Charles Rex - Ethel May Dell (i love reading .TXT) 📗

home on horseback than anywhere else," said Bunny.
Larpent gave him a keen look. "Oh, she still goes by that name, does she?" he said.
"What do you call her?" said Bunny.
Larpent snapped his fingers curtly.
"Does she come for that?" asked Bunny.
"Usually," said Larpent.
"Then she's more docile than I thought she was," commented Bunny.
Larpent said nothing. He propped himself against the high mantelpiece and stared morosely out before him to the pine-clad slopes of the park.
"How you must hate being ashore!" said Bunny.
"Why do you say that?" Larpent scarcely removed his moody gaze.
"You look as if you did." There was a hint of chaff in Bunny's voice. He surveyed the gaunt man with humorous interest, seated on one of the gilt chairs with his hands clasped round his knee. "I suppose Saltash will buy another yacht, won't he?"
Larpent's eyes came definitely down to him, grimly contemptuous. "Do you also suppose that would be the same thing?" he said.
Bunny flushed a little, but he accepted the rebuff with a good grace. "I don't know, sir. You see, I've never been the captain of a yacht."
Larpent's hard visage relaxed a little. He resumed his contemplation of the distant pine-woods in silence.
Bunny got up whistling and began to stroll about the room. He was never still for long. He was not very familiar with the state reception-rooms of Burchester Castle and he found plenty to interest him.
Several minutes passed, and he had almost forgotten the silent man who leaned against the fire-place, when suddenly Larpent came out of his melancholy reverie and spoke.
"How long has the child been with these Boltons?"
Bunny paused at the further end of the room. "Let's see! It must be some time now--practically ever since the wreck. It must be about six weeks. Yes; she came just before I left to take on this job--the week of the Graydown Meetings." Bunny's eyes kindled at the memory. "We had some sport the day she came, I remember; quite a little flutter. In fact we soared so high that I thought we were going to create a sensation, and then"--Bunny whistled dramatically--"down we came with a rush, and I was broke!" He began to laugh. "It's rather a shame to tell you, isn't it? But you won't give me away? We've never done it since."
"I shan't give anyone away," said Larpent grimly.
"Good! You're a sport, I can see."
The genuine appreciation in Bunny's voice brought an icy glimmer of amusement to the elder man's eyes, but he made no verbal comment.
Again a silence fell, and Bunny came strolling back, a smile on his handsome boyish face.
"Fine place this," he remarked presently. "It's a pity Saltash is here so little. He only comes about three times a year, and then only for a couple of nights at a time. There's heaps of game in the woods and no one to shoot it."
"He probably knows his own business best," remarked Larpent.
"Oh, probably. But the place is wasted on him for all that." Bunny spoke with a frown. "Why on earth he doesn't marry and settle down I can't think. Can't you persuade him to?"
"No," said Larpent quite definitely.
Bunny glanced at him. "I don't know why not. I know he's considered to have gone the pace a bit, but after all he's no worse than a hundred others. Why the devil shouldn't he marry?"
Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me!" he said.
"Well, he ought to," maintained Bunny. "If you have any influence with him, you ought to persuade him to."
"I haven't," said Larpent.
Bunny flung away impatiently. "It's a confounded shame--a gorgeous family place like this and no one but servants to live in it!"
"It is, isn't it?" gibed Saltash, unexpectedly entering from the further door. "Large enough for fifty wives, eh, Bunny? Well, as I said before, you get married and I'll adopt you. It'll save me a lot of trouble. You're so keen on recommending the marriage medicine to other people. Try it yourself, and see how you like it!"
He walked straight down the long room with the words, passing both Larpent and Bunny on his way, pausing by neither. "I like to hear you two discussing my case," he jested. "You, Bunny, who have never had the great disease, and Larpent who has never got over it!"
He approached the open door that led out upon the great staircase, the jest still on his lips and the laughter in his eyes. He reached it and stretched out both hands with a fine gesture of greeting.
"Welcome to my poor hovel!" he said. "Madam, I kneel at your feet."
A clear high laugh answered him from below, and both of his companions turned sharply at the sound.
A figure in white, girlish, fresh as the morning, sprang suddenly into view. Her eager face had the delicate flush of a wild rose. The hair clustered about her temples in tender ringlets of gold. Her eyes, blue and shining, gave her the look of a child just awakened from happy sleep--a child that expects to be lifted up and kissed.
"By--Jove!" murmured Bunny under his breath, staring openly. "By--Jove!"
And these words failed him. He had never been so astounded in his life. This girl--this funny little Toby with the sharp features and pointed chin, the girl-urchin with whom he had chaffed and played--was actually a beauty, and till that amazing moment he had not realized the fact.
As he went forward to greet her, he saw that Larpent was staring also, and he chuckled inwardly at the sight. Decidedly it must be a worse shock for Larpent than it was for himself, he reflected. For at least he had seen her in the chrysalis stage, though most certainly he had never expected this wonderful butterfly to emerge.
Maud, of course, was the witch who had worked the marvellous transformation, Maud with her tender mother-wisdom that divined so much. He looked at her now, and wondered as he met her smile if she fully realized what she had done.
Across the wonder came Saltash's quizzing voice--"_Mais, Nonette, Nonette_, you are a vision for the gods!"
And a curious hot pang that was like a physical stab went through Bunny. How dared Charlie use that caressing tone to her--as though she were a mere ordinary woman to be trifled with and cajoled? He had never disapproved of Saltash before, but for that moment he almost hated him. She was too young, too sweet, too--different--to be treated thus.
And then he was standing close to her, and Saltash, laughing, pushed him forward. "Do you know this fellow, _ma chere_?"
The wide blue eyes came up to his with a pleased smile of comradeship. "Why, it's Bunny!" the clear voice said. "I'm so glad you're here too--in this ogre's castle."
Her hand gave his a little confiding squeeze, and Bunny's fingers gripped in answer. He realized suddenly that she was nervous, and all the ready chivalry of his nature rose up to protect her. For a moment or two he kept her hand close in his own.
Then Saltash airily took it from him. "Come!" he said lightly. "Here is someone else you ought to know!"
He wheeled her round with the words. She came face to face with Larpent. There was an instant of dead silence, then Toby uttered a little quivering laugh.
"Hullo--Captain!" she said
"Hullo!" said Larpent, paused a moment, then abruptly took her by the chin, and, stooping, touched the wide brow with his lips. "All right?" he asked gruffly.
Toby gave a little gasp; she seemed to be trembling. But in a second she laughed again, with more assurance. "Yes, all right, captain," she said. "I--I--I'm glad to see you again. You all right too?"
Bunny, looking on, made the abrupt discovery that Larpent also was embarrassed. It was Saltash who answered for him, covering the moment's awkwardness with the innate ease of manner which never seemed to desert him.
"Of course he's all right. Don't you worry about him! We're going to buy him another boat as soon as the insurance Company have done talking. Maud, this is my captain, the finest yachtsman you've ever met and my very good friend."
He threw his merry, dare-devil glance at Larpent as he made the introduction, and turned immediately to Jake.
"You two ought to get on all right. He disapproves of me almost as strongly as you do, and--like you--he endures me, he knows not wherefore!"
Jake's red-brown eyes held a smile that made his rugged face look kindly as he made reply. "Maybe we both have the sense to spot a winner when we see one, my lord."
Saltash's brows went up derisively. "And maybe you'll both lose good money on the gamble before you've done."
"I think not," said Jake, in his steady drawl. "I've known many a worse starter than you get home on the straight."
Saltash laughed aloud, and Toby turned with flushed cheeks and lifted eyes, alight and ardent, to her hero's face.
Saltash's glance flashed round to her, the monkeyish grin still about his mouth, and from her to Bunny who stood behind. He did not speak for a moment. Then: "No; you've never known a worse starter, Jake," he said; "and if I do get home on the straight it will be thanks to you."
Very curiously from that moment Bunny found his brief resentment dead.


CHAPTER XII
THE OGRE'S CASTLE

"Let's go out into the garden!" said Bunny urgently.
Dinner was over, and Maud and Saltash were at the piano at the far end of the great room. Jake and Larpent were smoking in silent companionship at a comfortable distance. Toby, who had been very quiet the whole evening, sat silently apart in a low chair with her hands clasped about her knees. Bunny alone was restless.
She lifted her eyes to him as he prowled near her, and they held a hint of mischief. At his murmured words she rose.
"You'd like to?" he questioned.
She nodded. "Of course; love it. You know the way. You lead!"
Bunny needed no second bidding. He went straight to the tall door and held it open for her. Toby, very slim and girlish in her white raiment, cocked her chin and walked out in state. But the moment they were alone she turned upon him a face brimful of laughter.
"Oh, now we can enjoy ourselves! I've been feeling so proper all the evening. Quick! Where shall we go?"
"Into the garden," said Bunny. "Or wait! Come up on to the battlements! It's ripping up there."
She thrust her hand eagerly into his. "I shall love that. Which way do we go?"
"Through the music-room," said Bunny.
He caught and held her hand. They ran up one of the wide stairways that branched north and south to the Gallery. Saltash's music followed them from the drawing-room as they went. He was playing a haunting Spanish love-song, and Toby shivered and quickened her pace.
They reached another oak door which Bunny opened, drawing her impetuously forward. "This is Charlie's own particular sanctum. Rather a ripping place, isn't it? He's got a secret den that leads somewhere out of it, but no one knows how to get in."
He led her over a polished oak floor into a long, almost empty apartment with turreted windows at each end, and a grand piano near one of them that shone darkly in the shaded lamplight. Underfoot were Persian rugs, exquisite of tint and rich of texture. Two or three deep divans completed the furniture of the room giving it a look of Eastern magnificence that strangely lured the senses.
"Rather like a harem I always think," said Bunny, pausing to look round. "There's an Arabian Nights sort of flavour