The Admirable Tinker Part 15

At the sight of him she stopped short and cried, "Have you heard the sad news?"

"No; what sad news?" said Tinker.

"About poor Monsieur Courtnay! He has had an accident; he is laid up at Nice, ill among strangers! I go; I fly to nurse him!"

"Nurse that brute!" said Tinker quickly. "That--that is a waste of kindness."

Madame de Belle-ile's face fell, and then flushed with anger. "You are a horrid and detestable boy!" she cried angrily.

"Oh, no! I'm not! It's quite true," said Tinker quietly, and he looked at her seriously. He wanted to warn her; then he saw that he could not do so without revealing Claire's secret. "I wish I could tell you about him," he went on. "But I can't. He really is a sweep!"

"You are an impertinent little wretch!" she said, and left him.

"Au revoir," said Tinker gently.

But she only tossed her head, and hurried on. Yet Tinker's honest expression of opinion had impressed her: she had a belief in the instinct of children generally and, like most people who came into contact with him, she had a strong belief in the instinct of Tinker.

She tried to forget his words; but they kept recurring to her, and in spite of herself, unconsciously, they put her on her guard.

Tinker watched her out of sight, then he had half a thought of telling Claire that she had gone to Courtnay, doubtless at his summons. But he saw quickly that there was no need, and dismissed the thought from his mind. Also, he kept out of his cousin's way for some days; he had a feeling that,--however grateful she might be to him, the sight of him, reminding her of how badly Courtnay had behaved, would be unpleasant to her.

However, he watched her from a distance, and saw that she was pale and listless. Then he saw with great pleasure that Lord Crosland contrived to be with her a good deal, that he even neglected the system for her.

But for all this pleasure, he was not quite easy in his mind; the knowledge that he had done his grand-uncle b.u.mpkin the service of saving him from such a son-in-law as Courtnay was a discomfort to him: he felt that this was a matter which must be set right, and he kept his eyes open for a chance. He looked, too, for the return of Courtnay and Madame de Belle-ile; but the days pa.s.sed and they did not return.

One morning he found himself in an unhappy mood. It seemed to him that his wits had come to a standstill; for three days no new mischief had come the way of his idle hands, and his regular, dally, mischievous practices had grown so regular as almost to have acquired the tastelessness of duties. The peculiar brightness and gaiety of Monte Carlo life had begun to pall upon him. Loneliness was eating into his soul; for of all the French boys who paraded the gardens of the Temple of Fortune, he could make nothing. Their costumes, which were of velvet and satin and lace, revolted him; their lack of spirit, their distaste for violent movement, their joy in parading their revolting costumes filled him with wondering contempt. As for the little French girls, he was at any time uninterested in girls; and these spindle-shanked precocities walked on two-inch heels, and tried to fascinate him with the graces of mature coquettes. His careful politeness was hard put to it to conceal his distaste for their conversation. Possibly he was hankering after a healthier life; but at any rate he, who was generally so full of energy, had mooned listlessly about the gardens all the morning, with a far-away look in his eyes, and the air of a strayed seraph.

During his mooning about he had pa.s.sed several times a little girl who looked English. She sat on a seat in the far corner--a strange, shy, timid child, watching with a half-frightened wonder the strikingly-dressed women and children who strolled up and down, chattering shrilly. He gave her but indifferent glances as he pa.s.sed; but, thanks to his father's careful training of his natural gift of observation, the indifferent glance of that child of the world took in more of a fellow-creature than most men's careful scrutiny. He saw that she was frail and big-eyed, that her frock was ill-fitting and shabby, her hat shabbier, her shoes ready-made, that she wore no gloves, and that her ma.s.s of silky hair owed its unsuccessful attempts at tidiness to her own brushing. He summed her up as that archetype of patience, the gambler's neglected child.

Just before he went to his dejeuner, he saw that she was sitting there still. He took that meal with his father and Lord Crosland; and instead of hurrying off, directly he had eaten his dessert, to some pressing and generally mischievous business, he sat listening to their talk over their coffee and cigars, and only left them at the doors of the Casino. He strolled along the terrace, moody and disconsolate, able to think of nothing to amuse him, and, as he came to the end of the gardens, he saw a group of French children gathered in front of the seat on which the little girl was sitting, and, coming nearer, he heard jeering cries of "Sale Anglaise! Sale Anglaise!"

In a flash Tinker's face shone with a very ecstasy of pure delight, and he swooped down on the group. The child was clutching the arm of the seat, and staring at her tormentors with parted lips and terrified eyes. For their part, they were enjoying themselves to the full. They had found a game which afforded them the maximum of pleasure, with the minimum of effort; and just as Tinker swooped down, a cropped and bullet-headed boy in blue velvet threw a handful of gravel into her face. She threw up her hands and burst into tears; the children's laughter rose to a shrill yell; and with extreme swiftness Tinker caught the bullet-headed boy a ringing box on the right ear and another on the left. The boy squealed, turned, clawing and kicking, on Tinker, and, in ten seconds of crowded life, had learned the true significance of those cryptic terms an upper-cut on the potato-trap, a hook on the jaw, a rattler on the conk, and a buster on the mark. He lay down on the path to digest the lesson, and his little friends fled, squealing, away.

The little girl slipped off the seat and said "Thank you," between two sobs.

Tinker's face was one bright, seraphic smile as he took off his hat, and, with an admirable bow, said, "May I take you to your people?"

The bullet-headed boy rose to his feet and staggered away.

"Uncle's still in that big house," said the little girl, striving bravely to check her sobs.

"That's a nuisance," said Tinker thoughtfully; "for we can't get at him."

"I think he's forgotten all about me. He often does," said the little girl, without any resentment; and she dusted the gravel off her frock.

"I might bolt in and remind him."

"They won't let us in--only grown-ups," said the little girl. "Uncle tried to get them to let me in; but they wouldn't."

"They're used to letting me in," said Tinker--"and hauling me out again," he added. "It brightens them up. You tell me what he's like."

Being a girl, the child was able to describe her uncle accurately: but when she had done, Tinker shook his head:

"He must be just like a dozen other Englishmen in there," he said.

"And they wouldn't give me time to ask each one if he were your uncle."

The little girl sighed, and said, "It doesn't matter, thank you," and, sitting down again on the seat, resumed her patient waiting, drooping forward with eyes rather dim.

Tinker studied her face, and his keen eye told him what was wrong.

"Have you had dejeuner?" he said sharply.

"No-o-o," said the little girl reluctantly.

"Then you've had nothing since your coffee this morning?"

"No, but it doesn't matter. Uncle is rather forgetful," said the little girl, but her lips moved at the thought of food as a hungry child's will.

"This won't do at all! Come along with me. It's rather late, but we'll find something."

Her face brightened for a moment; but she shook her head, and said, "No, I mustn't go away from here. Uncle might come back, and he would be so angry if he had to look for me."

Tinker shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel, and was gone. She looked after him sadly. She would have liked him to stay a little longer; it was so nice to talk to an English boy after ten days in this strange land; and he seemed such a nice boy. But she only drooped a little more, and stared out over the bright sea with misty eyes, composing herself to endure her hunger.

Tinker went swiftly to the restaurant of the Hotel des Princes, where the waiters greeted him with affectionate grins, and, addressing himself to the manager, set forth his new friend's plight, and his wishes. The manager fell in with them on the instant, only too pleased to have the chance of obliging his most popular customer; and, in five minutes, Tinker left the restaurant followed by a waiter bearing a tray of dainties, all carefully chosen to tempt the appet.i.te of a child.

They took their way to the gardens, and the little girl brightened up at the sight of the returning Tinker. But when the waiter set the tray on the seat, she flushed painfully, and though she could not draw her hungry eyes away from the food, she stammered, "T-t-thank you very m-m-much. B-b-but I haven't any money."

Tinker gave the waiter a couple of francs, and bade him come for the tray in half an hour. Then he said cheerfully, "That's all right. The food's paid for; and whether you eat it or not makes no difference. In fact, you may as well."

The child looked from his face to the food and back again, wavering; then said, with a little gasp, "Oh, I am so hungry."

Tinker took this for a consent, put some aspic of pate de foie gras on her plate, and watched her satisfy her hunger with great pleasure, which was not lessened by the fact that, for all her hunger, she ate with a delicate niceness. He had feared from her neglected air that her manners had also been neglected. After the aspic, he carved the breast of the chicken for her, helped her to salad, and mixed the ice water with the _sirop_ to exactly the strength he liked himself; after the chicken, he helped her to meringues, and after the meringues lighted the kirsch of the _poires au kirsch_, which he had chosen because it always pleased him to see the kirsch burn, and ate one of the pears himself, while she ate the others. When she had finished her little sigh of content warmed his heart.

He put the tray behind the seat, and settled down beside her for a talk. Now that she was no longer hungry, she was no longer woebegone, and her laugh, though faint, was so pretty that he found himself making every effort to set her laughing. They talked about themselves with the simple egoism of children; and he learned that her name was Elsie Brand; that she was ten years old--nearly two years younger than himself--that her mother had died many years ago, and that she had lived with her father in his Devonshire parsonage by the sea till last year, when he, too, had died. Then her Uncle Richard had taken her away to live with him in London. Her story of her life in London lodgings set Tinker wondering about that Uncle Richard, and piecing together the details Elsie let fall about his late rising, his late going to bed, his morning headache and distaste for breakfast, he came to the conclusion that he was a bad hat who lived by his somewhat inferior wits.

At the end of her story he tried to persuade her to come to the sea with him and seek amus.e.m.e.nt there. But he failed; she would not leave the seat. He gathered, indeed, from her fear of vexing her uncle that that bad hat was in the habit of slapping her if she angered him, and, for a breath, he was filled with a fierce indignation which surprised him; she looked so frail. But he did not ask her if it were so, for his delicacy forewarned him that the question would provoke a struggle between her loyalty and her truthfulness. He entertained her, therefore, with his reminiscences, and enjoyed to the full the admiration and wonder which filled her face as he talked. Absorbed in one another, they paid no heed to the pa.s.sing of the hours; and the sudden fall of twilight surprised them.

They began to speculate whether Uncle Richard had had enough of his gambling, and would come and fetch her. But, even now, Elsie was not impatient, so inured had she been to neglect. She only looked anxious again. Tinker, on the other hand, was impatient, very impatient, with Uncle Richard, whom he was disposed to regard as a gentleman in great need of a kicking. Moreover, the chill hour after sunset, so dangerous on that littoral, was upon them, and he considered with disquiet the thin stuff of the child's frock.

Presently he said abruptly, "I've promised my father to wear an overcoat during the fever hour. I must be off and get it, and a wrap for you. You won't be frightened, if I leave you alone?"

"No," Elsie said bravely, but her tone belied the word.

"Well, walk up and down quickly, so that you don't get a chill. If you keep near the seat, your uncle can't miss you if he comes."

"Very well," said Elsie, rising obediently. "Only--only--if you could get back soon."

"I will," said Tinker, and he bolted for the hotel.

Elsie walked up and down, trying to feel brave, but the odd shapes which the bushes a.s.sumed in the dim light daunted her not a little, and she strove to drive away the fancy that she saw people lurking among them. Tinker was gone a bare seven minutes; but to the timid child it seemed a very long while, and she welcomed his return with a gasp of relief.