Fay, who had formed an enthusiastic friendship with Beata and Romola, was as pleased with Chagmouth as her parents. From the windows of Bella Vista she could look across the harbour to The Haven, and had already arranged a code of signals by which she might communicate with her chums. She was a bright, amusing girl, rather grown-up for her age, and the constant companion of her father and mother.
"Fay runs the house!" Mrs. Macleod would declare sometimes; but she was immensely proud of her young daughter, and unwilling to thwart her in any of the projects which she might care to take up. These, indeed, were many. Fay dabbled in numerous hobbies, and her demands varied from photographic materials to special sandals for toe dancing. She thoroughly enjoyed life, and the freshness of her enthusiasm provided her parents with a perpetual interest. To those friends who urged boarding-school her mother was ready with the reply:
"Why must we be parted from her? She's her father's best tonic! She keeps him young and makes him laugh. She's getting her education and living her home life at the same time, and that seems to me ideal. We shall probably have to spare her later on to be married, so we may as well make the most of her now while we've got her. It's the chief tragedy of parents that the children grow up and go away. We'll enjoy our nest while we have our one chick here. When the young ones are fledged, the old birds stop singing."
[Illustration: MR. CASTLETON DID NOT LOOK AT ALL PLEASED]
Of the other girls who shared the car to Durracombe, Tattie Carew, whose parents were in India had come to live with her aunt Miss Grant, in the ivy-covered house at the top of the hill, while Nan and Lizzie Colville were the daughters of the newly-appointed vicar. All six, therefore, were fresh comers to the neighbourhood, and as yet had neither explored the whole of its beauties nor learnt to understand its traditions. In both of these respects Mavis and Merle, though non-residents, had the advantage of them. Their friendship with Bevis Talland, the boy who, once the village foundling, had turned out to be heir to the Chagmouth estate, had given them an intimate acquaintance with the life of the place. Bevis had shown them the haunts of the birds, and the best places for wild flowers, had told them the local legends and the histories of the various worthies of the parish. The little town indeed seemed strangely empty without him, but at present he was away at school, and later would be going to college, though eventually, when he came of age, he would probably take up his residence in the old family home. The Warren, where Tallands had lived for so many generations, had been let on a lease to Mr. Glyn Williams, and the lawyers who managed the property had decided that this arrangement should be continued during Bevis's minority; heavy death duties and land-taxes would cripple the estate for some years, and it was not worth while running a house for the sake of a schoolboy who could pass only his holidays there. Mr. Glyn Williams meanwhile had bought Bodoran Hall near Port Sennen, and would have leisure to make all the many structural alterations which he wished before he was obliged to leave The Warren. Through Bevis's foster-mother, Mrs. Penruddock of Grimbal's Farm, where Dr. Tremayne had his branch surgery at Chagmouth, Mavis and Merle were also kept very much in touch with the tone of the place and knew most of the little happenings that occurred. They were friendly with many of the village people, almost all of whom were their uncle's patients at one time or another, and the Saturday expedition over the moor from Durracombe was to them the central attraction of the whole week.