Charles Rex Part 19

The sound of the telephone-bell in the hall made Maud start with a swift contradiction of the brows.

"That's probably Charlie, Jake, I ought to answer him."

"Don't you worry yourself!" said Jake, turning to the door. "I'll answer him myself."

He was gone before she could say anything further, moving without haste but with a decision there was no gainsaying, and Maud heaved a sigh and relaxed against her pillows. It was certainly a relief to leave it to him.

He returned a few minutes later, faintly smiling, sat down by her side and drew Eileen between his knees.

"Well," he said. "I guess it's all fixed up. We're going to give you a nursery governess, Innocence. I hope you'll treat her with respect."

"Oh, but, Jake--" protested Maud.

He turned to her. "Yes, she's going to make herself useful. I don't believe in anyone living in idleness. We'll begin as we mean to go on, and she's got to help. I told his lordship so. If she doesn't suit,--well, I guess she'll go back where she came from. I told him that too."

"What did he say?" questioned Maud.

"He agreed of course." Jake's tone was ironical. "Said she was nothing but a child herself. He was very emphatic on that point."

"Don't you believe him?" asked Maud with a hint of sharpness.

"Not as a rule," said Jake. "Mostly never--when he's emphatic. However, time will prove. She will be here to lunch, and I've told Bunny to meet her with the dog-cart."

"Are we going to have lessons?" asked Eileen.

He looked into the soft eyes and the irony went out of his smile. "I don't know if I can bear to have you taught anything, Innocence," he said. "You're just right as you are."

It was his own especial name for her and he always uttered it with tenderness. Eileen smiled up at him, and pressed against his knee.

"I would like to learn some lessons, Daddy," she said. "I'm sure I'm big enough, and I'm growing too."

"Maybe you are," said Jake. "But don't grow too fast, little 'un! Don't get so big that you look down on your poor old daddy!"

"She'll never do that!" said Maud quickly. "No child of mine will ever do that, Jake."

He smiled at her whimsically. "Oh, I guess I'll hold my own among 'em whatever they do. Now you go to sleep, my girl, and put all worries out of your head! I must be moving, but I'll look in presently to see how you are. So long!"

He bent and laid his cheek for a moment against her hand, then turned and softly left her.

Maud watched the door close behind him, then spoke to the child beside her. "Eileen darling, always remember that your daddy is the best and dearest man who ever lived!"

"Yes, Mummy, I know," said Eileen, with earnest shining eyes.

Jake went out to the stables and immersed himself in the day's work. He had always been a busy man, and time pa.s.sed swiftly with him. He and his right-hand man, Sam Vickers, had brought the stud to a pitch of perfection that had earned for his animals a high place in the opinion of the racing community. He had, moreover, a reputation for straightness so unimpeachable that it had become almost a proverb up and down the country. Men said of Jake Bolton that his honour was such that it could stand by itself. Certainly no one ever questioned it.

One of his horses was running at Graydown that afternoon, and at the end of the morning he returned to the house for a hasty lunch before leaving for the race-course. All memory of Saltash's _protege_ had left him, but it returned to his mind as he saw the extra place laid at the table. He looked at his watch and realized that she ought to have arrived half an hour before. Bunny was also absent, presumably waiting for her.

He paid Maud a brief visit before departing, and found her better. She was half dressed and lying on a couch in her room. He extracted a promise from her that she would not go down before tea, though she demurred somewhat on the score of the expected visitor.

"Leave her to Bunny!" said Jake. "He's quite capable of looking after her for an hour or two."

"I think Bunny meant to go to the races," she said.

Jake frowned. "Well, he can't for once. Don't you fret now! She'll be all right."

"Well, tell them to bring her straight up to see me when she arrives!"

Maud begged him. "I shan't be asleep, and really I am much better."

"All right," he conceded. "I'll do that."

He went out and there fell the deep shining peace of a spring afternoon.

Somewhere in the distance a cuckoo was calling softly, monotonously, seductively. A thrush was warbling in the terraced garden, and from her window Maud could see old Chops the setter curled up in a warm corner asleep. The children were all out on the downs, and the house was very quiet.

Her thoughts turned dreamily to Saltash. What a pity he did not find some nice girl to marry! Her faith in him, often shaken and as often renewed, had somehow taken deeper root since their talk of the night before.

Charlie was beginning to tire of his riotous living. He was beginning to want the better things. But in his present mood she saw a danger. He had come to a critical point in his career, and he would either go up or down. There would be no middle course with him. Knowing him as she did, she realized that a very little pressure would incline him either way.

She felt as if his very life hung in the balance. It depended so vitally--upon whence the pressure came.

"If only some decent woman would fall in love with him!" she sighed, and then found herself smiling wistfully at the thought that Saltash's heart would not be an easy thing to capture. He was far too accustomed to adulation, wherever he went. "Besides, he's such a flirt," she reflected.

"One never knows whether he is in earnest till the mischief is done."

The cuckoo's soft persistence began somehow to seem like a penance. "When he has said it just like that four hundred and fifty times he'll be absolved and allowed to change his tune," was her thought. "I wonder if poor Charles Rex has said the same thing as often as that, and if that is why he is tired."

A mist began to rise in her brain, making vague the cuckoo's call, blurring even the clear sweet notes of the thrush. A delicious drowsiness crept over her. She gave herself to it with conscious delight. It was so exquisite to feel the grim band that had bound her brow with such cruel tightness relax at last and fall away. Very blissfully she drifted into slumber.

It was nearly two hours later that she became somewhat suddenly aware of feet sauntering under her window and young voices talking together.

"Hullo!" said one abruptly, it was Bunny's speaking with careless friendliness. "Stand still a minute! There's an immense green caterpillar waving to me from your hat-brim."

A voice that was like a boy's, dear, bell-like, made instant response.

"Oh h.e.l.l! Do take it off!"

Maud started wide awake with involuntary shrinking.

There came a chuckle from Bunny and, after a pause and the eloquent crunch of a heel on the gravel, his voice on a note of laughter. "I didn't say it!"

"Great Scott!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the clear boyish tones. "Do you mean you're shocked?"

"Not at all," said Bunny courteously.

"Well then, what does it matter who said it?" demanded the other.

"It doesn't matter," said Bunny, still suppressing merriment. "Except that it isn't said in this house."

"Oh d.a.m.n!" said the newcomer disconsolately. "Then I shall soon be sent back in disgrace."

"Cheer up!" said Bunny. "We don't convict on a first offence as a rule in this country."

"But I shall never remember!" groaned the other, and for the first time the words held a note that was not wholly boyish, it sounded wistful, even rather piteous. "People's ways are all so different. It's rather infernal--trying to please everybody, you know, Bunny."