“Cousin Robin’s still angry with me about the tree,” he said, uncertainly.
“She won’t be angry long!” Lavendar assured him. “You and your Cousin Robin are going to be firm friends, friends for life.”
Carnaby seemed a good deal comforted. “Mind you don’t tell her I blubbered!” he said in sudden alarm. “Swear!”
“She wouldn’t think a bit the worse of you for that!” said Lavendar.
“Swear, though!” repeated Carnaby in deadly earnest.
And Lavendar swore, of course.
But an influence very unlike Lavendar’s and a spirit very different from Robinette’s enfolded Carnaby de Tracy in his home and fought, as it were, for his soul. That night, after the last lamp had been put out by the 319 careful Bates, and after Benson had bade a respectful good-night to her mistress, a light still burned in Mrs. de Tracy’s room. Presently, carried in her hand, it flitted out along the silent passages, past rows of doors which were closed upon empty rooms or upon unconscious sleepers, till it came to Carnaby’s door; to the Boys’ Room, as that far-away and most unluxurious apartment had always been called. Mrs. de Tracy was making a pilgrimage to the shrine of one of her gods. She opened the door, and closing it gently behind her, she stood beside Carnaby’s bed and looked at him, intently and haggardly.
Mrs. de Tracy’s was a singular character, as Mark Lavendar had said. The circumstances of her widowhood with its heavy responsibilities had perhaps hardly been fair to her. There had been little room for the kindlier and softer feelings, though it is to be feared that they would not have found much congenial soil in her heart. The personal 320 selfishness in her had long been merged in the greater and harder selfishness of caste; she had become a mere machine for the keeping up of Stoke Revel.
But to-night she was moved by the positively human sentiment which had been stirred in her by Carnaby’s startling act of cutting the plum tree down. Ah! let fools believe if they could that she was angry with the boy! She had never felt anger less or pride more. While others talked and argued, shilly-shallied, made love, muddled and made mistakes, her grandson, the man of the race that always ruled, had cut the knot for himself, without hesitation and without compunction, without consulting anyone or asking anyone’s leave. That was the way the de Tracys had always acted. And it seemed to Mrs. de Tracy a crowning coincidence, a fitting kind of poetical justice, that Carnaby’s action should actually have prevented the sale of the land; that dreaded, detestable sale of the first land that the 321 de Tracys had held upon the banks of the river.