Leonie of the Jungle Part 2

"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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed 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 t.i.the 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 hobn.o.bbing 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.

CHAPTER IV

"The kindest man, The best conditioned and unwearied spirit In doing courtesies."--_Shakespeare_.

They met on the threshold.

Swinging back the door to let Leonie and her aunt out, Ellen, the middle-aged maid, almost an heirloom in the family of Cuxson, bristling in starched cap and ap.r.o.n, let in the erstwhile plague of her life, but now as ever the light of her eyes, Jonathan Cuxson, Junior.

He took Lady Hetth's hand in a mighty and painful grip when after a moment's hesitation she introduced herself.

"Why, of course! You must be Jan! Except for being bigger you haven't changed a bit since I saw you years ago one Speech Day at Harrow!" She looked with open admiration at the very personable young man before her who loomed large in the hall with his height of six feet two and a tremendous width of shoulder. His eyes were grey, and as honest as a genuine fine day; the jaw was just saved from a shadow of brutality in its strength by a remarkably fine mouth; the ears were splendid from an intellectual point of view, and the set of the head on the neck, and the neck on the shoulders, perfect. The nose was a good nose, rather broad at the top, with those delicate sensitive nostrils which usually spell trouble for the owner.

"I don't believe you remember me!"

Happily the reply which must have been untrue or given in the negative was averted by the hilarious arrival of a puppy.

Having heard the deep voice a.s.sociated in its canine mind with bits of cake and joyous roughs-and-tumbles, it had forsaken the happy though forbidden hunting ground of the upper storeys and negotiated the stairs in a series of b.u.mps and misses.

Arrived in the hall it hurled itself blindly against Leonie's ankles, and ricocheted on to its master's boots, where it essayed a _pas seul_ on its hind legs in its efforts to reach the strong brown hand.

"Oh!" said Leonie, as she fell on her knees with her arms outstretched to the rampaging ball of white fluff and high spirits, the which thinking it some new game squatted back on its hind legs with the front ones wide apart, gave an infantile squeak, and whizzed round three times apparently for luck, as tears welled up in the child's large eyes and trickled down the white face.

"h.e.l.lo, kiddie! You're crying!" said Jan Cuxson, who like his father had a positive mania for protecting and helping those in trouble, which mania got him into an infinite and varied amount of trouble himself, and led him into unexpected boles and corners of the earth. "I'm--I'm not crying weally!" choked Leonie, "it's--it's my kitten!"

"Oh! do stop, Leonie!" said her aunt, leaning down to catch the child's hand and pull her to her feet. "She's coming to stay with you," she added, as Leonie stood quite still with that piteous jerk of the chin which comes from suppressed and overwhelming grief, as she watched the puppy play a one-sided game of b.u.mblefoot in a corner.

"That's jolly," said the young man.

"Oh! she's coming as a case. She walks a good deal in her sleep, and as my brother-in-law, Colonel Hetth, if you remember, was such a----"

But Jan Cuxson was not listening.

He too had put his hand on the curly head and tilted it back gently so that the light shone into the sorrow-laden eyes encircled by shadows.

Then he smiled suddenly down at the mite, and she, perceiving that a ray of light had suddenly pierced the all-pervading gloom, smiled back, and catching his left hand in both of hers pressed it to her forehead.

"Good Lord!" he muttered, as a thrill ran through him at the unexpected and oriental action.

And Fate, plucking in senile fashion at the loose ends which lay nearest her old hand, knotted two tightly together with a bit of rare golden strand she kept tucked away in her bodice.

"And what shall we do when you come? Can you ride? I know of a lovely pony a little boy rides!"

Leonie shook her head mournfully, feeling unconsciously but acutely the penalty of her s.e.x for the first time in her life.

"I can't wide astwide," she sighed, "I haven't any bweeches. Jill and Maudie Wetherbourne always wide in skirts. But I can swim," she added quickly, "an' jump in out of my depff. I learnt in the baff at the seaside!"

"Oh! come along, child, _do_!" broke in her aunt to her own undoing.

"Auntie jumps in too, though she says she doesn't," proceeded Leonie in a gallant effort to sh.o.r.e up her family's sporting reputation.