Pam and the Countess

by E. E. Cowper

"I shan't be back by six o'clock, Mummy--at least most likely not--coming back is easy but going will be uphill most of the way."

"So it will." Mrs. Romilly spoke as though this was a new idea. Then she turned her head and smiled at Pamela with serene large blue eyes, "I dare say the Messenger won't be punctual," she said, "so the others will be late, and anyway, dear child, tea can be kept for you, so don't hurry--and thank you so much for going."

Pamela wheeled the bicycle up the drive into the narrow road that ran up and up close under a towering hill-side. All along it, hanging over the road, were banks of fuchsia trees--in summer the whole track would be a sheet of fallen fuchsia blossom. She passed the Temperance Inn on her right, then the church upon the height among the fuchsias, and soon after that the little fairy house called "Fuchsia Cottage", where lived Miss Anne Lasarge, the small grey lady called "The Little Pilgrim" by the Romilly family, because she was like a character in a book they loved.

Miss Anne had done wonders during the War; she had been out in the devastated regions of France working among the homeless peasants. She had only been back since Christmas. Pamela looked at the cottage as she passed. It was like a lovely toy--an ideal cottage--the atmosphere of Miss Anne made a distinct sense of peace cling to it all the year round. No one was in the garden, no one working on the three little terraces bright with flowers, that rose one above another to the lattice-paned bow window of Miss Anne's sitting-room.

Pamela was the least bit disappointed. There was perfect understanding between her and Miss Anne--who possessed a genius for understanding everybody, and everybody's worries. She knew that it was rather lonely to be a middle person in a family--cut off above and below. Pamela vaguely wondered where she was gone to; a natural conclusion being that some one must be ill in one of the farms.

Wheeling the bicycle on up the clean even road she left all trace of houses behind and came to the woods at the back of the valley. The road ran between an over-shadowing height on one side, and thick woods on the other--they bridged the centre of the deep to where the southern heights towered up, covered with more woods.

Presently a white wall began, and the trees behind it thinned a good deal. The wall was high and had broken glass along the top of it. There was a distinct suggestion of rebuff to an inquiring public. Pamela, looking at it, remembered Kipling's story in which "the invasion of privacy" is spoken of as a danger. In this part of the far west land there did not seem much need for walling yourself in, she thought. Moreover, no one lived at Woodrising but Mrs. Trewby the pessimistic caretaker, and it belonged to Sir Marmaduke, who wanted to let it, and had wanted to let it ever since he bought it before the War. There was the big square board--"To be let un-furnished". There were several boards at different points, but no one took the house. It required much money spent on the inside, and the large pretty gardens were neglected. No one worked in them but Peter Cherry, son of Mrs. Rebecca Cherry, the widow who ran the Temperance house in conjunction with her sister Mrs. Paramore.

As Pamela passed the big double gates in the wall, she glanced up at the house behind them. Little could be seen of it but slate roof and chimneys. It was a square, white house of moderate size; not pretty, but comfortable. There was smoke going up from four chimneys. Pamela noticed this as she noticed most things, and deduced from it that Mrs. Trewby was airing the rooms. She also decided that Sir Marmaduke must find the house--still unlet--a great expense. People said he had bought it because he did not want anyone in the valley of an uncongenial kind. He and the Romilly family owned the whole place in present circumstances. A third family--the sort that could afford a house and grounds like Woodrising, might be in the way! That is what people said; no one knew anything actually, because the great K.C. was not a man to confide his affairs to the general public.

Pamela, having glanced at the chimneys went on her way still alongside the white wall with glass on its top. She was walking in the road and some impulse caused her to glance back at the gates when she had gone some little distance. She could just see that one of them had opened inwards, and within the opening stood two people in earnest conversation. One was short and slight, the other was tall and leaned on a stick. The short and slight person was Anne Lasarge, her grey cloak and grey bonnet with white strings proved her; the other was Major Hilton Fraser, the invalided army doctor, lodging at Mainsail Cottage, with the Penberthys. He was lame from shell splinters in the thigh; also four years spent in Mesopotamia and front-line dressing-stations in France had left their mark. Major Fraser was the hero of the Romilly family; Pamela could not mistake his figure. The question was: what could he and the Little Pilgrim be at, meeting at Woodrising?

She paused to gaze, making sure. Then she went on her way, wondering and interested. Pamela was always interested; some people called her "inquisitive", which is not so pleasant an accusation to have tacked on to one! But she could not help herself, for it was that which her nose stood for, with its delicate, keen lines and sharp outline. Just inquiry and the liveliest intuition.