The Swindler, Ethel May Dell [distant reading TXT] 📗

donkey! No, Knight Errant, I'm only afraid for you."
"I don't quite grasp your meaning," he said.
With an effort she explained.
"You see, you don't know me very well--not nearly so well as I know you."
"I know you well enough to be fond of you, Chirpy," he said.
"That is just because you don't know me," she said, her voice quivering a little. "You wouldn't like me for long, Knight Errant. Men never do."
"More fools they," said the knight errant, with somewhat unusual emphasis. "It's their loss, anyway."
She laughed a little.
"It's very nice of you to say so, but it doesn't alter the fact. Besides--" She paused.
"Besides--" said Rivington.
She looked at him suddenly.
"What about that nice little woman who may turn up some day?"
The humorous corner of Rivington's mouth went up.
"I think she has, Chirpy," he said. "To tell you the honest truth, I've been thinking so for some time."
"You really want to marry me?" Ernestine looked him straight in the eyes. "It isn't--only--a chivalrous impulse?"
He met her look quite steadily.
"No," he said quietly; "it isn't--only--that."
Her eyes fell away from his.
"I haven't any money, you know," she said.
"Never mind about the money," he answered cheerily. "I have a little, enough to keep us from starvation. I can make more. It will do me good to work. It's settled, then? You'll have me?"
"If--if you are sure--" she faltered. Then impulsively, "Oh, it's hateful to feel that I've thrown myself at your head!"
His hand closed upon hers with a restraining pressure.
"You mustn't say those things to me, Chirpy," he said quietly; "they hurt me. Now let me tell you my plans. Do you know what I did when I got back to town the other day? I went and bought a special marriage licence. You see, I wanted to marry you even then, and I hoped that before very long I should persuade you to have me. As soon as I got your telegram, I went off and purchased a wedding-ring. I hope it will fit. But, anyhow, it will serve our present purpose. Will you drive with me into Rington to-morrow and marry me there?"
She was listening to him in wide-eyed amazement.
"So soon?" she said.
"I thought it would save any further trouble," he answered. "But it is for you to decide."
"And--and what should we do afterwards?" she asked, stooping to pick up her straw that had fallen to the ground.
"That, again, would be for you to decide," he answered. "I would take you straight back to your mother if you wished."
She gave a muffled laugh.
"Of course I shouldn't want you to do that."
"Or," proceeded Rivington, "I would hire an animal to draw the caravan, and we would go for a holiday in the forest. Would it bore you?"
"I don't think so," she said, without looking at him. "I--I could sketch, you know, and you could paint."
"To be sure," he said. "Shall we do that, then?"
She began to split the straw with minute care.
"You think there is no danger of--Dinghra?" she said, after a moment.
Rivington smiled grimly, and got to his feet. "Not the smallest," he said.
"He might come back," she persisted. "What if--what if he tried to murder you?"
Rivington was coaxing his pipe back to life. He accomplished his object before he replied. Then:
"You need not have the faintest fear of that," he said. "Dinghra has had the advantage of a public-school education. He has doubtless been thrashed before."
"He is vindictive," she objected.
"He may be, but he is shrewd enough to know when the game is up. Frankly, Chirpy, I don't think the prospect of pestering you, or even of punishing me, will induce him to take the field again after we are married. No"--he smiled down at her--"I think I have cooled his ardour too effectually for that."
She shuddered.
"I shall never forget it."
He patted her shoulder reassuringly.
"I think you will, Chirpy. Or at least you will place it in the same category as the bull incident. You will forget the fright, and remember only with kindness the Knight Errant who had the good fortune to pull you through."
She reached up and squeezed his hand, still without looking at him.
"I shall always do that," she said softly.
"Then that's settled," said Rivington in a tone of quiet satisfaction.


XIII
THE KNIGHT ERRANT VICTORIOUS

"On the 21st of June, quite privately, at the Parish Church, Rington, Hampshire, by the Vicar of the Parish, Cecil Mordaunt Rivington to Ernestine, fourth daughter of Lady Florence Cardwell."
Cecil Mordaunt Rivington, with his pipe occupying one corner of his mouth, and the other cocked at a distinctly humorous angle, sat on the step of the caravan on the evening of the day succeeding that of his marriage, and read the announcement thereof in the paper which he had just fetched from the post-office.
There was considerable complacence in his attitude. A cheerful fire of sticks burned near, over which a tripod supported a black pot.
The sunset light filtered golden through the forest. It was growing late.
Suddenly he turned and called over his shoulder. "I say, Chirpy!"
Ernestine's voice answered from the further end of the caravan that was shut off from the rest by curtains.
"I'm just coming. What is it? Is the pot all right?"
"Splendid. Be quick! I've something to show you."
The curtains parted, and Ernestine came daintily forth.
Rivington barely glanced at her. He was too intent upon the paper in his hand. She stopped behind him, and bent to read the paragraph he pointed out.
After a pause, he turned to view its effect, and on the instant his eyebrows went up in amazement.
"Hullo!" he said.
She was dressed like a gipsy in every detail, even to the scarlet kerchief on her head. She drew back a little, colouring under his scrutiny.
"I hope you approve," she said.
"By Jove, you look ripping!" said Rivington. "How in the world did you do it?"
"I made Mrs. Perkiss help me. We managed it between us. It was just a fancy of mine to fill the idle hours. I didn't think I should ever have the courage to wear it."
He reached up his hand to her as he sat.
"My dear, you make a charming gipsy," he said. "You will have to sit for me."
She laughed, touched his hand with a hint of shyness, and stepped down beside him.
"How is the supper getting on? Have you looked at it?"
He laid aside his paper to prepare for the meal. To her evident relief he made no further comment at the moment upon her appearance. But when supper was over and he was smoking his evening pipe, his eyes dwelt upon her continually as she flitted to and fro, having declined his assistance, and set everything in order after the meal.
The sun had disappeared, and a deep dusk was falling upon the forest. Ernestine moved, elf-like, in the light of the sinking fire. She took no notice of the man who watched her, being plainly too busy to heed his attention.
But her duties were over at last, and she turned from the ruddy firelight and moved, half reluctantly it seemed, towards him. She reached him, and stood before him.
"I've done now," she said. "You can rake out the fire. Good-night!"
He took the little hand in his.
"Are you tired, Chirpy?"
"No, I don't think so." She sounded slightly doubtful.
"Won't you stay with me for a little?" he said. She stood silent. "I was horribly lonely after you went to bed last night," he urged gently.
She uttered a funny little sigh.
"I'm sure you must have been horribly uncomfortable too," she said. "Did you lie awake?"
"No, I wasn't uncomfortable. I've slept in the open heaps of times before. I was just--lonely."
She laid her hand lightly on his shoulder as she stood beside him.
"It was rather awesome," she admitted.
"I believe you were lonely too," he said.
She laughed a little, and said nothing.
He took his pipe from his mouth and laid it tenderly upon the ground.
"Shall I tell you something, Chirpy?"
Her hand began to rub up and down uneasily on his shoulder.
"Well?" she said under her breath.
He looked up at her in the falling darkness.
"I feel exactly as you felt over that squirrel," he said. "Do you remember? You wanted to kiss it, but the little fool didn't understand."
A slight quiver went through Ernestine. Again rather breathlessly, she laughed.
"Some little fools don't," she said.
He moved and very gently slipped his arm about her. "I didn't mean to put it quite like that," he said. "You will pardon my clumsiness, won't you?"
She did not resist his arm, but neither did she yield to it. Her hand still fidgeted upon his shoulder.
"I wish you wouldn't be so horribly nice to me," she said suddenly.
"My dear Chirpy!"
"Yes," she said with vehemence. "Why don't you take what you want? I--I should respect you then."
"But I want you to love me," he answered quietly.
She drew a quick breath, and became suddenly quite rigid, intensely still.
His arm grew a little closer about her.
"Don't you know I am in love with you, Chirpy?" he asked her very softly. "Am I such a dunderhead that I haven't made that plain?"
"Are you?" she said, a sharp catch in her voice. "Are you?" Abruptly she stooped to him. "Knight Errant," she said, and the words fell swift and passionate, "would you have really wanted to marry me--anyway?"
His face was upturned to hers. He could feel her breathing, sharp and short, upon his lips.
"My dear," he said, "I have wanted to marry you ever since that afternoon you met me in St. Paul's."
He would have risen with the words, but she made a quick movement downwards to prevent him, and suddenly she was on her knees before him with her arms about his neck.
"Oh, I'm so glad you told me," she whispered tremulously. "I'm so glad."
He gathered her closely to him. His lips were against her forehead.
"It makes all the difference, dear, does it?"
"Yes," she whispered back, clinging faster. "Just all the difference in the world, because--because it was that afternoon--I began--to want--you too."
And there in the darkness, with the dim forest all about them, she turned her lips to meet her husband's first kiss.

* * * * *


A Question of Trust

I

Pierre Dumaresq stood gazing out to the hard blue line of the horizon with a frown between his brows. The glare upon the water was intense, but he stared into it with fixed, unflinching eyes, unconscious of discomfort.
He held a supple riding-switch in his hands, at which his fingers strained and twisted continually, as though somewhere in the inner man there burned a fierce impatience. But his dark face was as immovable as though it had been carved in bronze. A tropical sun had made him even darker than Nature had intended him to be, a fact to which those fixed eyes testified, for they shone like steel in the sunlight, in curious contrast to his swarthy skin. His hair was black, cropped close about a bullet head, which was set on his broad shoulders with an arrogance that gave him a peculiarly aggressive air. The narrow black moustache he wore emphasised rather than concealed the thin straight line of mouth. Plainly a fighting man this,