Читать книгу Leonie of the Jungle - Joan Conquest - Страница 9

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"Against stupidity the very gods

Themselves contend in vain!"—Schiller.

"Let me see," he said slowly. "You have been in India I believe. I wonder if you know anything about it!"

"I lived ten years in the Punjab." This information was given with the intense self-satisfaction peculiar to the feminine Anglo-Indian. "With my husband," was added after a rather damping silence, "who was knighted for certain—er—work he did in the Indian Civil Service."

"That doesn't mean that you know anything about the country, Mam. Leonie has been with you almost seven years, please correct me if I make any mistake. She is seven this month you say. She was four months old when she came over from India. Did her ayah come with her, by the way? No! Had she been good to the baby—yes! yes! I know, they always are, but these dreams indicate that the child has been badly frightened some time or another!"

"But she couldn't be frightened at four months," vacantly interrupted Susan Hetth, who could not see the trend of the conversation, or the need of the detailed interrogation. "She would be far too young!"

"Too young!" snapped Sir Jonathan. "Rubbish! Do you know why you are afraid to-day of falling from a height?"

"No," replied Susan Hetth, cordially loathing the man, his methods, and his manners.

"Because," he answered roughly, "you were frightened of falling from your mother's or your nurse's arms when you were a few months old, and the impression of height and fear made upon your baby mind is still with you, that's why!"

"The brute!" she thought, as she smiled the propitiatory smile of one who is afraid and murmured, "How very interesting!"

"Is there anything else you can tell me about your little niece? no matter how trivial a detail! Has she ever screamed for hours as she screamed this morning? Does she get angry? I mean mad angry!"

"No!" replied the aunt. "From what her nurse and daily governess tell me she seems to be remarkably sweet-tempered. You see I don't—I haven't—I don't see much of her. I'm—I've—you see I have so many friends over here!"

The man snorted.

"I must say," she continued, "I have never met a child so averse from being kissed or being made a fuss of—she hates anyone to touch her, even—even me, her mother, as you might say; but they say she is tractable, and has never been known to lose her temper, or slap, or scratch, as some children do—no! there is really nothing to tell about her—of course she walks a bit in her sleep, at least so her Nannie says!"

The specialist's hand crashed on the table. "Good God, woman!" he flung at her, "what in heaven's name are you modern women made of? How long has she been walking in her sleep? Tell me all you know at once—and remember it's your niece's brain and her future you are talking about, so try and describe this sleep-walking with as much interest and regard to detail as you would if you were talking about a new dress. Why in heaven's name didn't you send her with the nurse—the servant—instead of coming yourself—I might have learnt something about the child then!"

It seemed that Leonie while still quite a baby had walked about the night nursery in her sleep; that she had been found in the day nursery and on the lower landing, but had always gone back to bed without waking; that she muttered a lot of rubbish which the nurse could not understand, and was always very tired next day. That now that she was older she slept in a room by herself as she became unaccountably restless and wide awake if anyone slept in the room with her. No! the nurse had never noticed the hour or the date, or anything, and that was really all, and "couldn't you give the child a dose of bromide."

Which sentence served to finish the history and to bring Sir Jonathan with a bound from his chair.

"Bromide," he snarled, "bromide! Now, Lady Hetth, listen to me. There is something more than nerves and a highly strung temperament in this. Next week I want Nannie, not you, to bring the child here on a visit. I know India and her religions as far as any Englishman dare say he knows anything about that unfathomable country—yes! Mam! religions—Hinduism—Brahminism—Buddhism—why, I've passed the best part of my life trying to unravel certain physical and psychical threads knotted up in India; but the years are slipping by, and time is getting shorter and shorter, and but a tithe done out of all there is to do; but thanks be, my boy has inherited my love for this work, and will carry on here when I have crossed the threshold and found the solutions to my problems on the other side. Though I'm sure I don't know why I'm telling you all this," he finished brusquely, "we will return to India."

"Yes! India is very, very interesting!" piped Lady Hetth, rising and standing on one foot so as to rest the other suffering from an oversmall shoe.

"Very, very interesting!" she continued unctuously and with the enthusiasm she reserved as a rule for the S.P.C.K.I, which letters stand for an attempt to graft a new creed on to the tree of religion in India which was bearing fruit at a period when we were hobnobbing in caves, with a boulder or good stout club as reasons for existence.

"I'll write and tell you when to send the child and her nurse, and between us we'll manage to keep her amused. And in the meantime stop all lessons and let her do exactly as she likes, and feed her up, Mam, feed her up, her bones are simply coming through her skin."

Again he laughed a great rumbling laugh, as lifting the child from the ground he felt the little hands in his mane of white hair.

"You're nice," she decided, "vewy nice."

"Like to come and stay with me?"

"Oh, yes! if you won't—won't make me——!"

She stopped short.

"Well! what—won't make you what?"

"Nothing—Auntie pulled my dwess!"

The door closed softly.