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

he dared.

When at length he rose to go, however, his attention returned to Dinah. He laid a dominating hand upon her shoulder. "Are you coming to see me off?"

She glanced at her mother in involuntary appeal, but failed to catch her eye. Silently she turned to the door.

He took leave of her parents with the indifference of one accustomed to popularity. "I shall be round in the morning," he said to her father. "About twelve? That'll suit me very well; unless I wait till the afternoon and bring my sister. I know she hopes to come over if she is well enough. That is, of course, if you don't object to an informal call."

He spoke as if in his opinion the very fact of its informality conferred a favour, and again Dinah trembled lest her mother should break forth into open rudeness.

But to her amazement Mrs. Bathurst seemed somewhat overawed by the princely stranger. She even smiled in a grim way as she said, "I will be at home to her."

Sir Eustace made her a ceremonious bow and went out sweeping Dinah along with him. He closed the door with a decision there was no mistaking, and the next moment he had her in his arms.

"You poor little frightened mouse!" he said. "No wonder—no wonder you never knew before what life, real life, could be!"

She clung to him with all her strength, burying her face in the fur collar of his coat. "Oh, do marry me, quick—quick—quick!" she besought him, in a muffled whisper. "And take me away!"

He gathered her close in his arms, so close that she trembled again. Her nerves were all on edge that night.

"If they won't let me have you in a month from now," he said, in a voice that quivered slightly, "I swear I'll run away with you."

There was no echo of humour in his words though she tried to laugh at them, and ever he pressed her closer and closer to his heart, till panting she had to lift her face. And then he kissed her in his passionate compelling way, holding her shy lips with his own till he actually forced them to respond. She felt as if his love burned her, but, even so, she dared not shrink from it. There was so much at stake. Her mother's lack of love was infinitely harder to endure.

And so she bore the fierce flame of his passion unflinching even though her spirit clamoured wildly to be free, choosing rather to be consumed by it than left a beaten slave in her house of bondage.

His kisses waked in her much more of fear than rapture. That untamed desire of his frightened her to the very depths of her being, but yet it was infinitely preferable to the haughty indifference with which he regarded all the rest of the world. It meant that he would not let her go, and that in itself was comfort unspeakable to Dinah. He meant to have her at any price, and she was very badly in need of deliverance, even though she might have to pay for it, and pay heavily.

It was at this point, actually while his fiery kisses were scorching her lips, that a very strange thought crept all unawares into her consciousness. If she ever needed help, if she ever needed escape, she had a friend to whom she could turn—a staunch and capable friend who would never fail her. She was sure that Scott would find a way to ease the burden if it became too heavy. Her faith in him, his wisdom, his strength, was unbounded. And he helped everyone—the valiant servant Greatheart, protector of the helpless, sustainer of the vanquished.

When her lover was gone at last, she closed the door and leaned against it, feeling weak in every fibre.

Bathurst, coming out a few moments later, was struck by her spent look. "Well, Dinah lass," he said lightly, "you look as if it had cost something of an effort to land your catch. But he's a mighty fine one, I will say that for him."

She went to him, twining her arm in his, forcing herself to smile. "Oh, Dad," she said, "he is fine, isn't he?" But—but—she uttered the words almost in spite of herself—"you should see his brother. You should see—Scott."

"What? Is he finer still?" laughed Bathurst, pinching her cheek. "Have you got the whole family at your feet, you little baggage?"

She flushed very deeply. "Oh no! Oh no! I didn't mean that. Scott—Scott is not a bit like that. He is—he is—" And there she broke off, for who could hope to convey any faithful impression of this good friend of hers? There were no words that could adequately describe him. With a little sigh she turned from the subject. "I'm glad you like Eustace," she said shyly.

Bathurst laughed a little, then bent unexpectedly, and kissed her. "It's a case of Cinderella and the prince," he said lightly. "But the luck isn't all on Cinderella's side, I'm thinking."

She clung to him eagerly. "Oh, Daddy, thank you! Thank you! Do you know—it's funny—Scott used to call me Cinderella!"

Bathurst crooked his brows quizzically. "How original of him! This Scott seems to be quite a wonderful person. And what was your pet name for him I wonder, eh, sly-boots?"

She laughed in evident embarrassment. There was something implied in her father's tone that made her curiously reluctant to discuss her hero. And yet, in justification of the man himself, she felt she must say something.

"His brother and sister call him—Stumpy," she said, "because he is little and he limps. But I—" her face was as red as the hunting-coat against which it nestled—"I called him—Mr. Greatheart. He is—just like that."

Mr. Bathurst laughed again, tweaking her ear. "Altogether an extraordinary family!" he commented. "I must meet this Mr. Stumpy Greatheart. Now suppose you run upstairs and turn on the hot water. And when you've done that, you can take my boots down to the kitchen to dry. And mind you don't fall foul of your mother, for she strikes me as being a bit on the ramp tonight!"

He kissed her again, and she clung to him very fast for a moment or two, tasting in that casual, kindly embrace all the home joy she had ever known.

Then, hearing her mother's step, she swiftly and guiltily disengaged herself and fled up the stairs like a startled bird. As she prepared his bath for him, the wayward thought came to her that if only he and she had lived alone together, she would never have wanted to get married at all—even for the delight of being Lady Studley instead of "poor little Dinah Bathurst!"

CHAPTER II WEDDING ARRANGEMENTS

It was certainly not love at first sight that prompted Mrs. Bathurst to take a fancy to Isabel Everard.

Secretly Dinah had dreaded their meeting, fearing that innate antagonism which her mother invariably seemed to cherish against the upper class. But within a quarter of an hour of their meeting she was aware of a change of attitude, a quenching of the hostile element, a curious and wholly new sensation of peace.

For though Isabel's regal carriage and low, musical voice, marked her as one of the hated species, her gentleness banished all impression of pride. She treated Dinah's mother with an assumption of friendliness that had in it no trace of condescension, and she was so obviously sincere in her wish to establish a cordial relation that it was impossible to remain ungracious.

"I can't feel that we are strangers," she said, with her rare smile when Dinah had departed to fetch the tea. "Your little Dinah has done so much for me—more than I can ever tell you. That I am to have her for a sister seems almost too good to be true."

"I wonder you think she's good enough," remarked Mrs. Bathurst in her blunt way. "She isn't much to look at. I've done my best to bring her up well, but I never thought of her turning into a fine lady. I question if she's fit for it."

"If she were a fine lady, I don't think I should think so highly of her," Isabel said gently. "But as to her being unfit to fill a high position, she is only inexperienced and she will learn very quickly. I am willing to teach her all in my power."

"Aye, learn to despise her mother," commented Mrs. Bathurst, with sudden bitterness, "after all the trouble I've taken to make her respect me."

"I should never teach her that," Isabel answered quietly. "And I am sure that she would be quite incapable of learning it. Mrs. Bathurst, do you really think that worldly position is a thing that greatly matters to anyone in the long run? I don't."

It was then that a faint, half-grudging admiration awoke in the elder woman's resentful soul, and she looked at Isabel with the first glimmer of kindliness. "You're right," she said slowly, "it don't matter to those who've got it. But to those who haven't—" her eyes glowed red for a moment—"you don't know how it galls," she said.

And then she flushed dully, realizing that she had made a confidante of one of the hated breed.

But Isabel's hand was on hers in a moment; her eyes, full of understanding, looked earnest friendship into hers. "Oh, I know," she said. "It is the little things that gall us all, until—until some great—some fundamental—sorrow wrenches our very lives in twain. And then—and then—one can almost laugh to think one ever cared about them."

Her voice throbbed with feeling. She had lifted the veil for a moment to salve the other woman's bitterness.

And Mrs. Bathurst realized it, and was touched. "Ah! You've suffered," she said.

Isabel bent her head. "But it is over," she said. "I married a man who, they said, was beneath me. But—God knows—he was above me—in every way. And then—I lost him." Her voice sank.

Mrs. Bathurst's hand came down with a clumsy movement upon hers. "He died?" she said.

"Yes." Almost in a whisper Isabel made answer. "For years I would not face it—would not believe it. He went from me so suddenly—oh, God, so suddenly—" a tremor of anguish sounded in the low words; but in a moment she raised her head, and her eyes were shining with a brightness that no pain could dim. "It is over," she said. "It is quite, quite over. My night is past and can never come again. I am waiting now for the full day. And I know that I have not very long to wait. I have not seen him—no, I have not seen him. But—twice now—I have heard his voice."

"Poor soul! Poor soul!" said Mrs. Bathurst.

It was all the sympathy she could express; but it came from her heart. She no longer regretted her own burst of confidence. The spontaneous answer that it had evoked had had a magically softening effect upon her. In all her life no one had ever charmed her thus. She was astonished herself at the melting of her hardness.

"You've suffered worse than I have," she said, "for I never cared for any man like that. I was let down badly when I was a girl, and I've never had any opinion of any of 'em since. My husband's all right, so far as he goes. But he isn't the sort of man to worship. Precious few of 'em are."

Whereat Isabel laughed, a soft, sad laugh. "That is why worldly position matters so little," she said. "If by chance the right man really comes, nothing else counts. He is just everything."

"Maybe you're right," said Mrs. Bathurst, with gloomy acquiescence.
"Anyhow, it isn't for me to say you're wrong."

And this was why when Dinah brought in the tea, she found a wholly new element in the atmosphere, and missed the customary sharp rebuke from her mother's lips when she had to go back for the sugar-tongs.

She had been disappointed that her friend Scott had not been of the party. Isabel's explanation that he had gone home at Eustace's wish to attend to some business had not removed an odd little hurt sense of having been defrauded. She had counted upon seeing Scott that day. It was almost as if he had failed her when she needed him, though why she seemed to need him she could not have said, nor could he possibly have known that she would do so.

Sir Eustace was in her father's den. She was sure that they were