Happy Pollyooly Part 33

On the way home he talked for a while cheerfully; and since there was no intellectual gulf between them, they could talk to one another with perfect ease and understanding. Then he fell into a sudden panic.

"By Jove!" he cried, clutching at his moustache and missing it. "I'd forgotten all about it! My sister--Lady Salkeld's coming home to-morrow!"

Pollyooly said nothing. She looked at him with enquiring eyes.

"Suppose she goes and recognises that you aren't Marion?"

"I don't see why she should any more than any one else," said Pollyooly in a rea.s.suring tone.

"Oh, but, hang it! She's seen a lot of Marion. She's known her ever since she was a baby," said the duke with a hara.s.sed air.

Pollyooly could have set his mind at rest by a.s.suring him that during her last stay at the court Lady Salkeld had not shown the slightest tendency to recognise that she was not Lady Marion Ricksborough; but she did not. She only said:

"I don't suppose that she'll take much notice of me."

"There is that. She pretty well thinks of nothing but her own affairs," said the duke more hopefully.

"Anyhow, it's no use worrying about it. I expect it'll be all right,"

said Pollyooly in a comforting tone.

The duke was so far rea.s.sured by her careless serenity as presently to resume his easy conversation with her. That evening, since he was dining alone, he sent for her to come to him at dessert, and talked to her again. His was a sociable nature; and in view of the presence of her and the Lump he had not invited any friends to relieve the loneliness of his stay at the court.

Lady Salkeld arrived in time for lunch next day; and at lunch Pollyooly and the Lump met her. The duke was on tenterhooks, needlessly, for she bestowed a tepid kiss on Pollyooly, tapped the cheek of the Lump even more tepidly, and addressed herself peaceably to her lunch.

But after a while she began to give her attention to the Lump, looking at him earnestly now and again, and blinking. Then she said:

"That child reminds me of somebody, Osterley. Where did you pick him up?"

"These red Deepings are all alike," said the duke carelessly.

"Oh? He's a red Deeping, is he? Who's his father?" said Lady Salkeld almost briskly.

"It's a secret," said the duke with perfect truthfulness, for he did not know.

Lady Salkeld looked at him, sniffed, and said with some tartness:

"Well, I never expected you to be mysterious, Osterley."

The duke bore the reproach with patient meekness, and said nothing. It suited him very well that his sister should be giving her attention to the Lump. From the Lump nothing was to be learned.

Lady Salkeld's coming made no difference to their lives. Pollyooly went on her early morning rambles with the Lump; from breakfast to noon she did her lessons and then went for a sedate walk with Miss Belthorp.

After lunch she played with the Lump till it was time to drive out to tea with the duke. Naturally she met the same people again and again, and was now on very friendly terms with some of them. The duke, regarding her with something of the feeling of an impresario, and finding that she was everywhere welcomed as an authentic angel child, began to take pride in displaying her. Also he began to take greater pleasure in her society. Frequently, when the morning lessons were over, he would come up to the schoolroom and take her out for a walk with him. He liked to stroll about his estate and thrill with the feelings of a landed proprietor.

Pollyooly enjoyed these walks. The duke never tried to improve her mind with botany. But she learned much country lore from him, the names and habits of many birds and small animals. In spite of his exalted station, he was a simple soul; and he had retained his boyish interest in the furred and feathered world of the woods and meadows round the court. Also he enjoyed telling Pollyooly things.

Unconsciously, but quite accurately, he regarded her as his intellectual equal; and it pleased him very much to tell her things she did not know. It gave him a sense of pa.s.sing, but genuine superiority, a feeling his fellow creatures seldom inspired into him.

Sometimes he wondered why he had never thought of making a companion of Marion. He made up his mind that when, presently, he was reconciled with the d.u.c.h.ess (he had no doubt ever that presently they would be reconciled) he would make a companion of her. It never entered his mind that there would be any difficulty about doing so.

The Honourable John Ruffin came down for a week-end and was pleased to find the duke and Pollyooly on such excellent terms. So pleased was he that he forebore, by a considerable effort, to tease the duke. At least he did not tease him more than was good for him. Also, to his great surprise, he found himself suffering from a twinge of jealousy now and again at Pollyooly's frank display of friendliness for the duke. He told himself that it was wholly absurd. But there it was: with his money and influence the duke could do so much more for her than he could. He consoled himself with the thought that after all the duke would be only carrying on his work.

On the Sat.u.r.day afternoon they went, as was their wont, for a stroll through the woods; and the Honourable John Ruffin, who had so carefully gratified his great inborn interest in the human race that now he missed very little, observed that once or twice the duke paused and looked about him as if he missed something.

The next afternoon as they were starting, the duke said in a voice which was not as easy as it tried to be, and with an air that was distinctly shame-faced:

"I say: we may as well take Pollyooly with us."

The Honourable John Ruffin raised his eyebrows a little and said:

"Oh, well--little pitchers have long ears, don't you know."

"Oh, that's all right--that's all right, we needn't talk secrets," said the duke quickly; and he ran lightly up the stairs to fetch her.

It was a pleasant walk; and the Honourable John Ruffin was alive to the fact that the company of Pollyooly greatly improved it. But at times to his astonishment he was no less distinctly conscious of the fact that two were company and three were none; and he was the third.

At dinner that night he said somewhat gloomily:

"I wish Caroline would hurry up and start firmly to come back to you.

I miss Pollyooly."

"Give her time--give her time," said the duke quickly. "Besides the country is doing the child a lot of good."

"Oh, it's all very well for you. You've got a chef; but I've got no one to grill my bacon, and that after training Pollyooly to be the finest griller of bacon in England," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a bitterly aggrieved tone.

"Don't you think you're a bit selfish? You ought to think of the good the country's doing the child," said the duke in a somewhat lofty tone.

The Honourable John Ruffin snarled quietly.

The next afternoon, as he was getting into the car to go to the station, he paused and said in his most amiable tone:

"Well, all I can say is: it's a jolly good thing for everybody that Pollyooly isn't six years older."

"Oh, get out!" said the duke.

"Especially for Pollyooly," said the Honourable John Ruffin; and he stepped into the car.

CHAPTER XXI

LORD RONALD RICKSBOROUGH COMES TO THE COURT

On the Wednesday morning, in the middle of lessons, a footman came from the duke to ask Pollyooly to go to him at once. She went wondering, and found him in the smoking-room in a panic.

As she entered he waved a telegram at her and said:

"Here's a new mess. Lord Ronald Ricksborough--you know him--he's my heir, you know--always spends his holidays at the court. He's been visiting friends, but his visit's at an end; and he wires to say that he's coming here--arriving this evening."

"Oh, that will be nice!" cried Pollyooly.