A harum-scarum schoolgirl Part 4

"Calls herself a mother, does she? Jolly more like a step-mother, I should say," objected Erica.

"Pretty grizzly to be boxed up with Hilary for a whole term," lamented Betty.

"I'm _not going_ to be 'mothered' by her," proclaimed Peggy with energy.

"She's only two years older than I am, and yet from the airs she gives herself you'd think she was Methuselah."

"You don't _look_ like her daughter," remarked Betty, who was literal-minded to a fault.

Peggy made an eloquent grimace.

"I'm an undutiful one, at any rate," she laughed. "I'm afraid Hilary will find me somewhat of a handful."

Up in the little ivy room, however, matters were going somewhat better.

Diana and Loveday, after a few minor differences, dovetailed both their possessions and their dispositions so as to admit of the least possible friction. It was fortunate for Diana, for she had a side to her character that would have bristled into porcupine quills had she been placed with Hilary. Loveday's particular temperament soothed her down.

"I'm falling in love with her," she admitted to Wendy. "I was taken with her, of course, the moment I saw her, but I believe now I'm going to have it badly. I think she's beautiful! If there were a Peach Compet.i.tion, she'd win at a canter."

Such a pandering to the "pomps and vanities" as a Beauty Show was certainly not an item in the list of new experiments at Pendlemere, but there was a general consensus of opinion that Loveday held the palm in the matter of looks. She was a fair, slender girl, with delicate features, a clear complexion, and a quant.i.ty of long flaxen hair. She spoke prettily, but without affectation, and always gave an impression of great refinement. The wistful look that sometimes shaded her blue eyes was, on the whole, attractive.

"She's like a picture I once saw of Eve just turned out of Paradise,"

commented Diana, sitting with Wendy and Tattie in the window-seat on the stairs.

"Not half a bad shot," said Wendy. "In fact, it just about hits the mark. In a way, Loveday _is_ turned out of Paradise. That's to say, I suppose, if her grandfather hadn't gambled, the Abbey would have belonged to her."

"What Abbey?"

"Why, this, of course, stupid!"

"Do you mean to say Loveday's folks used to _own_ this place?"

"They did. Owned it for hundreds of years. They were an old Border family, and mixed up with the rebellion of 1745, and all sorts of interesting things. Loveday's grandfather was the regular old-fas.h.i.+oned sporting kind of squire you read about in books. He gambled the whole property away. I suppose it used to be a fine place in his day. I've heard he kept eight hunters, and always had the house full of guests while his money lasted. Then there was a grand smash up, and everything had to be sold--house, horses, furniture, and all. He went abroad and died of a broken heart--never smiled again, and all that sort of thing, you know."

"How fearfully romantic!" gasped Diana. "Of course it was his own fault for gambling, but still one feels sorry for him. Did Loveday live here too when she was little?"

Wendy shook her head.

"I shouldn't think so. I believe it happened ever such a long time ago; before she was born, even."

"Couldn't her father get it back?"

"I suppose not. Besides, he's dead too. Loveday is an orphan. She's neither father nor mother."

"Where does she live, then, when she's at home?"

"With an uncle and aunt--her mother's relations. But she never talks very much about them, so we fancy they're not particularly nice to her.

She has no brothers or sisters. I think she feels lonely, if you ask my opinion, but she's too proud to say so."

"And Pendlemere ought to be hers! How romantic!" repeated Diana. "I wanted to stay in a real old-fas.h.i.+oned mediaeval British house, and here I'm plumped into a story as well. It's most exciting! What's going to happen next? Is Loveday going to get it back? Will she marry the man who owns it? Or will somebody leave her a fortune? Or will she find a lost will? How do stories generally end?" continued Diana, casting her mind over a range of light literature which she had skimmed and half forgotten.

Wendy disposed of each of the suggestions in turn.

"There isn't anybody to leave her a fortune; and what's the good of finding a will when the place is sold? The present owner is a fat old fellow of fifty, with a wife already, and, even if _she_ died, I shouldn't think Loveday would want to marry him. He has three daughters older than she is, and he's quite bald."

Diana looked baffled. Her romantic plan of restoring the fortunes of the Seton family through matrimony certainly did not seem hopeful.

"I'm fearfully sorry for Loveday," confided Tattie. "I know something about her, because some friends of ours live near her aunt. They say she gets very much snubbed; her cousins make her feel it's not her own home.

She wants to go to college, but it's doubtful if she'll be able. Nesta Erskine says Loveday is just _counting_ on a career. She wants to be independent of her aunt."

"It must be horrible to be snubbed," commented Diana thoughtfully.

She had admired Loveday before, but now she looked at her room-mate with new eyes. To Diana there was something fascinating about the idea of a "penniless princess".

"Do your ancestors go right slap-bang back to the Conquest?" she asked interestedly, while she was undressing that evening.

"Well, not quite so far as that," smiled Loveday, diligently brus.h.i.+ng a flaxen mane ripply with plaiting. "But I believe there were Setons in the fourteenth century, long before they had the Abbey from Edward the Sixth's commissioners. There are all sorts of stories and legends about them, of course."

"What kind of stories? Do tell me! I'd just admire to hear. I'm crazy on Border ballads and legends. Tell me, while I fix my hair."

"Well, there was little Sir Rowland. When he was only six years old his father was killed in one of the battles of the Wars of the Roses. They were Lancastrians, and the Yorkists seized his estate, and Rowland was only saved from the fury of the conquering party by the devotion of his nurse. She managed to hide him in a secret place in the tower till there was an opportunity to escape, and then she got him away to her father's house in the midst of a wild tract of forest. He lived there, disguised as a forester, for years and years, and helped to cut wood and to hunt, and only two or three people knew the secret of his birth. He used to go errands sometimes to the great Hall of the neighbourhood, and there he saw Lady Anne, the beautiful daughter of Lord Wharton, and fell desperately in love with her. One day when she was out riding he was able to save her from the attack of an infuriated stag, and I suppose she was very grateful, and perhaps showed her feelings too plainly, for her father shut her up in a turret-room, and ordered her to marry somebody whom she didn't like at all. I don't know what would have happened, but just then Henry VII came to the throne, and one of his first acts was to restore Sir Rowland Seton to his possessions and dignity. Lord Wharton must have thought him an eligible suitor then, for he was allowed to marry the Lady Anne, and take her away to his castle.

Their tomb is in Dittington Church. He was killed at the Battle of Flodden, and one of his sons with him.

"There's a romantic story, too, about Sir Roderick Seton, who lived at the Abbey here in the days of Charles I. He had a stone seat made, and put just by the front door. The first person who sat on it was a lovely girl named Katherine, and he said to her: 'Katherine, you have sat on my seat, so you must give me three kisses as toll'. Not very long after he went away to London, leaving his brother William to look after the estate. Then civil war broke out, and he joined the Royalist forces, and followed the young King Charles into exile. After the Restoration he journeyed north, and came on foot to his old home. It was years and years since he had left there, and n.o.body had had any tidings about him, or knew whether he was alive or dead. He found his brother William, who was now married to Katherine, sitting with her and their two children on the stone seat by the door. He asked them for a night's lodging, and, though they did not know who he was, they took him in and treated him kindly. Next morning he asked his hostess to accompany him to the door, and, pointing to the stone seat, said:

"'It is many years since I had three kisses from the dame who first sat on it.'

"She recognized him then, and ran joyously to call the rest of the household. His brother at once wished to hand over the keys to him, but he would not accept them. 'I am old and childless,' he said. 'All I ask here is bed and board till you carry me to the churchyard.' He lived with them for some years, and devoted himself to study. The people of the neighbourhood venerated him as a sage, and after his death he was supposed on very special occasions to appear and give the family warning of future trouble. They say he was seen before the Battle of Culloden, and several times during the Napoleonic wars; but of course I can't vouch for that--it's only legend."

Diana, sitting up in bed with the curtains of her cubicle drawn aside to listen, gave a long-drawn, breathless sigh.

"O-o-o-oh! How gorgeous to belong to a highfaluting family that's got legends and ghosts. I'm just crazy to hear more. What about the house?

Aren't there any dungeons or built-up skeletons or secret hiding-places?

There _ought_ to be, in a real first-cla.s.s mediaeval place like this."

Loveday was plaiting her flaxen hair into two long braids; she paused with the ribbon in her hand.

"I don't know--as you say, there ought to be. I've often wondered--especially since----" She hesitated.

"Since what?" urged Diana, scenting the beginning of a mystery.

"Since something that happened once."

"When? Oh, _do_ tell me!"

"I've never told anybody."

Diana hopped out of bed, and flung two lace-frilled arms round her room-mate, clinging to her with the tenacity of a young octopus.

"Oh, Loveday! Ducky! Tell me! I shan't let you go till you promise.

Please! please!" she entreated.