Hurrying wind o’er the heaven’s hollow And the heavy rain to follow.         
          CHIMES.

ANNETTE in Westmoreland had the small happenings in the household in Fern Square week by week as far as her mother knew them. Every Friday evening Mrs. Folyat used to write five letters: a short one to Annette, a long one to Leedham because he was so far away, one to a friend in Potsham with whom she had corresponded ever since her marriage, and two to elegant relations. She had no power of consecutive thought, and her letters rambled and ambled, a queer mixture of narrative and comment, all things being equal in interest (or the lack of it)—“Just fancy, the verger’s son is married, and only eighteen! Did I tell you that Betsy, the new cat, had four kittens in the kitchen drawer? Your pa is very well, but the other day I had to go to the dentist and he made a face over the bill, and I said ‘I am your wife. You have to keep me in repair.’ He looked so surprised and I was surprised at myself. Was it not a fool thing to say? Frederic is working very hard, but Serge is making a dreadful litter in his room with his brushes and paint. I do hate untidiness and shiftlessness. You will be quite a stranger here when you come. Mary is getting on very well with her music-lessons. She plays the viola now, not the violin. It is easier to get into an orchestra if you play the viola. I hope you are doing your duty, &c., &c. . . .” The letter always wound up with a common form parental sermon, which Annette always skipped. She did not get many letters, and her mother’s regular epistles were a boon to her. She was dreadfully afraid of the       [Pg 120]servants at High Beck, and letters gave her a feeling of security against them, for they witnessed to the fact that she had ties with the world outside. Occasionally, when Mrs. Folyat mounted her gentility hobby-horse, she would leave her letters lying open in her room in the certain knowledge that they would be read and discussed below stairs.

She had never seen Serge, for she was born after his departure from St. Withans, but he had always been far more real to her than her other brothers and sisters. He was a romantic figure to her, and when he cropped up again in her mother’s letters she imagined him to herself as a being handsome beyond all other men and brave and strong. She used to regale her pupil with tales of his adventures, borrowing from Scott or Thackeray when her own invention gave out, and she made him so entrancing that her pupil announced her intention of marrying him when she grew up. She had first of all imagined him richer than anybody had ever been, but after a letter from Minna—a poor correspondent with excellent descriptive powers—telling of Serge’s homecoming she then imagined him poorer than anybody had ever been, and she invented a lady with boundless wealth who should marry him, restore the family fortunes, and take her (Annette) away from teaching.

On the whole Annette had little cause to complain. Her employers were stupid but not malicious. It never occurred to them that she might need a change from the society of her pupil. Annette was so young in years—younger still in mind—that they regarded her rather as a companion than as an instructress, and lost all idea of authority, so that Deedy, the child, was always playing her parents off against her governess. Annette used to weep many tears over her ineffectuality, but then, having a sense of humour, she would laugh at the idea of herself, who had never successfully learned anything, being paid to instruct another child in French, English grammar, orthography, arithmetic and algebra. She grew fond of Deedy, and Deedy’s parents were affectionate with her, as, being kindly people, they would have been with any [Pg 121]strange child staying in their house. They led a very quiet life in Westmoreland. Young people hardly ever came to stay with them, and their house was conducted with the regularity of Mr. Fender’s office. Prayers were read by Mr. Fender at eight to the four servants on one side of the room and Annette on the other. Breakfast was at half-past. Lessons were from ten till one. Deedy had to be taken for a walk in the afternoon, generally up the beck, for she had a pool where dwelt a fairy and a hippogriff (inventions of Annette’s) and loved to send written messages to them over the little waterfall. At six Deedy was taken to see her mother in the drawing-room, and Annette had a free hour. At seven Deedy was put to bed, and the rest of the day was Annette’s unless she were desired to play to Mrs. Fender in the evening.

It was a dull life, but it left much time for dreaming, and sometimes Deedy was very amusing. She had an eager prying curiosity and was much interested in God.

“What’s an only begotten son?” she asked one day.

“It means the only one.”

“Am I only begotten?”

“Yes.”

She thought for a very long time. Then:

“Why didn’t God get another one?”

“Oh, Deedy. Hush!”

“Why do you always say ‘Hush’ when I ask questions?”

Annette laughed.

“Because I don’t know the answer.”

“Does anybody know? Does your father know?”

“Yes.”

“How does he know?”

“Because he’s a clergyman.”

“Doesn’t my father know?”

“Perhaps he does.”

“I wish I wasn’t only begotten.”

“I don’t think it makes much difference.”

“I wish I had a brother like Serge.”

“I’ve never seen Serge, so, you see, it doesn’t really make much difference.”

[Pg 122]

“You’ve never been only begotten, so you don’t know, Miss Folyat.”

Annette left it at that. She never knew what Deedy was thinking. She hardly knew what she thought herself, and her notions of other people were axiomatic, based on uncritical acceptance of her mother’s assumptions. She regarded herself as a very ordinary person—(at school she had thought herself neither above nor below the general run of girls, and had done the things they did, and talked of the things they talked of, very largely because they did them and talked of them). She felt a little resentfully that Deedy was an extraordinary person, but put it down to her deformity and pitied her. Being very active herself she could imagine no greater misfortune, except perhaps being deaf, like Beethoven, than to be unable to run and jump and swim. She loved swimming, and every morning would go up the beck to Deedy’s pool and plunge into the cold water or sit under the little waterfall. And then she would lie in the soft grass and rub her body over with crushed flowers, and laugh for the joy and freedom of it all. And she would come back with her hair lank and wet—there was very little of it, and that thin in texture—and wake Deedy and tell her how the morning was full of song. . . . Often when they sat by the pool in the evening the child would make her talk about the water and how it felt when it kissed her body, and one day Deedy said:

“Swim now.”

It was a very hot August day, and Annette had been narrating an adventure of Serge, based on the works of Edward S. Ellis, how he had swum two hundred yards Under water in an American river and surprised and captured an Indian spy. The description of under-water had been singularly vivid, and the beck was in mid-flood and very clamorous. Annette slipped out of her clothes and dived into the pool and lay there floating, her eyes closed and her hair floating out and her white body shimmering mysteriously through the water. Deedy crawled to the edge of the pool and looked down.

“Don’t lie still. Swim!”

[Pg 123]

Annette kicked up a white spume of water and Deedy clapped her hands.

“Now work your arms!”

Annette swam swiftly to the waterfall and sat under it and played with the water with her hands. Then she dived again into the pool and brought up a round pebble which she gave to Deedy as a present from the hippogriff. Deedy flung it back into the water.

“Why, Deedy, you’re crying!”

“I hate you. You’re ugly.”

Annette became conscious that the child was staring at her body. She blushed, hastily snatched up her clothes and ran away behind an elder-bush. All her joy had vanished and her thoughts were filled with the whisperings of the little girls at the school in Edinburgh. It was part of the delight of her life here in Westmoreland that all such griminess had been left behind. She was so hurt in the sudden loss of her joy that she could not think nor make any effort to understand. All her thought was to get away as quickly as possible, to get away from Deedy. She dressed rapidly, wound up her hair, wet as it was, and in absolute silence hurried home with Deedy.

In the house she found two letters waiting her, one from her mother, one from Minna, both announcing the same thing, Gertrude’s engagement to Bennett Lawrie. Mrs. Folyat wrote:

“My dear, he is a very earnest and worthy young man and he simply adores Gertrude. He is in business in a very large firm. He is a gentleman. His grandfather was a Scotch minister, and his grandmother was the daughter of a laird. Gertrude is very happy. They fell in love over some theatricals they did in the school-room. Everybody said he was much better than any professional. Frederic brought him to the house. Frederic has such nice friends. Your father has built a greenhouse out in the back garden. The engagement is not to be announced for a year as it will be some time before they can afford to marry. I hope you are attending to your duties and giving all satisfaction to dear Mrs. Fender . . .

Minna wrote:

[Pg 124]

“Dear Annette. Fancy! Mother Bub is engaged, and Mottle-tooth is green with envy. He is like a shorn lamb, and Mother Bub will eat him cutlet by cutlet, with little paper frills round them. He’s a clerk in an office and his father’s a drunkard, and when he stays too late an old Scotch servant comes and fetches him away. He’s about thirty-nine years younger than Bub, but she couldn’t face the thirties—or is it the forties? Serge is very funny about it. Ma is very excited and romantical. Pa hasn’t said a word, and I’m not sure even that he knows. I rather like the Lamb, myself, and he is rather beautiful. I suppose if Bub goes off and Mottle-tooth and me, there’ll be room for you at home. Someone will have to look after Ma . . .”

Minna’s flippancy rather offended Annette. Hardly having been at home for so many years she had many delightful fictions about the house in Fern Square. She regarded its inmates as a united and happy family, and herself as the only outcast. It was Home to her, and she enveloped it with all the unreal emotions roused in vast audiences by Madame Patti with her rendering of the famous song. She was touched by the very thought of love and pictured Gertrude radiant and all the house glowing with the happiness of this new event. The poverty of the young man only made it all the more delightful. The first play she had ever seen was Caste, and she often cried when she thought of it. It seemed enviable to her to have Eccles for a father-in-law.

All this made her forget her unhappiness by the water, and she forgot Deedy’s prying stare and lived through the next few days in a dream of young love.

On the third day she had a rude awakening. After dinner in th............