The Head of the House of Coombe Part 18

"It was her boy," she said, and then she laughed and nodded at Coombe.

"He was quite as handsome as you said he was. No wonder poor Robin fell prostrate. He ought to be chained and muzzled by law when he grows up."

"But so ought Robin," threw in the Starling in her brusque, young mannish way.

"But Robin's only a girl and she's not a parti," laughed Feather.

Her eyes, lifted to Coombe's, held a sort of childlike malice.

"After his mother knew she was Miss Gareth-Lawless, he was not allowed to play in the Gardens again. Did she take him back to Scotland?"

"They went back to Scotland," answered Coombe, "and, of course, the boy was not left behind."

"Have YOU a child five years old?" asked Vesey in his low voice of Feather. "You?"

"It seems absurd to ME," said Feather, "I never quite believe in her."

"I don't," said Vesey. "She's impossible."

"Robin is a stimulating name," put in Harrowby. "IS it too late to let us see her? If she's such a beauty as Starling hints, she ought to be looked at."

Feather actually touched the bell by the fireplace. A sudden caprice moved her. The love story had not gone off quite as well as she had thought it would. And, after all, the child was pretty enough to show off. She knew nothing in particular about her daughter's hours, but, if she was asleep, she could be wakened.

"Tell Andrews," she said to the footman when he appeared, "I wish Miss Robin to be brought downstairs."

"They usually go to bed at seven, I believe," remarked Coombe, "but, of course, I am not an authority."

Robin was not asleep though she had long been in bed. Because she kept her eyes shut Andrews had been deceived into carrying on a conversation with her sister Anne, who had come to see her. Robin had been lying listening to it. She had begun to listen because they had been talking about the day she had spoiled her rose-coloured smock and they had ended by being very frank about other things.

"As sure as you saw her speak to the boy's mother the day before, just so sure she whisked him back to Scotland the next morning,"

said Andrews. "She's one of the kind that's particular. Lord Coombe's the reason. She does not want her boy to see or speak to him, if it can be helped. She won't have it--and when she found out--"

"Is Lord Coombe as bad as they say?" put in Anne with bated breath.

"He must be pretty bad if a boy that's eight years old has to be kept out of sight and sound of him."

So it was Lord Coombe who had somehow done it. He had made Donal's mother take him away. It was Lord Coombe. Who was Lord Coombe? It was because he was wicked that Donal's mother would not let him play with her--because he was wicked. All at once there came to her a memory of having heard his name before. She had heard it several times in the bas.e.m.e.nt Servants' Hall and, though she had not understood what was said about him, she had felt the atmosphere of cynical disapproval of something. They had said "him" and "her"

as if he somehow belonged to the house. On one occasion he had been "high" in the manner of some reproof to Jennings, who, being enraged, freely expressed his opinions of his lordship's character and general reputation. The impression made on Robin then had been that he was a person to be condemned severely. That the condemnation was the mere outcome of the temper of an impudent young footman had not conveyed itself to her, and it was the impression which came back to her now with a new significance. He was the cause--not Donal, not Donal's Mother--but this man who was so bad that servants were angry because he was somehow connected with the house.

"As to his badness," she heard Andrews answer, "there's some that can't say enough against him. Badness is smart these days. He's bad enough for the boy's mother to take him away from. It's what he is in this house that does it. She won't have her boy playing with a child like Robin."

Then--even as there flashed upon her bewilderment this strange revelation of her own unfitness for a.s.sociation with boys whose mothers took care of them--Jennings, the young footman, came to the door.

"Is she awake, Miss Andrews?" he said, looking greatly edified by Andrews' astonished countenance.

"What on earth--?" began Andrews.

"If she is," Jennings winked humorously, "she's to be dressed up and taken down to the drawing-room to be shown off. I don't know whether it's Coombe's idea or not. He's there."

Robin's eyes flew wide open. She forgot to keep them shut. She was to go downstairs! Who wanted her--who?

Andrews had quite gasped.

"Here's a new break out!" she exclaimed. "I never heard such a thing in my life. She's been in bed over two hours. I'd like to know--"

She paused here because her glance at the bed met the dark liquidity of eyes wide open. She got up and walked across the room.

"You are awake!" she said. "You look as if you hadn't been asleep at all. You're to get up and have your frock put on. The Lady Downstairs wants you in the drawing-room."

Two months earlier such a piece of information would have awakened in the child a delirium of delight. But now her vitality was lowered because her previously unawakened little soul had soared so high and been so dashed down to cruel earth again. The brilliancy of the Lady Downstairs had been dimmed as a candle is dimmed by the light of the sun.

She felt only a vague wonder as she did as Andrews told her--wonder at the strangeness of getting up to be dressed, as it seemed to her, in the middle of the night.

"It's just the kind of thing that would happen in a house like this," grumbled Andrews, as she put on her frock. "Just anything that comes into their heads they think they've a right to do. I suppose they have, too. If you're rich and aristocratic enough to have your own way, why not take it? I would myself."

The big silk curls, all in a heap, fell almost to the child's hips.

The frock Andrews chose for her was a fairy thing.

"She IS a bit thin, to be sure," said the girl Anne. "But it points her little face and makes her eyes look bigger."

"If her mother's got a Marquis, I wonder what she'll get," said Andrews. "She's got a lot before her: this one!"

When the child entered the drawing-room, Andrews made her go in alone, while she held herself, properly, a few paces back like a lady in waiting. The room was brilliantly lighted and seemed full of colour and people who were laughing. There were pretty things crowding each other everywhere, and there were flowers on all sides.

The Lady Downstairs, in a sheathlike sparkling dress, and only a glittering strap seeming to hold it on over her fair undressed shoulders, was talking to a tall thin man standing before the fireplace with a gold cup of coffee in his hand.

As the little thing strayed in, with her rather rigid attendant behind her, suddenly the laughing ceased and everybody involuntarily drew a half startled breath--everybody but the tall thin man, who quietly turned and set his coffee cup down on the mantel piece behind him.

"Is THIS what you have been keeping up your sleeve!" said Harrowby, settling his pince nez.

"I told you!" said the Starling.

"You couldn't tell us," Vesey's veiled voice dropped in softly.

"It must be seen to be believed. But still--" aside to Feather, "I don't believe it."

"Enter, my only child!" said Feather. "Come here, Robin. Come to your mother."

Now was the time! Robin went to her and took hold of a very small piece of her sparkling dress.

"ARE you my Mother?" she said. And then everybody burst into a peal of laughter, Feather with the rest.

"She calls me the Lady Downstairs," she said. "I really believe she doesn't know. She's rather a stupid little thing."

"Amazing lack of filial affection," said Lord Coombe.

He was not laughing like the rest and he was looking down at Robin.

She thought him ugly and wicked looking. Vesey and Harrowby were beautiful by contrast. Before she knew who he was, she disliked him. She looked at him askance under her eyelashes, and he saw her do it before her mother spoke his name, taking her by the tips of her fingers and leading her to him.

"Come and let Lord Coombe look at you," she said. So it revealed itself to her that it was he--this ugly one--who had done it, and hatred surged up in her soul. It was actually in the eyes she raised to his face, and Coombe saw it as he had seen the sidelong glance and he wondered what it meant.

"Shake hands with Lord Coombe," Feather instructed.