Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

reflection that he would not have the trouble of dealing with her. If she had been giddy, after all, it was but natural. Her mother had not been particularly steady in the days of her wild youth. And anyhow he was sure her mother would speedily break her in again. She had a will of iron before which Dinah was always forced to bend.

He rode on along the highroad. It was not more than half a mile farther to his home on the outskirts of the village. Somewhere in the gloom ahead of him church-bells were pealing. It was practice-night, he remembered. Dinah loved the sound of the bells. She would feel that they were ringing in her honour. Funny little Dinah! The child was full of fancies of that sort. Just as well perhaps, for it was the only form of amusement that ever came into her home life.

The gay peal turned into a deafening clashing as at length he neared his home. The old church stood only a stone's throw further on. They were ringing the joy-bells with a vengeance. And then very suddenly he caught sight of the tail-lamp of a car close to his own gate.

Dinah had returned then. They had actually chartered that car to convey her from Great Mallowes. He pursed his lips to a whistle. The little girl had been in clover indeed.

"She certainly won't think much of the home crusts after this," he murmured to himself.

He walked Rupert round to the tumble-down stable, and dismounted.

For the next quarter of an hour he was busy over the animal. He thought it a little strange that Dinah did not spy the stable-lamp from the kitchen and come dancing out to greet him. He also wondered why the car lingered so long. It looked as if someone other than the maid had accompanied her, and were staying to tea.

He never took tea after a day's hunting; hot whisky and water and a bath formed his customary programme, and then a tasty supper and bed.

He supposed on this occasion that he would have to go in and show himself, though he was certainly not fit to be seen. Reluctantly he pulled the bedraggled pink coat on again. After all, it did not greatly matter. Hunting was its own excuse. No sportsman ever returned in the apple-pie order in which he started.

Carelessly he sauntered in by way of the back premises, and was instantly struck by the sound of a man's voice, well-bred, with a slightly haughty intonation, speaking in one of the front rooms of the little house.

"Dinah seemed to think that she could not keep it in till to-morrow," it said, with easy assurance. "So I thought I had better come along with her to-night and get it over."

The words reached Bathurst as he arrived in the small square hall, and he stopped dead. "Hullo! Hullo!" he murmured softly to himself.

And then came his wife's voice, a harsh, determined voice, "Do I understand that you wish to marry my daughter?"

"That's the idea," came the suave reply. "You don't know me, of course, but I think I can satisfy you that I am not an undesirable parti. My family is considered fairly respectable, as old families go. I am the ninth baronet in direct succession; and I have a very fair amount of worldly goods to offer my wife."

Mrs. Bathurst broke in upon him, a tremor of eagerness in her hard voice. "If that is the case, of course I have no objection," she said. "Dinah won't do any better for herself than that. It seems to me that she will have the best of the bargain. But that is your affair. She's full young. I don't suppose you want to marry her yet, do you?"

"I'd marry her to-night if I could," said Sir Eustace, with his careless laugh.

But Mrs. Bathurst did not laugh with him. "We'll have the banns published and everything done proper," she said. "Hasty marriages as often as not aren't regular. Here, Dinah! Don't stand there listening! Go and see if the kettle boils!"

It was at this point that Bathurst deemed that the moment had arrived to present himself. He entered, almost running into Dinah about to hurry out.

"Hullo!" he said. "Hullo!" and taking her by the shoulders, kissed her.

She clung to him for a moment, her sweet face burning. "Oh, Dad!" she murmured in confusion, "Oh, Dad!"

With his arm about her, he turned her back into the room. "You come back and introduce me to your new friend!" he said. "I've got to thank him, you know, for taking such care of you."

She yielded, but not very willingly. She was painfully embarrassed, almost incoherent, as she obeyed Bathurst's behest.

"This—this is Dad," she murmured.

Sir Eustace came forward with his leisurely air of confidence. His great bulk seemed to fill the low room. He looked even more magnificent than usual.

"Ah, sir, you have just come in from hunting," he said. "I hope I don't intrude. It's a beastly wet evening. I should think you're not sorry to get in."

Mrs. Bathurst, tall, bony, angular, with harsh, gipsy features that were still in a fashion boldly handsome, broke in upon her husband's answering greeting.

"Ronald, this gentleman tells me he wants to marry Dinah. It is very sudden, but these things often are. You will give your consent of course. I have already given mine."

"Easy, easy!" laughed Bathurst. "Why exceed the speed limit in this reckless fashion? You are Sir Eustace Studley? I am very pleased to meet you."

He held out his hand to Sir Eustace, and gave him the grasp of good-fellowship. It seemed to Dinah that the very atmosphere changed magically with the coming of her father. No difficult situation ever dismayed him. He and Sir Eustace were not dissimilar in this respect. Whatever the circumstances, they both knew how to hold their own with absolute ease. It was a faculty which she would have given much to possess.

Sir Eustace was laughing in his careless, well-bred way. "It's rather a shame to spring the matter on you like this," he said. "I ought to have waited to ask your consent to the engagement, but I am afraid I am not a very patient person, and I wanted to make sure of your daughter before we parted. We are staying at Great Mallowes—at the Royal Stag. May I come over to-morrow and put things on a more business-like footing?"

"Oh, don't hurry away!" said Bathurst easily. "Sit down and have some tea with us! It is something of a surprise certainly but a very agreeable one. Lydia, what about tea? Or perhaps you prefer a whisky and soda?"

"Tea, thanks," said Sir Eustace, and seated himself with his superb air of complete assurance.

Mrs. Bathurst turned upon her daughter. "Dinah, how many more times am I to tell you to go and see if the kettle boils?"

Dinah started, as one rudely awakened from an entrancing dream. "I am sorry," she murmured in confusion. "I forgot."

She fled from the room with the words, and her mother, with dark brows drawn, looked after her for a moment, then sat down facing Sir Eustace.

"I should like to know," she said aggressively, "what you are prepared to do for her."

Sir Eustace smiled in his aloof, slightly supercilious fashion. He had been more or less prepared for Dinah's mother, but the temptation to address her as "My good woman" was almost more than he could withstand.

"Will you not allow me," he said, icily courteous, "to settle this important matter with Mr. Bathurst to-morrow? He will then be in a position to explain it to you."

Mrs. Bathurst made a movement of fierce impatience. She had been put in her place by this stranger and furiously she resented it. But the man was a baronet, and a marvellous catch for a son-in-law; and she did not dare to put her resentment into words.

She got up therefore, and flounced angrily to the door. Sir Eustace arose without haste and with a stretch of his long arm opened it for her.

She flung him a glance, half-hostile, half-awed, as she went through. She had a malignant hatred for the upper class, despite the fact that her own husband was a member thereof. And yet she held it in unwilling respect. Sir Eustace's nonchalantly administered snub was far harder to bear than any open rudeness from a man of her own standing would have been.

Fiercely indignant, she entered the kitchen, and caught Dinah peeping at herself in the shining surface of the warming-pan after having removed her hat.

"Ah, that's your game, my girl, is it?" she said. "You've come back the grand lady, have you? You've no further, use for your mother, I daresay. She may work her fingers to the bone for all you care—or ever will care again."

Dinah whizzed round, scarlet and crestfallen. "Oh, Mother! How you startled me! I only wanted to see if—if my hair was tidy."

"And that's one of your lies," said Mrs. Bathurst, with a heavy hand on her shoulder. "They've taught you how to juggle with the truth, that's plain. Oh yes, Lady Studley that is to be, you've learnt a lot since you've been away, I can see—learnt to despise your mother, I'll lay a wager. But I'll show you she's not to be despised by a prinking minx like you. What did I send you in here for, eh?"

"To—to see to the kettle," faltered Dinah, shrinking before the stern regard of the black eyes that so mercilessly held her own.

"And there it is ready to boil over, and you haven't touched it, you worthless little hussy, you! Take that—and dare to disobey me again!"

She dealt the girl a blow with her open hand as she spoke, a swinging, pitiless blow, on the cheek, and pushed her fiercely from her.

Dinah reeled momentarily. The sudden violence of the attack bewildered her. Actually she had almost forgotten how dreadful her mother could be. Then, recovering herself, she went to the fire and stooped over it, without a word. She had a burning sensation at the throat, and she was on the verge of passionate tears. The memory of Isabel's parting embrace, the tender drawing of her arms only a brief half-hour before made this home-coming almost intolerable.

"What's that thing you're wearing?" demanded Mrs. Bathurst abruptly.

Dinah lifted the kettle and turned. "It is a fur-lined coat that—that he bought for me in Paris."

"Then take it off!" commanded Mrs. Bathurst. "And don't you wear it again until I give you leave! How dare you accept presents from the man before I've even seen him?"

"I couldn't help it," murmured Dinah, as she slipped off the luxurious garment that Isabel had chosen for her.

"Couldn't help it!" Bitterly Mrs. Bathurst echoed the words. "You'll say you couldn't help him falling in love with you next! As if you didn't set out to catch him, you little artful brown-faced monkey! Oh, I always knew you were crafty, for all your simple ways. Mind, I don't say you haven't done well for yourself, you have—a deal better than you deserve. But don't ever say you couldn't help it to me again! For if you do, I'll trounce you for it, do you hear? None of your coy airs for me! I won't put up with 'em. You'll behave yourself as long as you're in this house, or I'll know the reason why."

To all of which Dinah listened in set silence, telling herself with desperate insistence that it would not be for long. Sir Eustace did not mean to be kept waiting, and he would deliver her finally and for all time.

She did not know exactly why her mother was angry. She supposed she resented the idea of losing her slave. There seemed no other possible reason, for love for her she had none. Dinah knew but too cruelly well that she had been naught but an unwelcome burden from the very earliest days of her existence. Till she met Isabel, she had never known what real mother-love could be.

She wondered if her fiancé would notice the red mark on her cheek when she carried in the teapot; but he was holding a careless conversation with her father, and only gave her a glance and a smile.

During the meal that followed he scarcely addressed her or so much as looked her way. He treated her mother with a freezing aloofness that made her tremble inwardly. She wondered how