Читать книгу Prince Charlie - Burford Delannoy - Страница 8

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For nearly a week—before and after noon—they met. It was a sheltered spot Miss Mivvins walked out to each day. She had selected it on account of its freedom from cold winds: there was a seat on which to sit and read. At the same time a watchful eye could be kept on her playing-on-the-sands charge.

Masters had always used it. Neither now gave it up because of the other. Each would have scornfully repudiated a suggestion that the regular seeking of it arose from any other reason. For instance, that it could be ascribed to the other's presence.

But would the repudiation have been honestly grounded? Cupid alone knows. The love-god is a deity enshrined in mystery. He never reveals the secrets of the wonders he performs. Were it possible to see the hand which lets loose the arrow, probably there would be many a stepping aside to avoid it. The sudden striking of the dart makes it so deadly—wounds to the heart.

Gracie and the author became fast friends. She was a winsome little soul, and children have their own methods of creating friendships. Masters met her advances more than half-way: was as fond of children as he was of flowers.

His friends—the nice friends who feel privileged to say nasty things—by reason of that fondness, professed to see in it a chance of his redemption. They admitted a possibility of his becoming humanized some day: said there was at least hope for him.

Beyond a Good Morning, and occasionally a remark on one of the tenses of the weather—past, present or future—the meetings were bare of conversation, so far as the adults were concerned.

Masters would have been more than glad to talk. Perhaps natural nervousness prevented his setting the conversational ball rolling. For he admired his companion of the seat with a fervent admiration—unable to label the feeling, as yet, by any other name.

Her presence did not disturb him now in his seclusion. She seemed to be in keeping with his thoughts. His thoughts of her harmonized with the surroundings—she belonged to them.

A vague sort of wonder took possession of him; how it was that he had never missed her—never known what was lacking. The more he saw of her, the more deep his admiration grew.

Admiration is the kind of thing which develops rapidly, once it germinates. In this instance the seed had thrown deep roots. Masters' heart seemed likely to prove fruitful soil.

With Gracie he stood well. That, he felt, was a making of headway; for the governess unquestionably loved her charge. On the principle of love me, love my dog, he was acting wisely—apart from the pleasure it gave him—in this cultivation of the little one's affection.

When the child discovered his ability to manufacture stories she instantly—the exacting nature of her sex in its dealings with man manifested itself even at that early age—demanded to be told one.

That was the introduction of the wedge's thin end: brought about a little change in the current of the elders' conversation. The lady in black came out of the ice-bound silence—fringed by a frigid Good Morning and Good Afternoon; saying:

"You must not let Gracie worry you."

The lashes went up as she spoke and he got a good view of those lovely eyes of hers. They held him spellbound. The evident admiration in his glance caused the lashes to fall, and he, released from the momentary thraldom, exclaimed:

"Worry! How could she?"

"She is a perfect little glutton for stories. Once you indulge her, she will do her best to make your life unbearable with her clamour for more. With food of that sort within reach she is a regular Oliver Twist."

A gratified little laugh—he thought he saw the door to Friendship opening a little wider—accompanied his answer:

"Oh, story-telling is in my particular line! I am full of fiction to the brim!"

She reciprocated his laugh, and as she picked up, to resume, her book, said:

"Well, I have warned you! The consequences be on your own head."

"I am moved to disregard your warning! Gracie is so excellent a listener. That is so flattering, you know." Then turning to the child, he continued: "Now, run on to the sands and finish your castle, little woman, before the tide reaches it. When it can no longer withstand Old Ocean's assaults and is washed away, come back. Then I will tell you what became of Jack after the fairy had rescued him from the three-headed giant."

The child was sitting on his knee with her arms round his neck. Between the kisses she was giving him, said:

"You dear old thing! You are the very nicest, delightfullest, beautifullest story-teller I ever met."

"I am dethroned then?" The observation from Miss Mivvins. "I used to be told that."

"Y-y-yes. But you never told me tales like Prince Charlie's."

Prince Charlie was a character in one of the stories Masters had told the child. A prince who had rescued innumerable princesses from giants, ogres and demons. Instantly it had pleased the listener to christen the narrator after the hero.

All her people, she informed him gravely, she christened out of stories. It was much nicer than calling them by their real names. They were so much prettier and lots easier to remember—didn't he think so?

Yes, he had made answer. He quite thought that Prince Charlie was an improvement on his own name. But Gracie betrayed no anxiety to know what that was. To her henceforth he was Prince Charlie. That was quite sufficient—she was a godmother of the most self-satisfied type.

Turning to Miss Mivvins the child continued, with a trace of reproach in her voice—she felt she had been defrauded:

"Besides, your giants never had three heads!"

A trinity of that description—unity is strength—appeared an unanswerable argument; seemed to her to clinch the matter. She climbed down from Masters' knee, and jumped her way down the steps to the sands, with bucket and spade rattling in her little hand.

As she disappeared, Masters took his courage in both hands; a trifle nervously continued the conversation:

"I shall have to prescribe a course of Grimm's Fairy Tales, if you wish to resume your position as story-teller-in-chief."

His speech was at random. The ice was broken; they had spoken; he did not want the coldness of silence to freeze it all over again. Having got in the thin edge of the wedge he proposed to drive it right home—if possible. Hence his speech.

Miss Mivvins laughed. The child liked him—so did she. Fearful of driving her away, he had not attempted to force conversation. She had curled up a trifle because of his reserve—hence they had spoken but little. Unknown to themselves their communication had been more subtle than that of words, perhaps had paved the way for them. They came easily enough now.

"You also," he said, "seem to have a taste for fiction of a pronounced type. I see you are reading one of my books."

"Your books?" Her query was uttered in a tone of surprise. "Oh, no! This came down from Mudie's with other volumes yesterday."

"Oh, I don't doubt that."

He laughed openly at her concern—a hearty, resounding laugh, a trifle loud, but with a pleasant honest ring in it; continued:

"I don't doubt that the library people acquired it honestly. My claim was not made in a possessory sense. I meant that my name figures on the title page."

She looked at him blankly for a moment, so great was her surprise. Then, the truth dawning on her, she said:

"You! You—are the author?"