"I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off--and this is what she"s done!" Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly-haired girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a curious high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a high hunched collar and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel clasp. She wore a yellow velvet cap and tan gauntlets, and carried a real hunting-crop.
Her cheeks were pale except for two pretty pink patches in the middle, and she talked with little gasps at the end of her sentences, as though she had been running.
"You don"t milk so badly, child," she said, and when she smiled her teeth showed small and even and pearly.
"Can you milk?" Una asked, and then flushed, for she heard Puck"s chuckle.
He stepped out of the fern and sat down, holding _Kitty Shorthorn"s_ tail. "There isn"t much," he said, "that Miss Philadelphia doesn"t know about milk--or, for that matter, b.u.t.ter and eggs. She"s a great housewife."
"Oh," said Una. "I"m sorry I can"t shake hands. Mine are all milky; but Mrs. Vincey is going to teach me b.u.t.ter-making this summer."
"Ah! _I_"m going to London this summer," the girl said, "to my aunt in Bloomsbury." She coughed as she began to hum, ""Oh, what a town! What a wonderful metropolis!""
"You"ve got a cold," said Una.
"No. Only my stupid cough. But it"s vastly better than it was last winter. It will disappear in London air. Every one says so. D"you like doctors, child?"
"I don"t know any," Una replied. "But I"m sure I shouldn"t."
"Think yourself lucky, child. I beg your pardon," the girl laughed, for Una frowned.
"I"m not a child, and my name"s Una," she said.
"Mine"s Philadelphia. But everybody except Rene calls me Phil. I"m Squire Bucksteed"s daughter--over at Marklake yonder." She jerked her little round chin towards the south behind Dallington. "Sure-ly you know Marklake?"
"We went a picnic to Marklake Green once," said Una. "It"s awfully pretty. I like all those funny little roads that don"t lead anywhere."
"They lead over our land," said Philadelphia stiffly, "and the coach road is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from the Green. I went to the a.s.size Ball at Lewes last year." She spun round and took a few dancing steps, but stopped with her hand to her side.
"It gives me a st.i.tch," she explained. "No odds. "Twill go away in London air. That"s the latest French step, child. Rene taught it me.
D"you hate the French, chi--Una?"
"Well, I hate French, of course, but I don"t mind Mam"selle. She"s rather decent. Is Rene your French governess?"
Philadelphia laughed till she caught her breath again.
"Oh no! Rene"s a French prisoner--on parole. That means he"s promised not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman.
He"s only a doctor, so I hope they won"t think him worth exchanging. My Uncle captured him last year in the _Ferdinand_ privateer, off Belle Isle, and he cured my Uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after _that_ we couldn"t let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and so he stays with us. He"s of very old family--a Breton, which is nearly next door to being a true Briton, my father says--and he wears his hair clubbed--not powdered. _Much_ more becoming, don"t you think?"
"I don"t know what you"re----" Una began, but Puck, the other side of the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking.
"He"s going to be a great French physician when the war is over. He makes me bobbins for my lace-pillow now--he"s very clever with his hands; but he"d doctor our people on the Green if they would let him.
Only our Doctor--Dr. Break--says he"s an emp----or imp something--worse than impostor. But my Nurse says----"
"Nurse! You"re ever so old. What have you got a nurse for?" Una finished milking, and turned round on her stool as _Kitty Shorthorn_ grazed off.
"Because I can"t get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, and she says she"ll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets me alone.
She thinks I"m delicate. She has grown infirm in her understanding, you know. Mad--quite mad, poor Cissie!"
"Really mad?" said Una. "Or just silly?"
"Crazy I should say--from the things she does. Her devotion to me is terribly embarra.s.sing. You know I have all the keys of the Hall except the brewery and the tenants" kitchen. I give out all stores and the linen and plate."
"How jolly! I love store-rooms and giving out things."
"Ah, it"s a great responsibility you"ll find when you come to my age.
Last year Dad said I was fatiguing myself with my duties, and he actually wanted me to give up the keys to old Amoore, our housekeeper. I wouldn"t. I hate her. I said, "No, sir. I am Mistress of Marklake Hall just as long as I live, because I"m never going to be married, and I shall give out stores and linen till I die!""
"And what did your father say?"
"Oh, I threatened to pin a dishclout to his coattail. He ran away. Every one"s afraid of Dad, except me." Philadelphia stamped her foot. "The idea! If I can"t make my own father happy in his own house, I"d like to meet the woman that can, and--and--I"d have the living hide off her!"
She cut with her long-thonged whip. It cracked like a pistol-shot across the still pasture. _Kitty Shorthorn_ threw up her head and trotted away.
"I beg your pardon," Philadelphia said; "but it makes me furious. Don"t you hate those ridiculous old quizzes with their feathers and fronts, who come to dinner and call you "child" in your own chair at your own table?"
"I don"t always come to dinner," said Una, "but I hate being called "child." Please tell me about store-rooms and giving out things."
"Ah, it"s a great responsibility--particularly with that old cat Amoore looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a shocking thing happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my Nurse that I was telling you of, she took three solid silver tablespoons."
"Took! But isn"t that stealing?" Una cried.
"Hsh!" said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. "All I say is she took them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as Dad says--and he"s a magistrate--it wasn"t a legal offence; it was only compounding a felony."
"It sounds awful," said Una.
"It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten months, and I"d never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, because a big house offers so many chances of things being mislaid, and coming to hand later. "Fetching up in the lee-scuppers," my Uncle calls it. But next week I spoke to old Cissie about it when she was doing my hair at night, and she said I wasn"t to worry my heart for trifles!"
"Isn"t it like "em?" Una burst out. "They see you"re worried over something that really matters, and they say, "Don"t worry"; as if _that_ did any good!"
"I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told Ciss the spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if the thief were found, he"d be tried for his life."
"Hanged, do you mean?" Una said.
"They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man nowadays for a forty-shilling theft. They transport "em into penal servitude at the uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for the term of their natural life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her tremble in my mirror.
Then she cried, and caught hold of my knees, and I couldn"t for my life understand what it was all about,--she cried so. _Can_ you guess, my dear, what that poor crazy thing had done? It was midnight before I pieced it together. She had given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the Green, so that he might put a charm on me! Me!"
"Put a charm on you? Why?"
"That"s what _I_ asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! You know this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as soon as I go to London. She was troubled about _that_, and about my being so thin, and she told me Jerry had promised her, if she would bring him three silver spoons, that he"d charm my cough away and make me plump--"flesh-up," she said. I couldn"t help laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to put Cissie into my own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself to sleep. What else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed--I suppose I _can_ cough in my own room if I please--she said that she"d killed me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send her to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me."
"How awful! What did you do, Phil?"
"Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a new lash on my whip. Oh, I was _furious_! Witchmaster or no witchmaster, I meant to----"
"Ah! what"s a Witchmaster?"
"A master of witches, of course. _I_ don"t believe there are witches; but people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war"s man, and now he pretends to be a carpenter and joiner--he can make almost anything--but he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can cure them after Dr. Break has given them up, and that"s why Dr. Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts when I was a child." Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate shiny little nails. "It isn"t counted lucky to cross him. He has his ways of getting even with you, they say. But _I_ wasn"t afraid of Jerry! I saw him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my _Troubadour_ (I wish you could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out into the hedge-top. _Most_ undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his side and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly p.r.i.c.ked, but I didn"t care. "Now, Jerry," I said, "I"m going to take the hide off you first, and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why." "Oh!" he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. "Then I reckon you"ve come about old Cissie"s business, my dear." "I reckon I just about have," I said. "Stand away from these hives. I can"t get at you there." "That"s why I be where I be," he said. "If you"ll excuse me, Miss Phil, I don"t hold with bein" flogged before breakfast, at my time o" life." He"s a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives that--I know I oughtn"t to--I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, "Then give me back what you made poor Cissie steal!"