The Head of the House of Coombe Part 15

"I am glad I know you are my mother," he said, "I always knew."

He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as clearly as things usually were. But he was not really disturbed.

He had remembered a book he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought of that. There was also a game in a little box which could be easily carried under his arm. His mother was "thinking" and he was used to that. It came on her sometimes and of his own volition he always, on such occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly possible.

After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny.

"You're tired, ma'am," the woman said when she saw her, "I'm afraid you've a headache."

"I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon,"

her mistress answered, "You were right about the nurse. The little girl might have been playing with any boy chance sent in her way--boys quite unlike Donal."

"Yes, ma'am." And because she loved her and knew her face and voice Nanny watched her closely.

"You will be as--startled--as I was. By some queer chance the child's mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to me. Nanny--she is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless."

Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply.

"And she came in and spoke to you, ma'am!"

"Things have altered and are altering every day," Mrs. Muir said.

"Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her own--and she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going people who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband was a relation of Lord Lawdor's."

"And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie,"

offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir's hands clasped strongly as they lay on the table before her.

"That doesn't come within my bailiewick," she said in her quiet voice. "Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that blows." She stopped just a moment and began again. "We must leave for Scotland by the earliest train."

"What'll he do?" the words escaped from the woman as if involuntarily.

She even drew a quick breath. "He's a strong feeling bairn--strong!"

"He'll be stronger when he is a young man, Nanny!" desperately.

"That is why I must act now. There is no half way. I don't want to be hard. Oh, am I hard--am I hard?" she cried out low as if she were pleading.

"No, ma'am. You are not. He's your own flesh and blood." Nanny had never before seen her mistress as she saw her in the next curious almost exaggerated moment.

Her hand flew to her side.

"He's my heart and my soul--" she said, "--he is the very entrails of me! And it will hurt him so and I cannot explain to him because he is too young to understand. He is only a little boy who must go where he is taken. And he cannot help himself. It's--unfair!"

Nanny was p.r.o.ne to become more Scotch as she became moved. But she still managed to look grim.

"He canna help himsel," she said, "an waur still, YOU canna."

There was a moment of stillness and then she said:

"I must go and pack up." And walked out of the room.

Donal always slept like a young roe in the bracken, and in deep and rapturous ease he slept this night. Another perfectly joyful day had pa.s.sed and his Mother had liked Robin and kissed her. All was well with the world. As long as he had remained awake--and it had not been long--he had thought of delightful things unfeverishly.

Of Robin, somehow at Braemarnie, growing bigger very quickly--big enough for all sorts of games--learning to ride Chieftain, even to gallop. His mother would buy another pony and they could ride side by side. Robin would laugh and her hair would fly behind her if they went fast. She would see how fast he could go--she would see him make Chieftain jump. They would have picnics--catch sight of deer and fawns delicately lifting their feet as they stepped.

She would always look at him with that nice look in her eyes and the little smile which came and went in a second. She was quite different from the minister's little girls at the Manse. He liked her--he liked her!

He was wakened by a light in his room and by the sound of moving about. He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed and Nanny putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his Mother looked taller than she had looked yesterday--and almost thin--and her face was anxious and--shy.

"We let you sleep as late as we could, Donal," she said. "You must get up quickly now and have breakfast. Something has happened. We are obliged to go back to Scotland by very early train. There is not a minute to waste."

At first he only said:

"Back!"

"Yes, dear. Get up."

"To Braemarnie?"

"Yes, dear laddie!"

He felt himself grow hot and cold.

"Away! Away!" he said again vaguely.

"Yes. Get up, dear."

He was as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as he was told. He was also a fine, st.u.r.dy little Scot with a pride of his own. His breeding had been of the sort which did not include insubordinate scenes, so he got out of bed and began to dress. But his mother saw that his hands shook.

"I shall not see Robin," he said in a queer voice. "She won't find me when she goes behind the lilac bushes. She won't know why I don't come."

He swallowed very hard and was dead still for a few minutes, though he did not linger over his dressing. His mother felt that the whole thing was horrible. He was acting almost like a young man even now. She did not know how she could bear it. She spoke to him in a tone which was actually rather humble.

"If we knew where she lived you--you could write a little letter and tell her about it. But we do not where she lives."

He answered her very low.

"That's it. And she's little--and she won't understand. She's very little--really." There was a harrowingly protective note in his voice. "Perhaps--she'll cry."

Helen looking down at him with anguished eyes--he was b.u.t.toning his shoes--made an unearthly effort to find words, but, as she said them, she knew they were not the right ones.

"She will be disappointed, of course, but she is so little that she will not feel it as much as if she were bigger. She will get over it, darling. Very little girls do not remember things long."

Oh, how coa.r.s.e and cra.s.s and stupid it sounded--how course and cra.s.s and stupid to say it to this small defiant sc.r.a.p of what seemed the inevitable suffering of the world!

The clear blue of the eyes Robin had dwelt in, lifted itself to her. There was something almost fierce in it--almost like impotent hatred of something.

"She won't," he said, and she actually heard him grind his little teeth after it.

He did not look like Donal when he was dressed and sat at the breakfast table. He did not eat much of his porridge, but she saw that he determinedly ate some. She felt several times as if he actually did not look like anybody she had ever seen. And at the same time his fair hair, his fair cheeks, and the fair st.u.r.dy knees beneath his swinging kilt made him seem as much a little boy as she had ever known him. It was his hot blue eyes which were different.

He obeyed her every wish and followed where she led. When the train laboured out of the big station he had taken a seat in a corner and sat with his face turned to the window, so that his back was towards her. He stared and stared at the pa.s.sing country and she could only see part of his cheek and the side of his neck. She could not help watching them and presently she saw a hot red glow under the skin as if a flood had risen. It subsided in a few moments, but presently she saw it rise again. This happened several times and he was holding his lip with, his teeth. Once she saw his shoulders more and he coughed obstinately two or three times. She knew that he would die before he would let himself cry, but she wished he would descend to it just this once, as the fields and hedges raced past and he was carried "Away! Away!" It might be that it was all his manhood she was saving for him.