She slid quietly from her bed to avoid waking the child, who was already breathing deeply, asleep. Tiptoeing to the window, she pulled back the curtains and strained her eyes out into the darkness. Nothing was visible. There was no moon, and the phalanx of low, spreading apple trees successfully concealed whatever was causing the noise. For some minutes Delsie remained, looking and wondering. She quietly opened the casement window and stuck her head out. The noises were more easily audible now, though they were still low noises, as of stealthy movement. She could hear the rattle of a harness, or chain, and the soft clop of hooves, moving slowly forward. Some indistinguishable sounds of human voices too, male voices, she knew. Men were in the orchard, with a horse or horses. What could it mean? The only conclusion she could come to was that some poor neighbors were stealing apples. The crop surely had been harvested by such a late date, but the windfalls perhaps were being taken up by some poor family. With a shrug of her shoulders, she closed the window and climbed back into the warm bed, not unduly disturbed, but determined to check the next morning to see if she could discover trace of the intruders. Familiar with the pinch of poverty, she did not begrudge the taking of the apples, but she would prefer in future that permission be asked. Foolish of them to have waited so long, too- December. The apples must be inedible by now.
There was no sleeping in, the next morning, with a wide-awake six-year-old in her bed, eager to be up and doing. The girl was up bright and early. Glancing at her watch, Delsie saw it was only seven. How quickly she had become accustomed to the luxury of sleeping in! But rest was impossible with the wiggling child hinting every minute that it was bright, so she dragged herself out of bed, and put on her frock while Bobbie skipped down the hall to dress herself. With a pang of sympathy for the lower orders, she told the girl not to awaken her governess. However, when Bobbie returned to her, her braids were neatly made up, and clearly it had not been her own childish fingers that had formed them so well.
They went belowstairs, to find no breakfast awaiting them at such an hour. Mrs. Bristcombe seemed startled to be run to earth in her kitchen, a single glimpse of which quite revolted Delsie for the filth all around. Another battle to come over this before the day was done. The kettle was not even on the boil. Mrs. Bristcombe was given orders to have breakfast ready by eight, and the ladies of the Cottage went outdoors for a walk. With a memory of the commotion in the orchard the night before, Delsie elected to walk there, though she would not disturb the child with an account of what had occurred.
To call it an orchard was really to overstate the case. There were only thirty trees, six rows of five. From the number of apples on the ground, and the state of them, it seemed highly unlikely it was this that had drawn the intruders. The apples were beyond eating, for the most part. They had been through several frosts, leaving them brown and withered. A few still clung to the branches, their skins puckered.
This waste shocked the thrifty ex-teacher. It was too late to save them this fall, but next year they would be gathered before they had turned. She observed that two trees growing in the midst of the others were dwarfed for some reason-noticeably runted compared to the rest. The apples did not appear to be of any different kind, so that could not account for it. She looked about her for signs of intruders. Clearly the men had not come for apples, so what had brought them? She could see no wheel tracks in the grass. There were considerable signs of traffic, the grass well trampled, with here and there in the earth the outline of what might have been horseshoes.
Bobbie was playing about, looking for edible apples on the ground. “Why are those two trees smaller than the others, do you know?” Delsie asked her.
“Those are the pixie trees,” the child answered.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s what Mrs. Bristcombe calls them, the pixie trees. They are the best ones in the orchard too, even though the smallest. She says they are worth more than all the others put together.”
Again Delsie looked at the apples still remaining on the dwarf trees, comparing them to those on the others. She picked one in better preservation than the others and tasted it. It was a plain pippin, tasty but not delicious. She walked to the other small tree and examined it. It too was just an ordinary tree, dwarfed for some reason. The soil perhaps was not good in these two spots, though it seemed odd, right in the middle of the small orchard, that some different soil should occur. Rocks beneath the ground, she thought, might account for it. The roots could have hit rock and not been allowed to flourish properly.
She was just turning to leave when her eye fell on a small canvas bag. Thinking she had discovered some clue left by the intruders, she picked it up with great curiosity. It was heavy and jingled with pieces of metal. Opening it, she was stunned to see it held a quantity of guineas. Bobbie was off throwing apples at a tree. Delsie decided to keep her discovery a secret from the child. She concealed it under her pelisse, but was highly curious to get to her room and count the guineas. What could account for it? What sort of intruders came and took nothing, so far as she could see, but left a bag of gold worth a great deal?
“Shall we pick some of these pretty ox-eye daisies and corn marigolds before we go in?” she asked. Together they went to the orchard’s edge to gather these late-blooming wildflowers, before going inside for breakfast. They took them to their rooms to arrange in a vase. Once she achieved privacy, Delsie emptied the canvas bag on the counterpane, marveling at the quantity of gold pieces-one hundred in all. One hundred gold guineas-more than a year’s salary. Her first inclination was to run to deVigne with the bag and ask his opinion, but Lady Jane was coming to call for her soon, and it would have to wait till after the shopping trip.
Afraid to leave such a fortune in her room, where she was by no means sure it would be safe from prying eyes after her departure, she put it in her reticule and took it to the table with her. Miss Milne and Bobbie soon joined her. The three were in no hurry to dispatch their breakfast, but could not make it last till nine-thirty, at which time Lady Jane was to arrive. Bobbie was taken, unwilling, to the schoolroom for a lesson, while Mrs. Grayshott sat going over her list, adding a new item at every spot where her eye fell. Beeswax and turpentine to remove the dust and grime from the saloon, more candles, a great deal of them as the house was so gloomy, embroidery woolens, and backing for her tambour frame. The items wanted seemed endless. She was still busy at this chore when the knocker sounded. As Bristcombe was still invisible, she went herself to answer it. DeVigne stood at the door, his carriage waiting on the roadside.
“Good morning, cousin,” he said brightly. “Still playing butler, I see. Did you speak to Bristcombe about leaving lights burning for you at night?”
“No, I spoke to his wife-but I never see him. I’m not sure I want to. Come in.”
“He was in the orchard just now as I came along the road. I made sure you had set him to gather the withered apples. They won’t be good for anything but pig feed, but I know your aversion to waste.”
“I must speak to you,” she said, ignoring this banter. She took him to the saloon, with a question as to why it was himself who had come in lieu of Lady Jane.
“We are to meet her in the village. With five of us, one carriage will not hold all your purchases on the return voyage, if you are the enthusiastic shopper most ladies are. I have business there, and shall bring Sir Harold back with me, leaving you three ladies to shop to your hearts’ content. But surely that is not what you meant to ask me. From the size of your eyes, I hoped for missing knives or forks at the least.”