The Kittiwake
The great Easter secret, which Merle had surprised and preserved with so much difficulty, was out at last. Clive's father and mother were coming to Devonshire for a holiday; they had taken rooms at a farm in Chagmouth, and they had not only arranged for their own son to join them, but they had also asked Mavis and Merle to be their visitors. The girls thought that no invitation could have been more delightfully acceptable. They adored Chagmouth, and the Saturdays they managed to spend there were always red-letter days, so the prospect of three whole weeks in this El Dorado sent their spirits up to fizzing-over point.
"Bevis will be at Grimbal's Farm!"
"And Tudor will be at home!"
"The Castletons are expecting Morland and Claudia!"
"And, of course, Fay will be there, and Tattie, and the Colvilles!"
"Goody! What a lovely tribe of us to go out picnics!"
"We'll have the time of our lives!"
Burswood Farm, where Mr. and Mrs. Percy Tremayne had taken rooms, was on the hillside above Chagmouth. It was a delightful spot, with that airy feeling about it that comes from looking down upon your neighbours' chimneys.
"I wouldn't live in Chagmouth, not if you paid me hundreds a year!" declared Mrs. Treasure, their landlady. "Once I'm up here, here I stay! I've not been in the town for over six months. I go on Sundays to the little chapel close by, and if I want shops we get out the gig and drive into Kilvan or Durracombe. It isn't worth the climb back from Chagmouth. I carried William up when he was a baby, and it nearly killed me. I set him down in his cradle and I said: 'There, my boy! I don't go down to Chagmouth again till you can walk back yourself!' And I didn't! He was three years old before I went—even to the post office. How do I manage about stamps? Why, the postman brings them for me and takes my letters. The grocers' carts come round from Kilvan, and the butcher calls once a week, and what can you want more? I say when I've got a nice place like this to live in I'll stay here, and not worry myself with climbing up and down hill."