Charles Rex, Ethel May Dell [find a book to read txt] 📗

what I mean. Dull explanation, isn't it? Larpent was badly damaged. He is undergoing repairs in a nursing home, and the child--well, I've got to look after the child. _Figurez-vous, ma chere!_ I--a protector of infants! _Un peu comique, n'est-ce pas?_"
"Ah!" Maud said, with compassion. "The poor little thing must come to us. I will take care of her. When will you bring her?"
"You think her present plight is not to be endured for another moment?" laughed Saltash. "_Bien!_ I will send her to you tomorrow."
"Ah! I don't mean she is not in safe keeping," protested Maud. "How old is she? Older than Eileen?"
"A little older than that," said Saltash. "She's nineteen."
"Oh!" said Maud.
"Perhaps you do mean it now!" gibed Saltash, getting up in his sudden fashion.
Maud rose also, facing him in the starlight. "No, Charlie I don't! Because I know that the big things are in you and always have been, I would trust you--with my most precious possession."
He laughed again. "But when I gave it back to you, you would look all round it to make sure it hadn't been broken and stuck together again, wouldn't you, Maud of the Roses?"
"No," she said. "I wouldn't. I know--Charles Rex--better than that."
He made her a sweeping bow. "Most fair and gracious lady, do not forget that my crest is a fox's head and the motto thereupon, '_Sans vertu_!'"
She smiled, looking at him with steadfast eyes. "I will give you another motto, Charlie," she said. "Those we love--we trust."
He made an abrupt movement. It was almost a protest. "For how long? Do you really love me, Maud of the Roses?"
She gave him both her hands without drawing any nearer. Her eyes were shining as stars that shine through mist. "Yes, I love you, Charlie," she said, "so much that I can't go on being happy till I know that you are too."
He bent very low, so that his dark face was wholly hidden from her. "I've never been--really happy--since the day I lost you," he said.
Her hands clasped his very tightly. There was a brief silence before--with a touch of shyness--she spoke again. "You have never been--really happy--all your life. You don't know the meaning of the word--yet."
"Don't I?" He stood up, still holding her hands. "I thought I'd sampled everything."
"No," she said. "No. There is--one thing left."
"What is that?" he said.
She stood again in silence, looking at him. Then, slowly, "You have never yet touched the joy of loving someone better--far better--than you love yourself," she said. "I think that is the greatest joy that God can send."
He bent towards her with a certain eagerness. "Maud, I could have loved you like that--once."
She shook her head and her smile was sad. "No, my dear, believe me! I couldn't have inspired it in you. I was too selfish myself in those days. Some other woman will teach you that now."
"I wonder," said Charles Rex, half-mocking and half-touched.
She slipped her hand through his arm, turning from the subject with a faint sigh. "Well, come and see the baby! He's very lovely."
"From your point of view or Jake's?" questioned Saltash.
She laughed. "From mine of course. He is going to be just like Jake."
"Heavens above! I pity you!" ejaculated Saltash. "You'll never cope with two of 'em! They'll crush you flat."
She drew him from the terrace into the quiet house. "Don't be absurd, Charlie! This boy of ours is to be the prop of our old age."
He went with her jesting, but when they entered the silent nursery in which the two youngest children lay sleeping, his trifling ceased and he trod with reverence.
They stood together in the dim light beside the baby's cot, and Saltash looked down upon the flushed baby face with a faintly rueful smile upon his own.
"There is something in being married and done for after all," he said.
Over the old baby, Betty, now two years old, he stooped and lightly touched the fair silken hair, but he did not kiss her though the child was sleeping deeply.
Later he went alone into the adjoining room where slept the two elder children, Eileen aged five, and Molly who was not yet four. Maud did not follow him, and presently he came back, treading softly, the flickering night-light throwing odd shadows on his ugly face, and they left the room together.
In the passage he turned to her abruptly. "Then I may send that child to you tomorrow?" he said.
"Why not bring her?" said Maud smiling.
He shook his head. "No. I'll come over one day--on Sunday perhaps--and see you all again. I won't--handicap her--by bringing her."
She understood him, and gave him her hand, but the fervour with which he received and kissed it surprised her into drawing it away more quickly than she had intended.
He laughed at the action. "I am only saluting motherhood," he explained.
But she shook her head and passed on. There were moments when even she who knew him so well was not wholly sure of him.
They descended again and Saltash turned towards the drawing-room.
"Let's have some music!" he said, and dropped down before Maud's piano. "You are tired, _ma chere_. You shall listen."
He began to play an old French _chanson_ that once they had sung together, and Maud leaned back on a deep settee near him and dreamily surrendered herself to its charm.
Charlie's touch had always been a sheer delight to her. It held her now with the old sweet spell. His spirit spoke to hers with an intimacy which ordinary converse had never attained. It was by his music that he first had spoken to her soul. In music they were always in complete accord.
She was half-asleep in her corner with the old dog lying at her feet when Jake and Bunny came in, and Saltash very swiftly, with muffled chords, brought his performance to an end.
He sprang to his feet. "I've been making love to your wife, Jake," he said, "and she has been heroically but quite ineffectually trying to keep me at a distance. I'd better go before I'm kicked out, eh?"
"Don't go on my account!" said Jake.
Saltash's brows twitched comically. "Generous as ever! But I'm a rotten villain, Jake. I never could keep it up, and your virtuous presence is the last straw. Good-bye--and many thanks!"
He held Maud's hand in his right and stretched his left to Jake with a smile half whimsical and half derisive.
"There's nothing like banking on the hundredth chance," he said. "I shall try it myself one of these days."
"Say!" said Jake in his soft drawl. "I wish you luck!"
Saltash laughed and turned away, to be instantly seized upon by Bunny.
"I say you are a good chap! The boss has been telling me. You're going to put me up to a job."
"If you'll take it," said Saltash.
Bunny thrust a hand through his arm and squeezed it impulsively. "I'll take anything from you, Charlie. Hope I shall be man enough for you, that's all."
"Oh, you're man enough," said Saltash kindly. "Just the sort I want. Look here, I can't stop now. But I'll come over on Sunday and talk things over--if Jake permits."
"Any day," said Jake.
Saltash nodded. "Good. I'll ring you up tomorrow, Maud. You're sure you mean tomorrow?"
"Quite sure," she said with a smile.
He swept her a bow and went out with Bunny.
Maud turned instantly to her husband. "Jake, I've got something to tell you--to consult you about."
He stopped her with that smile of his that was so good to see. "Oh, I guess not. You've fixed it all up without my help. But his lordship for once had the diplomacy to ask me first."
"Oh, did he?" She looked confused for a moment. "Jake, you don't mind, do you? I did the only thing possible."
He put his arm around her and led her to the door. "I'll tell whether I mind a week from now. You're looking worn out, my girl. You go to bed!"
She leaned against him. "Jake, I'm--horribly sorry for Charlie."
"Wasted sentiment!" said Jake.
"No, it isn't--it isn't--because he is just beginning--to be sorry for himself. Jake, it haunts me."
"Well, you're not to lie awake over it," said Jake unsympathetically. "I shall know if you do, and I shall keep you in bed tomorrow. Got that?" He looked at her with determination glittering in his eyes.
"You're very horrid," she said.
"Yes, I know. Somebody's got to be. It's a world of contrasts, and we can't all be kings and queens. Go to bed now! I'll say good night to Bunny for you."
But Maud lingered still. "What is Charlie going to do for him?"
Jake led her with firmness into the hall. "It's the Agency. He's going to help old Bishop. I think the life will be good for him--if there isn't too much Saltash about it."
"Oh, how good of Charlie!" Maud said.
"Yes, he means well this time." Jake's arm impelled her up the shallow stairs. "Hope he'll keep it up, but it won't surprise me any if he doesn't. He's never been a stayer, and he's not the sort to begin now."
"You really don't understand him," Maud said.
"Maybe not," Jake's tone was faintly grim. It indicated that he had no intention of arguing the matter further.
Maud abandoned it and they mounted the stairs together in silence. At the door of her room she turned without words and put her arms around his neck.
He held her closely still supporting her. "Shall I come and put you to bed, my girl?"
She answered him softly. "No, darling, no! Don't be late yourself, that's all! And--Jake--thank you for all your goodness to me!"
"Oh, shucks--shucks!" he said.
She raised her hands, holding the bronze head between them, gazing straight into the free, dominant eyes with all her soul laid open to their look. "There is no one like you in all the world," she said. "You are greater than kings."
"That's just your way of putting it," said Jake. "You're not exactly an impartial judge, I reckon. Barring the fact that I'm your mate, I'm a very ordinary sinner. Moreover, Saltash tells me I'm getting fat."
"How dare he?" said Maud.
He laughed in her indignant face. "Now I'm getting my own back! There! Don't get excited! No doubt he meant well! And I certainly ride heavier than I did. Shall you love me when I'm fat, Maud?"
She drew the laughing, sunburnt face to hers. "Don't be--absurd!" she said.
Her lips met his and were caught in a long, long kiss.
"Guess you're just as moon-struck as I am," said Jake softly.
And, "I guess I am," she whispered back.


CHAPTER V
THE VISITOR

Jake carried out his threat the following day, and Maud remained in bed. A violent headache deprived her of the power to protest, and she lay in her darkened room too battered to think, while with characteristic decision he assumed the direction of the household, provoking unwilling admiration from Mrs. Lovelace, the housekeeper, who was somewhat given to disparage men as "poor things who never did a hand's turn for 'emselves if they could get the women to do it for 'em."
He took up a breakfast tray himself to his wife's room, sternly removing his two small daughters Molly and Betty, whom he found tussling like kittens on her bed, and installing Eileen the eldest, who crept down like a bright-eyed mouse from the big chair by the pillow at his coming, as her mother's keeper. Eileen was his darling; a shy child, gentle but curiously determined, protective in her attitude towards Maud, reserved towards himself. Jake was wont to