The Revellers

“No,” he said, speaking slowly, and looking at Angèle. “It was a small road map. You haf not seen it, I dink.”

“Was it made of linen, with a red cover?”

“Yez,” and the man’s face became curiously stern.

“Oh, I saw you studying it one day at The Elms, but you didn’t have it on the moor.”

Fritz’s scowl changed to an expression of disappointment.

“I haf mislaid it,” he grunted, and again his glance dwelt on Angèle, who met his gaze with a bland indifference that seemed to gall him.

Colonel Grant drew near. He had been eyeing the two spick-and-span chauffeurs.

“Who is your friend, Martin?” he said. He was interested in everything the boy did and in everyone whom he knew.

“Oh, this is Fritz Bauer, Mrs. Saumarez’s chauffeur… Fritz, this is Colonel Grant, of the Indian Army.”

Instantly the two young Germans straightened as though some mechanism had stiffened their spines and thrown back their heads. The newcomer’s heels clicked and his right hand was raised in a salute. Fritz, better schooled than his comrade by longer residence in England, barely prevented his heels from clicking, and managed to convert the salute into a raising of his cap. There could be no doubt that he was flustered, because he said not a word, and the open-air tan of his cheeks assumed a deeper tint.

Apparently, Colonel Grant saw nothing of this, or, if he noticed the man’s confusion, attributed it to nervousness.

“Two Mercedes cars in one small village!” he exclaimed laughingly. “You Germans are certainly conquering England by peaceful penetration.”

Mrs. Saumarez elected, after all, not to visit the White House that afternoon, so Angèle, having said good-by to the colonel and Martin in her prettiest manner, was whisked off in the car.

“By the way, Martin,” said his father as the two walked to the farm. “Mrs. Saumarez is German by birth. Have you ever heard anything about her family?”

Martin had a good memory.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “She is a baroness – the Baroness Irma von Edelstein.”

The colonel was surprised at this glib answer.

“Who told you?” he inquired.

“Angèle, sir. But Mrs. Saumarez did not wish people to use her title. She was vexed with Angèle for even mentioning it.”

Mrs. Saumarez sent her car to bring Colonel Grant and his son to the Hall. She was slightly ruffled when Fritz told her that they had gone already, Mr. Beckett-Smythe having collected his guests from both the inn and the vicarage.

She might have been positively indignant if she had overheard Grant’s comments to the Admiralty official while the two strolled on the lawn before dinner.

“A couple of Prussian officers, if ever I saw the genuine article,” said the colonel. “Real junkers – smart-looking fellows, too. Mrs. Saumarez is the widow of a British officer – a fine chap, but poor as a church mouse – and she belongs to a wealthy German family. Verbum sap.”

“Nuff said,” grinned the sailor. “But what is one to do? No sooner is this outfit erected but it’ll be added to the display of local picture postcards, and the next German bigwig who visits this part of the country will be invited to amuse himself by ringing up Bremen.”

At any rate, Mrs. Saumarez was told that night that the Yorkshire coast was too highly magnetized to suit a wireless station. The sailor thought an inland town like York would provide an ideal site.

“You see,” he explained politely, “when the German High Seas Fleet defeats the British Navy it can shell our coast towns all to smithereens.”

She smiled.

“You fighting men invariably talk of war with Germany as an assured thing,” she said. “Yet I, who know Germany, and have relatives there, am convinced that the notion is absurd.”

“The Emperor has been twenty years on the throne and has never drawn sword except on parade,” put in the vicar. “There may have been danger once or twice in his hot youth, but he has grown to like England, and I cannot conceive him plunging a great and thriving country into the morass of a doubtful campaign.”

“Ninety-nine per cent of Englishmen like to think that way,” said the Admiralty man. “In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom, so let’s hope they’re right.”

When the young folk got together on the terrace, Frank Beckett-Smythe asked Martin why his neck was stiff.

“I took a toss off Elsie’s swing yesterday,” was the airy answer. Not a word did he or Elsie say as to Angèle, and the Beckett-Smythes knew better than to introduce her name.

Mrs. Saumarez left for the South rather hurriedly. She paid no farewell visits. She and Angèle traveled in the car; Françoise followed with the baggage. The Misses Walker were consoled for the loss of a valued lodger by receiving a less exacting one in the person of Martin’s father.

The boy himself, when his mental poise was adjusted to the phenomenal change in his life, soon grew accustomed to a new environment. Mr. Herbert undertook to direct his studies in preparation for a public school, and Martha Bolland became reconciled gradually to seeing him once or twice daily, instead of all day, for he, too, lived at The Elms.

Officially, as it were, he adopted his new name, but to the small world of Elmsdale he would ever be “Martin.” Even his father fell into the habit.

The colonel drove him to the adjourned petty sessions at Nottonby when Betsy’s case came on for hearing. Mr. Stockwell abandoned his critical attitude and concurred with the police that there was no need to bring Angèle Saumarez from London to attend the trial. Mrs. Saumarez gave no thought to the fact that the girl might be needed to give evidence, but the authorities decided that there were witnesses in plenty as to the outcry raised in the garden after Pickering was wounded.

It was November before Betsy appeared at the county assizes. When she entered the dock, those who knew her were astonished by the improvement in her appearance. It was probable that the enforced rest, the regular exercise, the judicious diet of the prison had exercised a beneficial effect on her health.

Her demeanor was calm as ever, and the able barrister who defended her did not scruple to suggest that it would create a better effect with the jury if she adopted a less unemotional attitude.

Her reply silenced him.

“Do you think,” she said, “that I will be permitted to atone for my wrongdoing by punishment? No. I live because my husband wished me to live. I will be called to account, but not by an earthly judge or jury.”

She was right. The assize judge held the scales of justice impartially between the sworn testimony of George Pickering and Betsy’s witnesses, on the one hand, and the evidence of Martin and the groom, backed by the scientists, on the other.

The jury gave her the benefit of the doubt and acquitted her, but it was noticed by many that his lordship contented himself with ordering her discharge from custody. He passed no opinion on the verdict.

So Betsy was installed as mistress of Wetherby Lodge, the trustees having decided that she was well fitted to manage the estate.

Tongues wagged in Elmsdale when Mr. Stockwell drove thither one day and solemnly handed over to Martin the sword and the double-barreled gun, and to John Bolland the pedigree cow bequeathed by George Pickering.

The farmer eyed the animal grimly.

“’Tis an unfortunate beast,” he said. “Mebbe if I hadn’t sold her te poor George he might nivver hae coom te Elmsdale just then.”

“Do not think that,” the solicitor assured him. “Pickering would most certainly have visited the fair. I know, as a matter of fact, that he wished to purchase one of your brood mares.”

“Ay, ay. She went te Jarmany. Well, if I’m spared, I’ll send a good calf to Wetherby.”

The lawyer and he shook hands on the compact. Yet Pickering’s odd bequest was destined to work out in a way that would have amazed the donor, could he but know it.

Martin was at Winchester – his father’s old school – when he received a letter in Bolland’s laborious handwriting. It read:

“My Dear Lad – Yours to hand, and this leaves your mother and self in good health. We were glad to hear that the box arrived all right and that your mates think well of Yorkshire cakes. You may learn a lot of useful things at school, but you will not often meet with a better cook than your mother. She is sore upset just now about a mishap we have had on the farm. I turned out nearly all my shorthorns to graze on the low pastures. The ground was a bit damp, and a strange cow broke in at night to join them. I don’t rightly know what to blame, but next day they showed signs of rinderpest. I sent for the vet, and they had to be slaughtered – all but one two-year-old bull, Bainesse Boy IV., and Mr. Pickering’s cow, which were not with them in the meadow. It is a great loss, but I don’t repine, now that you are provided for, and it is not quite like starting all over again, as I have my land and my Cleveland bays, and I am in no debt. In such matters I turn to the Lord for consolation. I have just read this verse to Martha: ‘I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’ If you are minded to look it up, you will find it in the Thirty-seventh Psalm.