

"But so it is."

"It is not, ma'am. Our name is Neumann."

Priscilla stared astonished. "Neumann?" she said. "Nonsense, Fritzi.
Why should it be Neumann? We're Schultz. I told these people we were.
It's all settled."

"Settled, ma'am? I told the woman here as well as the estate agent
that you are my brother's child and that we are Neumann."

Priscilla was aghast. Then she said severely, "It was your duty to ask
me first. What right have you to christen me?"

"I intended to discuss it during our walk to the village this
afternoon. I admit I forgot it. On the other hand I could not suppose
your Grand Ducal Highness, left for a moment unprotected, would inform
two strange gentlemen that our name was Schultz."

"You should certainly have asked me first," repeated Priscilla with
knitted brows. "Why should I have to be Neumann?"

"I might inquire with equal reason why I should have to be Schultz,"
retorted Fritzing.

"But why Neumann?" persisted Priscilla, greatly upset.

"Ma'am, why not?" said Fritzing, still more upset. Then he added,
"Your Grand Ducal Highness might have known that at the agent's I
would be obliged to give some name."

"I didn't think any more than you did," said Priscilla stopping in
front of the gate as a sign he was to open it for her. He did, and
they walked through the garden and into the house in silence. Then she
went into the parlour and dropped into a horsehair armchair, and
leaning her head against its prickliness she sighed a doleful sigh.

"Shall I send Annalise to you, ma'am?" asked Fritzing, standing in the
doorway.

"What can we do?" asked Priscilla, her eyes fixed on the tips of her
shoes in earnest thought. "Come in, Fritzi, and shut the door," she
added. "You don't behave a bit like an uncle." Then an idea struck
her, and looking up at him with sudden gaiety she said, "Can't we have
a hyphen?"

"A hyphen?"

"Yes, and be Neumann-Schultz?"

"Certainly we can," said Fritzing, his face clearing; how muddled he
must be getting not to have thought of it himself! "I will cause cards
to be printed at once, and we will be Neumann-Schultz. Ma'am, your
woman's wit--"

"Fritzi, you're deteriorating--you never flattered me at Kunitz. Let
us have tea. I invite you to tea with me. If you'll order it, I'll
pour it out for you and practice being a niece."

So the evening was spent in harmony; a harmony clouded at intervals,
it is true, first by Priscilla's disappointment about the cottage,
then by a certain restiveness she showed before the more blatant
inefficiencies of the Baker housekeeping, then by a marked and ever
recurring incapacity to adapt herself to her new environment, and
lastly and very heavily when Fritzing in the course of conversation
let drop the fact that he had said she was Maria-Theresa. This was a
very black cloud and hung about for a long while; but it too passed
away ultimately in a compromise reached after much discussion that
Ethel should be prefixed to Maria-Theresa; and before Priscilla went
to bed it had been arranged that Fritzing should go next morning
directly after a very early breakfast to Lady Shuttleworth and not
leave that lady's side and house till he had secured the cottage, and
the Princess for her part faithfully promised to remain within the
Baker boundaries during his absence.




VIII


Lady Shuttleworth then, busiest and most unsuspecting of women, was
whisking through her breakfast and her correspondence next morning
with her customary celerity and method, when a servant appeared and
offered her one of those leaves from Fritzing's note-book which we
know did duty as his cards.

Tussie was sitting at the other end of the table very limp and sad
after a night of tiresome tossing that was neither wholly sleep nor
wholly wakefulness, and sheltered by various dishes with spirit-lamps
burning beneath them worked gloomily at a sonnet inspired by the girl
he had met the day before while his mother thought he was eating his
patent food. The girl, it seemed, could not inspire much, for beyond
the fourth line his muse refused to go; and he was beginning to be
unable to stop himself from an angry railing at the restrictions the
sonnet form forces upon poets who love to be vague, which would
immediately have concentrated his mother's attention on himself and
resulted in his having to read her what he had written--for she
sturdily kept up the fiction of a lively interest in his poetic
tricklings--when the servant came in with Fritzing's leaf.

"A gentleman wishes to see you on business, my lady," said the
servant.

"Mr. Neumann-Schultz?" read out Lady Shuttleworth in an inquiring
voice. "Never heard of him. Where's he from?"

"Baker's Farm, my lady."