Sir Noel's Heir Part 9

The momentous question she had been longing to ask from the first; but her well-trained voice spoke it as steadily as though it had been a question of the weather.

Colonel Jocyln's face clouded, darkened.

"I bring bad news from India, my lady. Captain Everard was a friend of yours?"

"Yes; he left his little daughter in my charge."

"I know. You have not heard from him lately?"

"No, and I have been rather anxious. Nothing has befallen the captain, I hope?"

The well-trained voice shook a little despite its admirable training, and the slender fingers looped and unlooped nervously her watch-chain.

"Yes, Lady Thetford; the very worst that could befall him. George Everard is dead."

There was a blank pause. Colonel Jocyln looked grave and downcast and sad.

"He was my friend," he said, in a low voice, "my intimate friend for many years--a fine fellow and brave as a lion. Many, many nights we have lain with the stars of India shining on our bivouac whilst he talked to me of you, of England, of his daughter."

Lady Thetford never spoke, never stirred. She was sitting gazing steadfastly out of the window at the sparkling sunshine, and Colonel Jocyln could not see her face.

"He was as glorious a soldier as ever I knew," the colonel went on; "and he died a soldier's death--shot through the heart. They buried him out there with military honors, and some of his men cried on his grave like children."

There was another blank pause. Still Lady Thetford sat with that fixed gaze on the brilliant May sunshine, moveless as stone.

"It is a sad thing for his poor little girl," the Indian officer said; "she is fortunate in having such a guardian as you, Lady Thetford."

Lady Thetford awoke from her trance. She had been in a trance, and the years had slipped backward, and she had been in her far-off girlhood's home, with George Everard, her handsome, impetuous lover, by her side.

She had loved him then, even when she said no and married another; she loved him still, and now he was dead--dead! But she turned to her visitor with a face that told nothing.

"I am so sorry--so very, very sorry. My poor little May! Did Captain Everard speak of her, of me, before he died?"

"He died instantaneously, my lady. There was no time."

"Ah, no! poor fellow! It is the fortune of war--but it is very sad."

That was all; we may feel inexpressibly, but we can only utter commonplaces. Lady Thetford was very, very pale, but her pallor told nothing of the dreary pain at her heart.

"Would you like to see little May? I will send for her."

Little May was sent for and came. A brilliant little fairy as ever, brightly dressed, with shimmering golden curls and starry eyes. By her side stood Sir Rupert--the nine-year-old baronet, growing tall very fast, pale and slender still, and looking at the colonel with his mother's dark, deep eyes.

Colonel Jocyln held out his hand to the flaxen-haired fairy.

"Come here, little May, and kiss papa's friend. You remember papa, don't you?"

"Yes," said May, sitting on his knee contentedly. "Oh, yes! When is papa coming home? He said in mamma's letter he would fetch me lots and lots of dolls and picture-books. Is he coming home?"

"Not very soon," the colonel said, inexpressibly touched; "but little May will go to papa some day. You and mamma, I suppose?" smiling at Lady Thetford.

"Yes," nodded May, "that's mamma, and Rupert's mamma. Oh! I am so sorry papa isn't coming home soon! Do you know"--looking up in his face with big, shining, solemn eyes--"I've got a pony, and I can ride lovely; and his name is Snowdrop, because it's all white; and Rupert's is black, and _his_ name is Sultan? And I've got a watch; mamma gave it to me last Christmas; and my doll's name--the big one, you know, that opens its eyes and says 'mamma' and 'papa'--is Sonora. Have you got any little girls at home?"

"One, Miss Chatterbox."

"What's her name!"

"Aileen--Aileen Jocyln."

"Is she nice?"

"Very nice, I think."

"Will she come to see me?"

"If you wish it and mamma wishes it."

"Oh, yes! you do, don't you, mamma? How big is your little girl--as big as me?"

"Bigger, I fancy. She is nine years old."

"Then she's as big as Rupert--_he's_ nine years old. May she fetch her doll to see Sonora?"

"Certainly--a regiment of dolls, if she wishes."

"Can't she come to-morrow?" asked Rupert. "To-morrow's May's birthday; May's seven years old to-morrow. Mayn't she come!"

"That must be as mamma says."

"Oh, fetch her!" cried Lady Thetford, "it will be so nice for May and Rupert. Only I hope little May won't quarrel with her; she does quarrel with her playmates a good deal, I am sorry to say."

"I won't if she's nice," said May; "it's all their fault. Oh, Rupert!

there's Mrs. Weymore on the lawn, and I want her to come and see the rabbits. There's five little rabbits this morning, mamma--mayn't I go and show them to Mrs. Weymore?"

Lady Thetford nodded smiling acquiescence; and away ran little May and Rupert to show the rabbits to the governess.

Col. Jocyln lingered for half an hour or upward, conversing with his hostess, and rose to take his leave at last, with the promise of returning on the morrow with his little daughter, and dining at the house. As he mounted his horse and rode homeward, "a haunting shape, an image gay," followed him through the genial May sunshine--Lady Ada Thetford, fair, and stately and graceful.

"Nine years a widow," he mused. "They say she took her husband's death very hard--and no wonder, considering how he died; but nine years is a tolerable time in which to forget. She took the news of Everard's death very quietly. I don't suppose there was ever anything really in that old story. How handsome she is, and how graceful!"

He broke off in his musing fit to light a cigar, and see through the curling smoke dark-eyed Ada, mamma to little Aileen as well as the other two. He had never thought of wanting a wife before, in all these years of his widowhood; but the want struck him forcibly now.

"And Aileen wants a mother, and the little baronet a father," he thought, complacently; "my lady can't do better."

So next day at the earliest possible hour, came back the gallant colonel, and with him a brown-haired, brown-eyed, quiet-looking little girl, as tall, every inch, as Sir Rupert. A little embryo patrician, with pride in her infantile lineaments already, an uplifted poise of the graceful head, a light, elastic step, and a softly-modulated voice. A little lady from top to toe, who opened her little brown eyes in wide wonder at the antics, and gambols, and obstreperousness, generally, of little May.

There were two or three children from the rectory, and half a dozen from other families in the neighborhood--and the little birthday feast was under the charge of Mrs. Weymore, the governess, pale and pretty, and subdued as of old. They raced through the leafy arcades of the park, and gamboled in the garden, and had tea in a fairy summer house, to the music of plashing fountains--and little May was captain of the band.

Even shy, still Aileen Jocyln forgot her youthful dignity, and raced and laughed with the best.