Читать книгу Prince Charlie - Burford Delannoy - Страница 6

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Proverbially women love men's approbation. Something of the feeling within him must have evidenced itself in Masters' eyes. His attentive scrutiny—despite all there was of respect in it—did not, apparently, please Miss Mivvins. Possibly, she was inclined to consider his admiration rudeness. Anyway she called:

"Come, Gracie!"

Taking the child's little hand in her own neatly gloved one as she spoke, the woman turned, evidently intent on walking back in the direction whence she had come.

That brought Masters to his feet in a moment—cap in hand, and apology in mouth. Full of crudities as was his character, he possessed an instinctive courtesy. In all the arraignments for his breaches of Society's unwritten laws, impoliteness had never figured. He spoke; said:

"Pray do not let me drive you away! Possession may be nine points of the law, but we may consider ourselves beyond the pale of its practice here. If, as I hear—from lips the truth of which it would be absurd to doubt—that this is considered your seat," his smile was not an unpleasing one, "I should never forgive myself if trespass of mine interfered with the owner's use of it."

"Is that pen you are using," inquired Gracie suddenly, à propos of nothing, "one of those you put the ink in at the wrong end, and trickle it out of the other?"

A softness blended with the smile on Masters' face and merged into that kindly expression of the strong for the weak. It was the successful catching of just such tenderness which made Landseer's name figure so prominently in the world of Art. As the author looked down at the mite from his six-feet altitude, the look on his face was an irresistible reminder of a St. Bernard's kindness to a toy terrier.

"You have accurately described it, little woman," he answered. "But it does not always trickle when you want it to—though it generally does when you don't."

The child looked mystified; evidently deemed further explanation necessary. Miss Mivvins was still standing, waiting to go. Masters hesitated; looked from one to the other. Politeness made him say:

"I am leaving—pray be seated."

But the woman saw through that. Would have been very high up the fool grade indeed had she failed to do so. It really was quite too transparent an artifice. When truth is sacrificed on the altar of politeness the ceremony needs skill, otherwise the lie becomes even more offensive than the act it was to cover.

His little speech induced her to take a step forward; made her say:

"Oh, no! Do not let me drive you away!"

She spoke impulsively; hurriedly. Masters thought with everything in the tone that was desirable in a woman's voice. He smiled as he expostulated:

"But you remember, surely—it is not many moments ago—you were quite willing to allow me to drive you away."

Then she smiled too. Smiles which brought into play mouth and eyes and the dimples in her cheeks. From his own face the gravity—some people called it Austerity—had already departed. There was a peculiarly softening influence about Miss Mivvins. Perhaps his own relaxing was the result of that.

"It is a long seat."

He indicated its measurement with a sweep of his hand as he spoke; continued:

"Let its length be our way out of the difficulty—it is a long lane that has no turning. How will it be if we make it large enough for both?"

It was a tentative sort of invitation. An invisible olive branch to which her hand went out. Again she smiled. A moment's hesitation ... then seated herself.

From the bag depending by silken cords from her wrist she drew a book. Having given the little girl sundry directions as to the assumption of preternatural virtue, the woman commenced to read.

Masters resumed his place at the other end of the seat. Had book in hand too: manuscript book. He had come out with intent to write; told himself that fulfilment was necessary. But he had Gracie to reckon with.

The sharp eyes of that four-year-old little maid were furtively fixed on the magic pen. She was trying hard to fulfil the injunction: Be good—from the adult standpoint. But gradually the admonition was fading from her mind—she was very human.

After a while—a courage-summoning period—the little hands were laced behind her, and boldly facing the owner of the attraction, the little one addressed him, in a kind of I Dare You voice:

"I could write with a pen like that!"

For a second time the child's voice brought the man's attention away from his work.

"Could you?"

He smiled as he spoke. Looked up from his book as he did so. Then, infusing a note of doubt in his voice, enquired:

"Are you sure?"

"Y—yes. Quite!"

Then, as an afterthought, possibly by way of redemption of the hesitation, the child continued:

"I could if I had one!"

Finding her first venture had not roused the lion, but fearing him a little still, she went on defiantly:

"I saw a man fill one once!"

Such a statement as that surely could not fail to crush a mere user of the pen! Seeing that astonishment was expected of him, Masters assumed an appropriate look of surprise. His wearing of it pleased her mightily.

"Perhaps," he said, "you would like to make quite sure you could write with one, eh? Would you like to try with this?"

The blue eyes brightened; she was at his side in a moment. Shyness is readily overcome when our summers have not numbered five. Trustfulness at that age has rarely been shocked.

Therein, perhaps, lay the secret of the attraction children had for Masters: the sweetness of their suspicionless existence. Viewed from the standpoint of the after life, when—if we act up to the axioms of the world we live in—we trust no man, it is apt to brush across us as refreshingly as a gust of country air.

Turning the leaves of his book till he came to a blank page, Masters twisted and rested the cover on his knee. So the open leaf was level with the intending—eyes-sparkling-with-excitement—writer. Then he gave the child his pen.

She drew a capital G—a bright little point of tongue protruding the while. The head, too, seemed to follow the movements of the hand. Her intent was plain: to write her own name.

That was compassed. It took a little time—entailed a huge expenditure of concentrated energy—but she got through with it at last. There figured on the paper the words:

Gracie Seton-Carr.

The child's glance came off the page; she moved away a pace. Looked up into his eyes, her own flashing like diamonds. Such little things please—in that time of happiness when we are little ourselves. After drawing a long breath she ejaculated triumphantly:

"There!"

Once more Masters gladdened the little one, by acting as he was expected to act. No man on that coast could have worn a larger-sized look of astonishment. He cried:

"Won—der—ful!"

A clapping of hands in her glee, and the child danced merrily along to the other end of the seat.

"I've written my name with one of those funny squirter pens, Miss Mivvins! What do you think of that?"

"I think you have a funny way of keeping your word, Gracie. You professed anxiety to finish your castle on the sands, yet you are spending your time on the wall!"

"Oh-h-h!"—prolonged and drawn out—"I had forgotten all about it!"

Attention diverted from the pen, the child ran down the steps on to the beach. A few minutes after, Masters, looking up, saw her busily at work with a spade and pail. The implements had evidently been left there in the morning.

That rather proved the excellence of the estimate the author had made of Wivernsea out of the season. Castle builders could leave their tools uncared for and find them when they returned. Not because of a superabundance of honesty around; rather because of the lack of thieves.

The castle creator continued her work; the pail-shaped battlements increased in number. She handled bucket and spade with the same earnestness, eagerness and engrossment with which she had fingered the pen.

Those were methods which appealed to the story-creator. But just now he was not working with his own accustomed engrossment, eagerness and earnestness. A disturbing element had crept in.

From time to time he glanced towards the other end of the seat. There the disturbing element lay: or rather sat. It seemed that there was something magnetic about that presence there. He experienced a difficulty in keeping his eyes away. Noting the neatness of the dress worn by the woman, he could not fail to note too its sombre hue: mourning evidently. His lively imagination was busily at work in a moment.

For him to weave a complete story with such material, was an easy task. A pretty girl occupied the stellar part in it. He portrayed her as a motherless one forced to face a hard, cold world. Depicted her seeking a living in it as a governess.

That imagination of his had a habit of running away with him. Perhaps that was a reason why his fiction had so good a run. His books were mostly all of the many-editioned kind. So, neglecting his own story for fiction of another kind, the time came of the going down of the sun. The tint of the vasty-deep changed: the sea grew greyer. His heroine-presumptive closed her book and rose; cried:

"Gracie!"

Seeing that the child's attention had been attracted, she turned, and bowing slightly, smilingly wished Masters:

"Good-day!"

From the sands, the little girl waved a vigorous cumbered-with-bucket-and-spade good-bye to him. She evidently preferred jumping the breakwaters on the way home to the more easy path of the sea wall. The two passed altogether from the author's sight. Not altogether from his mind.

Good-day! Yes, he felt it had been—distinctly good. Till he looked at clean pages, where writing should have been. Even then, despite the unfinished chapter, he made no alteration in his verdict.

It had been a good day.