Читать книгу The Altar of Honour - Ethel M. Dell - Страница 4

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It was the sort of party at which almost anything might have happened. It was Mrs. Deloraine’s easy Irish way every Christmas to collect all the young folks who were anywhere within reach from seven years old upwards and throw them all into one huge mêlèe, as it were, and leave them to enjoy themselves according to their various inclinations. Not that she did not provide entertainment on a lavish scale. There were games, there were conjurers, there were musicians, and refreshments of the most dazzlingly indigestible description were available at any moment; but the guests had to help themselves, and if any among them were shy and frightened there was no one to seek them out and give them confidence.

All the really little ones had elder sisters to take care of them, and elder sistership with its attendant responsibility is a great source of assurance. The little ones were very rarely left out in the cold. But some of the older children were not so fortunate, and Mrs. Deloraine’s pleasant theory that “any child will find enjoyment if left alone” was not fully exemplified in them. They were inclined to hang about rather uneasily on the outside edge of things until vigorously roped in by Rory Donovan, whom nobody could resist. Rory was Mrs. Deloraine’s nephew—a naval cadet of fifteen with as winning a pair of Irish eyes as anyone could hope to meet in a lifetime. Mrs. Deloraine’s husband, whom everybody called Pat, had surnamed him “Daredevil” many years before, and Rory Daredevil he remained to all and sundry. Rory was the only person who took any trouble about the shy little outsiders—the “unemployed,” he called them—but his methods were very thorough, and he would not rest from his self-appointed task while any remained.

Pat, smoking his pipe comfortably in a corner, looked on with a smile. “Sure, the boy’s like a live wire,” he said. “He acts quicker than most of us can think.”

Which was true. Rory was never still except when asleep, and his movements possessed that lightning quality which defies all restraint. He had for some reason made up his mind that this party at least should be a success from everybody’s point of view, and while Pat watched from a peaceful distance and his aunt played poker with much concentration in a curtained recess of the ball-room, he collected all the shy and awkward ones and paired them off to dance.

Then, for a moment’s breathing-space, he paused, surveying the scene with his bright, bold eyes under their extremely black brows. There was not a vestige of shyness about Rory.

He wanted to be dancing himself, but actually he had no partner; and there was a matter troubling his alert brain which had to be settled before he thought of anything else.

There was another child left out somewhere; he was quite sure of it—a dainty, fairy creature with golden hair, the rare golden hair that actually seems to give out light. He had marked her once from afar, standing shyly somewhere near the band; and he had thought to himself that he would leave her till the last as her hair had attracted him and he would rather like her for a partner on his own account. But now she had disappeared, nor could he find her anywhere among the dancers or other merry-makers in the room beyond.

That was the worst of Glasmore, as well as its charm. The old place was full of hiding-places. Why, there were even secret passages—he knew of one that led down into the bowels of the earth and was said to come out somewhere on the shore. He had never investigated it to its fullest extent, but he always meant to some day.

Meantime, where was the golden-haired maiden who had looked so lonely and pathetic less than a quarter of an hour ago? He had got to find her, that was certain. Now that everyone else was provided for, he himself was at a loose end—a state of affairs which did not often happen to Rory and which held no appeal for him whatever. He turned from the scene of his labours, determined to make a systematic search.

Swiftly he went from room to room, his keen eyes scanning every corner, catching a fleeting glimpse of his aunt animatedly scolding her partner at the end of a game. Guests were nothing to her, though she liked to crowd the place with them. Aunt Eileen was the last person in the world to know the whereabouts of any of them.

“Ah, they can amuse themselves,” was her favourite remark. Cards and horses were all that really mattered in her life.

It seemed scarcely worth while to search the refreshment-room for the missing child, but he went to it nevertheless when he had exhausted every other probable hiding-place. There were several couples there, but of course she was not among them, and he was turning away wondering whether he would extend his search to the upper regions, when his look fell upon a door at the further end which led to a small conservatory. Here was a nook he had not searched! He went through the room like a streak of lightning, ignoring the careless badinage that greeted him, reached the open doorway, passed through it, and paused. The next moment he wheeled and very softly closed the door behind him. He had run his quarry to earth at last.

She was quite alone in the little, dimly-lighted place. There was no chair in it. The space was too confined for that. But she had cleared a narrow space for herself on a low shelf between pots of flowering azaleas, and here she was sitting crouched, her hair covering her shoulders like a shimmering cloth of gold, her face hidden in her hands and resting upon her knees.

She had not heard his entrance, that he realized. For she was crying bitterly, with an abandonment which he was sure she would never have displayed voluntarily before a stranger. Her sobs reached him piteously where he stood, a step above her, hesitating. For the second time he faced the door, and gently turned the key. Then, hesitating no longer, he moved down and reached her.

“I say!” he said. “I say!”

She started violently, and in a second her poor little distressed face was raised to his.

“Oh!” she said. “Oh!”

Her eyes shone through a veil of tears, true violet eyes with black brows in startling contrast to a skin of dazzling fairness. They looked up at him with an appeal that nothing human could have resisted.

“Oh, don’t be cross!” she said. “I couldn’t help it. Truly—I couldn’t help it!”

“Cross!” said Rory. His look comprehended her with a large pity that was almost like an embrace. “I say, what ever are you crying for like this?” he said.

She made hasty search for and found a minute lace handkerchief quite inadequate for the occasion, with which she dabbed her eyes and nose with a guilty air.

“I know I shouldn’t,” she said apologetically. “It’s—it’s self-pity, isn’t it? And I never do—as a rule—till I’m in bed. But I thought it would be safe—in here.”

“I say,” said Rory, “have my handkerchief!”

She took it gratefully. “Thank you awfully. Do you mind if I blow my nose on it? Really hard, I mean? Oh, thank you!”

She suited the action to the word, and finally looked up at him with a quivering smile. “That’s much better. It doesn’t show now, does it?”

“I should think it does show!” said Rory, “You can’t possibly go back yet. Everyone’ll be staring. Because, you know, you’re too big to cry to go home.”

“I know,” she said, with a sob. “I didn’t mean to cry. I did try not. But it’s like a big wave—growing and growing—till it bursts. And then I can’t help it. I’m better afterwards. But—of course——” with another sob, “I know it’s wrong.”

“What made you cry?” said Rory.

She shook her head, unable for the moment to speak. “It—was the band,” she managed to say at length with difficulty.

“The band!” he echoed in amazement. “But why?”

She shook her head again, turning slightly from him while she took refuge a second time in his handkerchief.

“Don’t you know,” she said presently, “how sometimes, when you’re unhappy, music makes you feel much worse?”

“Not when it’s something jolly,” said Rory.

“It’s the jolliness that does it,” she said, with a sigh.

“I say, cheer up!” said Rory, feeling slightly beyond his depth.

“I am—cheering up,” she assured him, with another fleeting smile. “I’ve nearly finished.”

“Turned off at the main, and only a little left in the pipe!” suggested Rory.

She laughed at that—faintly, indeed almost in a whisper, but still she laughed. “Yes. It’s just like that. How funny of you to understand!”

“Not a bit,” said Rory, watching her. “It’s just natural.”

She heaved a long sigh that ended in a yawn. “I’m very tired,” she said. “I wish I was in bed.”

“It’s quite early,” said Rory.

“Yes, I know.” Sadly she acquiesced. “I didn’t want to come, but they made me.”

“Who made you?” he questioned.

Now that her tears had ceased, she looked much older. There was, in fact, an expression in her eyes which is seldom seen in the eyes of a child—a kind of weary endurance in the midst of heartbreak—which moved him even more than her distress.

“My half-sister,” she said, “and my father. They are always very vexed with me when I cry. They say it is just—selfishness.”

“And what is it really?” asked Rory.

Her lips quivered again. “It’s—grief,” she said.

A light began to dawn upon him. “Oh, it’s something that’s happened,” he said. “You’ve lost someone—someone you love. Not—not——”

She nodded, her eyes brimming anew. “Yes. My mother. How did you guess? Have you—lost yours?”

“Ages ago,” he said. “Never mind about mine! I can’t remember her even. Tell me about yours!”

She made a piteous gesture, wringing her hands together in the effort to control herself. “They say I ought not to either—that it’s absurd after so long. But how can I help it? And I wouldn’t if I could!” A new note sounded for a moment in her voice. “She was so beautiful, so lovely, and we—we were such—friends.”

“I say,” said Rory, and suddenly he took one of the trembling, writhing hands and held it, “don’t cry! Don’t cry!”

She made a desperate effort to choke back the tears. “I’ve no one to talk to about her,” she whispered. “They—they won’t let me. Not that I want to—to them. But oh, I miss her so—I miss her so! I ache all over with wanting her.”

“Don’t cry!” Rory said again.

It was all he could say, for no other words of comfort occurred to him; but he put his arms all round her as he uttered them and held her very close. And after a few more moments she lifted her face and kissed his neck.

“Thank you for being so very nice to me,” she said. “No, I won’t cry any more. The pipe really is empty now. Let’s sit down, shall we? Then we shall only have been sitting out instead of dancing!”

Rory glanced downwards. There was room for only one. “Would you like to sit on my knee?” he said.

“Yes, please,” she answered with simplicity. “I’ll try not to be very heavy. There! That’s quite nice, isn’t it? Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right,” said Rory, his arm still encompassing her. “What about you?”

She slid hers round his neck. “I’m all right too. I like sitting like this. No one nurses me now. Do you think I’m an awful baby for twelve?”

“No,” he said. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” she assured him. “I saw you a long while ago and thought how fine you were. I never thought you’d bother about me.”

“Why, you’re the only one here worth bothering about,” said Rory.

“Oh, do you think so?” she said. “How nice!”

She breathed a small sigh of satisfaction and leaned her golden head against his dark one. Very faintly in the distance they heard the strains of the band.

“Feeling better?” asked Rory.

“Yes, much better now,” she said. “Am I getting heavy?”

“No, you’re all right,” he said. “Look here! What do they call you? I don’t even know your name yet.”

“Oh, don’t you?” she said. “I know yours. You’re Rory—Rory Daredevil, aren’t you? Do you mind people calling you that?”

“Good gracious, no!” said Rory cheerily. “Now tell me what they call you!”

“My name,” she said, “is Charlotte Maynard Audley.”

“Great Scott!” said Rory.

She started a little. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re the old Colonel’s daughter, are you?” he said. “And—and—your mother! Oh yes, I remember now!”

“What do you remember?” she said.

He hesitated.

“Please tell me!” she urged gently. “I like talking of her. I shan’t cry any more.”

He still hesitated. “Well, I don’t know much, after all,” he said. “I saw her a year ago—riding to hounds—just before——”

“Just before she was killed,” she whispered in a wrung voice. “She rode splendidly, didn’t she? That day—the day she went over the cliff—they say she was—magnificent.”

“Yes,” Rory said. “Yes.” His recollection was more vivid than he would own. He tried to turn the subject. “Do you ever hunt?”

She suppressed a shudder. “Not now—no! They say I’m a coward not to want to.”

“What rot!” said Rory.

“Yes, it really isn’t quite cowardice,” she said. “It’s—a sort of horror. My father got angry one day and put me up on his biggest hunter. I didn’t like it.”

“What did you do?” said Rory. “Scream?”

“No, I don’t think I screamed,” she said. “I fainted.”

“What?” said Rory, looking at her with curiosity. “I didn’t think anybody did that nowadays.”

She flushed a little. “I’m afraid I did. They scolded me dreadfully afterwards. And then I cried rather badly, and they took me to Mrs. Dicker. She is very kind whenever I’m in trouble. She always gives me peppermints when I cry.”

“Do you like peppermints?” asked Rory.

“No, not much; but I pretend I do, because it’s really very kind of her.” She spoke with a wistful smile.

“What a brute your father must be!” observed Rory.

“Yes, he is rather,” she admitted. “He didn’t like Mother at all, nor did Griselda or Sylvia. And they don’t like me because I’m like her.”

“Fancy anyone not liking you!” said Rory. “What do they call you? Charlotte?”

She nodded sadly. “Yes, they do. But it isn’t what Mother and all nice people call me.”

“What is that?” asked Rory.

“They call me Charmaine,” she said. “It was Mother who did it first. It’s a mixture of the two names. Charlotte was my father’s choice and Maynard was her name before she married. Father used to call me Charmaine once, but he never does now. The others never did.”

“I shall call you Charmaine,” said Rory with decision.

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “It really does belong to me.”

“Yes,” agreed Rory. “It really does. Why don’t they use it—Griselda and the other one?”

“Because it was her name for me, I think,” said Charmaine. “And they couldn’t bear her. They turned my father against her too. He never speaks of her now. But everyone else loved her,” she added, with tender pride. “I heard Mrs. Dicker say once that she was ‘a deal too popular with some folks,’ and she didn’t say it to please me. In fact, she was rather upset when she knew I’d heard—though I don’t know why she should have been.”

“Who is Mrs. Dicker?” asked Rory.

“She is our housekeeper at Malahide. Father keeps her because she doesn’t cost much. She is very kind to me. I don’t know what I should do without her. But, of course,” a queer dignity sounded in her voice, “I don’t make a friend of her exactly. She isn’t quite that sort.”

“I see,” said Rory. He was frowning a little as his quick brain leaped from point to point of the situation. “Your father lives at Malahide because he’s poor, and your sisters too——”

“My half-sisters,” she corrected gently. “They are much older than I am. Griselda is thirty-four, older than my mother even.”

“Oh!” said Rory. “Like that, was it? You poor kid! But they needn’t take it out of you.”

“I don’t think they mean to,” said Charmaine. “I’m a great nuisance of course. Nobody wanted me, except Mother, and she used to laugh and say that my greatest crime was that I wasn’t a boy. I wish I had been, because then I should be at school instead of being taught by Griselda.”

“Oh, she teaches you, does she?” said Rory. “Does she bully you?”

“Sometimes,” said Charmaine.

“What does she do?” he demanded.

“She often scolds me,” said Charmaine. “I don’t mind that so much, only it makes me forget things. And then she pinches me sometimes. That hurts, but it doesn’t make me cry. But if she thinks I’m being very naughty—that’s on the days when I can’t remember anything—she sends me to bed, and then she comes and whips me with her riding-switch. It’s only a little one, but it hurts a lot.”

“Jove!” ejaculated Rory in indignation. “What a virago! And you put up with it? You let her? Why don’t you kick her—bite her? I would!”

“I’m too afraid,” said Charmaine. “I know I’m an awful coward. But she’s so strong, and her tempers are so dreadful. I think she’d kill me, and there’d be no one to stop her. Even my father never interferes with her when she’s really angry. Sylvia is afraid of her too. And they both like her to keep me in order. They think it saves them trouble.”

“But why don’t they send you to school?” said Rory. “I don’t suppose Griselda likes teaching you, does she?”

“No, I’m sure she hates it,” said Charmaine. “But you see, my father couldn’t afford to send me to school and keep hunters as well. So she has to, now that Mother’s gone.” She uttered a brief sigh. “I should awfully like to go to school. But it’s no use thinking about it till I’m sixteen, anyhow. Then I suppose I shall have to go somewhere to get finished.”

“And you’ve got to go on being beaten—literally beaten—and bullied out of your life till you’re sixteen?” demanded Rory in a voice that was nearly choked with wrath.

“I’m afraid so,” said Charmaine. “I’m sure she’ll never stop. She is so very dreadful when she’s angry, and she gets angry so easily. Just the sight of me seems to do it sometimes.”

“Is she very ugly?” asked Rory unexpectedly.

“Oh, very,” said Charmaine.

“Then, that’s why!” he declared furiously. “She’s a beastly jealous old hag. That’s what’s the matter with her.”

“Oh, but she isn’t as old as that!” protested Charmaine. “She’s hardly middle-aged. But she’s dreadfully strong, like a man. She couldn’t possibly be jealous of me. Why should she be?”

“Why?” said Rory. “Because you’re lovely and soft and young. That’s why. And it’s a damned shame, and I’ll tell her so, if I get the chance!”

“Oh, you mustn’t!” said Charmaine. “You really mustn’t. That would be a dreadful thing to do. And she’d never forgive me for telling you. I ought not to have told you, only you were so very kind. Please promise me that you’ll never do anything like that!”

She got up with the words, and stood before him with clasped hands.

He looked at her—and melted.

“I’ll do anything under the sun for you, Charmaine,” he said. “You’re the sweetest little thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, do you think so?” she breathed, colouring in pleased surprise. “That’s very nice of you. I wonder why ever you should think that.”

“Think it?” said Rory. “I know it.” He got up abruptly, and stood facing her with a momentary awkwardness. “I’ll be your friend if you’ll let me,” he said. “I’ll stand by you through thick and thin.”

“Oh, will you?” she said. “Will you? How nice! But you won’t—you won’t—tell anyone, will you?”

“I’ll never do anything you don’t like,” he promised, and with the words suddenly, self-consciously, he pushed forward and kissed her on the cheek. “There, that settles it,” he said. “Now we’re chums. And I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll meet to-morrow down on the shore by Malahide Breakwater. It’ll be high tide at eleven. It’s ripping there at high tide.”

Charmaine’s eyes shone with a soft light. “Oh, I shall love that!” she said.

“You be there then!” he commanded imperiously. “And look here! You’re not to cry any more to-night. I shall know if you do.”

“Oh, I won’t!” she said earnestly. “I won’t indeed! I shan’t even want to now.”

“Well, don’t you forget it!” said Rory.