The Halo Part 15

If only she had had a father----

"_Vous etes roublee, ma fille_," said Joyselle, suddenly taking one of her hands in his befurred ones; "what has happened? Can you not think of me as your old papa, and tell me?"

She started, half-frightened, half angry. "I am not troubled, M.

Joyselle," she returned, in French. "I--have a headache, that is all."

Oh, time-honoured evasion; oh, cla.s.sic lie, thou who hast served, surely, since Eve's day, used without doubt by Helen of Troy, Cleopatra and all the other unsaintly women, ancient and modern, whose stories are so much more entertaining than those of the unco' guid--oh, Splendid Mendax, where should we all be without you?

"A headache?" Joyselle's magnificent eyes looked kindly but searchingly into hers. "No. Not that." Then, asking no further question, he leaned back in his place and looked out over the fields on his left.

"Daughter--father--child--old man----" she told herself with set jaw, "that is what he thinks. He is eight years younger than that brute Gerald, too."

The road climbed dully up for half an hour, and then with a quick turn stretched out over splendid downs, beyond which lay a narrow glittering strip of grey sea. "There is the sea," announced Brigit, perfunctorily.

It was not intrinsically beautiful, the scene, but as some chord in the human breast almost invariably vibrates in response to a view of salt water, this point was considered, at Kingsmead, to be a particularly important one, and as the motor flew on Brigit Mead wondered how many hundred times she had brought people there with the same curt introduction, "There is the sea."

Theo, perfectly happy, turned occasionally to look at the other two, but spoke little. It filled him with joy to see his beloved and his father together, and his engagement was still so young that he had not got used to it, and loved to think about it.

Joyselle, too, was unusually silent for a long time. Then at last he turned to Brigit, his face grave as she had hitherto seen it only when he was playing.

"I will not intrude again, Brigitte," he said, his deep voice very gentle; "but when--if--you ever care to come to me for help or advice--of any kind, I shall always be at your service."

"Thank you," she said, and could say no more, for fear of breaking down. Then her sense of humour, never very keen, did for once come to the rescue, and in an absurd mental flash-light she pictured his face if she should suddenly put her head down on his knees and wail out the truth: "Yes, dear Beau-papa, advise and help me, for I am to be your daughter, my children are to be your grandchildren, and--I love you!"

Something in her face hurt him, and for the rest of the drive he quite simply and frankly sulked.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Brigit went for a long walk that afternoon, as was her wont when she wished to think. As she started from the house she met Carron. "Look here, Brigit," he said roughly, "you slept with your mother last night.

Was it because you were afraid I might come back?"

She eyed him with great coolness from under the shadow of her felt hat.

"No, I was afraid, when I left--my little brother--that you might _have come back_." And she took her walking-stick from its place.

"I--I beg your pardon," he returned sullenly, looking at her as she stood in the faint autumn sunshine, her well-cut coat and skirt somehow failing to take from her her curious Indian air. "I was a beast."

"You always are, Gerald. Once when I was a child a spider bit me--or do spiders sting? Well, it made me a bit sick at first, and then I--forgot it. Good-bye."

The man's nerves were evidently in a bad state, for at her insult his face broke out into a cold perspiration and went very white. "Oh--I am a spider, am I? All right, I am glad I kissed you. Glad I held you close in my arms. You can't undo that, whatever you may say."

She stood quietly swinging her stick, a smile just touching her disdainful mouth. She was purposely being maddening, and she knew to the uttermost the value, as a means of torture to the trembling man before her, of the slight lift of her upper lip as she looked at him.

"Quite finished?" she asked, as he paused. "Then perhaps you'll let me go? _Good-bye._"

He watched her out of sight, and then wiping his face carefully with his handkerchief, returned to the house.

Crossing the park by a footpath that was now half-buried in fallen leaves, she came out on the high road, and turning to the left, took a steep path leading to the downs.

She walked with unusual rapidity for a woman, climbing the path without relaxing her gait or losing her breath. The sharp, damp air brought to her face colour that Carron had been unable to call up. He was, poor wretch, so utterly secondary to her, that he was as little important as the long-forgotten spider. It was Joyselle who occupied her thoughts, whom her mental eyes saw, as she walked steadily seawards, as plainly as if he had been with her.

The next morning would begin a respite for her, in one sense, for he was going away. His old mother was ill in Falaise, and he was going to see her. "Then," he had added, "I must visit a friend in Paris. I shall not be back before the last of November."

This information he had volunteered to her immediately after lunch, having quite forgotten his resentment at her lack of response to his offers of advice. His quick changes of humour were very puzzling, and continually made her doubt whether she or anyone else knew him at all, though she had too much discrimination to doubt the sincerity of any one of his moods.

She had left him on the point of going to his room to play for Tommy, and knew that her brother would probably unfold to him during the afternoon his plan of becoming a violinist.

If the child had talent, Joyselle would, she believed, do his utmost to help him, and this was another reason why she could not make up her mind how to manage her own affairs.

Even if she wished to break her engagement and never see Joyselle again, had she the right thus to take from her brother the chance of great happiness and protection that seemed to have come to him?

"Joyselle would never speak to me again if I threw Theo over," she told herself. "First, he would scold me violently, and then he'd lop us all off, trunk and branch. And--he might be the making of Tommy. Theo is so gentle and good, and he so splendid--I could have Tommy a lot with--us----"

On the other hand, however, what if she went from bad to worse regarding Joyselle? Would she be able to bear it?

Her thoughts turning the matter relentlessly over and over, as a squirrel does his wheel, she came home, getting there just at tea-time.

Lady Kingsmead, very much bored with her guests, had her useful headache, and the girl had to hurry into dry clothes, for the rain had come on, and play hostess.

"Tea, M. Joyselle?"

He made a wry and very ludicrous face. "_Merci_, Lady Brigit!"

"French people always loathe tea, my dear," laughed the d.u.c.h.ess; "they take it when they have colds, as we take quinine."

Miss Letchworth, who had been three times to Paris for a week at a time, looked up from her embroidery. "Oh, _d.u.c.h.ess_! People of our cla.s.s often drink it," she protested, the only tea she had ever consumed in Paris being that of her hotel or of Columbins, "don't they, mossoo?"

Joyselle's eyes drew down at the corners and he gave his big moustache a martial, upward twist. "Ask others, mademoiselle," he retorted wickedly.

"I am not of your cla.s.s!"

It was brutal, and there was a short silence. Brigit was annoyed. Last night she had hoped for one of his outbursts, but now that it had come she was ashamed for him. And she shivered as she realised that this shame was a serious sign.

"Horrid speech," she remarked, looking into the teapot she had forgotten to fill with water, "isn't it, Theo?"

But Theo only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. His father was his father, and except in little matters, such as satin and too flamboyant ties, not to be even mentally criticised.

"But it is true, my dear," continued Joyselle, the mischief suddenly gone from his face, a shrewd look of inquiry taking its place. "You are going to marry into a peasant family, you know." Another change of mood!

He was severe now and disapproving.

She held up her head. "No one could call Theo a peasant, could they, d.u.c.h.ess?"

Joyselle understood, and with bewildering rapidity again changed.

"Bravo!" he cried, laughing heartily. "You are marrying the _son_, you mean, not the father. _C'est vrai, c'est vrai!_"

His utter unconsciousness was a great blessing, no doubt, but at that moment it nearly maddened her. Was he blind?

Apparently he was, as he drank some mineral water and talked to the d.u.c.h.ess.