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

in his own fantastic fashion, stood with his hand on the back of Toby's chair.
"Quite a gathering of old friends!" he declared, smiling impartially upon all.
General Melrose stretched a welcoming hand to him. "Hullo, Saltash! Where on earth have you sprung from? Or are you fallen straight out of the skies?"
"Like Lucifer, son of the morning!" laughed Saltash. "Well, I haven't sprung and I haven't fallen. I have simply arrived."
Toby was on her feet. "Come and sit down!" she said in a low voice.
He shook his head. "No, no, _ma cherie_. I will stand behind you. Miss Melrose, my humble regards to you. Is the black mark still against my name?"
Sheila looked at him with a touch of _hauteur_ that somehow melted into a smile. She had learnt her lesson at Valrosa, and there was nothing to add thereto. This man was never in earnest, and he had never intended her to think him so.
"I banned you as bold and bad long ago," she said. "I don't remember that you have done anything to change the impression."
He laughed lightly, enigmatically. "Nothing in your presence, I fear. The Fates have always been sportive so far as I was concerned. But really I'm not such a bad sort now-a-days, am I, Mrs. Bolton?"
Maud smiled upon him. "Not so bad, I think. But please don't ask me to be your sponsor! I really couldn't play the part."
"Ask me!" said Toby suddenly, with flushed face up-raised. "He saved my life when _The Night Moth_ went down, when most men would only have bothered to save their own."
"What a libel!" laughed Saltash. "Don't you know I only hung on to you because you had a life-belt on!"
"Oh, naturally!" said the General. "That would be your motive. I was sorry to hear about _The Night Moth_, but you had a lucky escape."
"I always escape somehow," remarked Saltash complacently. "_The Night Moth_ wanted new engines too, that's one consolation. I've just bought another," he added, suddenly touching Toby's shoulder. "Your daddy is quite pleased with her. We've just come round from London in her."
"Oh, have you?" Eagerly Toby's eyes came up to his, "What is she like? What are you going to call her?"
"She isn't christened yet. I'm going to hold a reception on board, and Maud shall perform the ceremony. I'm calling her _The Blue Moon_--unless you can suggest something better." Saltash's restless look went to Maud. "I wanted to call her after you," he said lightly, "But I was afraid Jake might object."
"I think _The Blue Moon_ is much more suitable," she answered. "Is she as rare as she sounds?"
"She's rather a fine article," he made answer. "You must come and see her--come and cruise in her if you will. She's only just off the slips. I was lucky to get her. She skims along like a bird."
"Why not call her _The Blue Bird_?" suggested Sheila.
He shook his head with his odd grimace. "That is a thing I can never hope to possess, Miss Melrose. The blue moon may occur once in my life if I am exceptionally virtuous, but the blue bird never. I have ceased to hope for it." His glance flashed beyond her. "Young Bunny is distinguishing himself to-day. That was a fine effort."
Everyone was clapping except Toby who was staring before her with her hands in her lap. Her blue eyes were very wide open, but they did not seem to be watching the game.
"It will fly to you, _cherie_," suddenly whispered a voice in her ear. "It is already upon the wing."
A little tremor went through her, but she did not turn her head. Only after a moment she slipped a hand behind her through the back of her chair.
Wiry fingers closed upon it, gripped it, let it go. "When it comes to you, hold it fast!" came the rapid whisper. _"Il ne vient pas deux fois--l'oiseau bleu."_
Toby's lip trembled. She bit it desperately. Her look was strained. She did not attempt to speak.
"It is the gift of the gods, _cherie_." The words came softly at her shoulder, but they pierced her. "We do not cast their gifts away. They come--too seldom."
She made a quick movement; it was almost convulsive, like the start of one suddenly awakened. A hard breath went through her, and then she was laughing, laughing and clapping with the rest, her eyes upon the boyish, triumphant figure in front of her. When the applause died away, Saltash had departed, abruptly as was his wont. And though they saw him in the distance several times, he did not return that afternoon.


CHAPTER IV
THE TRAP

It was an evening of golden silence, and the larch copse in its stillness was like an enchanted wood. Now and then something moved in the undergrowth with a swift rustle or a blackbird raised a long ripple of alarm. But for the most part all was still. No breeze came up the hillside, and in the west a long black line of cloud lay like a barrier across the sun, so that great rays slanted out over land and sea, transforming all things with their radiance.
A soft low whistle broke the stillness or mingled with it. A snatch of melody came like the strains of a fairy pipe from the edge of the larch wood. Again there came a sharp movement in some long grass near the gate that led from the open down into the Burchester estate. It sounded as if some small imprisoned creature were fighting for freedom. Then in another moment there came the rush and snuffle of a questing dog, and old Chops the setter came bursting through the hedge that bordered the wood.
He flung himself through the long grass with an agility that belied his advancing years, and in an instant there arose a cry that seemed to thrill the whole wood with horror. The enchanted silence broke upon it like the shivering of a crystal ball, for as Chops pounced another cry rang clear and commanding from the other side of the hedge.
"Chops! Back! Back! Do you hear, Chops? Come back."
Chops did not come back, but he paused above his quarry, and looked round with open jaws and lolling tongue. If it had been his master who thus called him, he would have obeyed on the instant. But Toby was a different matter, and the frantic, struggling thing in front of him was a sore temptation.
His brief hesitation, however, lost him the game. Her light feet raced through the grass with the speed of wings, and she threw herself over the gate and upon him before he could make good his claim. He found himself thrust back, and the long habit of obedience had conquered instinct before it could reassert itself. She dropped upon her knees beside the thing in the grass and discovered a young hare caught in a snare.
It was a very ordinary poacher's contrivance fashioned of wire. The little animal was fairly caught round the body, and the cruel tension of the gin testified to his anguished and futile struggles for freedom. The wire had cut into his shoulder, and his bolting eyes were wild with terror. It was no easy task to loosen the trap, and there was blood on Toby's hands as she strove to release the straining, frenzied creature.
She was far too deeply engrossed in the matter to heed any sound of approaching feet, and when the thud of a horse's hoofs suddenly fell on the turf close to her she did not raise her head. But she did look up startled when two hands swooped down from above her and gripped the hare with a vice-like strength that stilled all struggling.
"He will claw you to pieces," said Bunny bluntly. "Shall I kill him? He's damaged. Or do you want to let him go?"
"Oh, let him go--of course!" cried Toby, dragging reckless at the wire. "See, it's coming now! Hold him tight while I slip it off!"
The wire slipped at last. She forced it loose, and the victim was free. Bunny turned to lay him in the grass, and Toby sprang upon Chops and held him fast. She was crying, fiercely, angrily.
"How dare they set that cruel thing? How dare they? He isn't dead, is he? Why doesn't he run away?"
"He's hurt," said Bunny. "Let me kill him! Let Chops finish him!"
"No, no, no, no!" Vehemently Toby flung her protest. "He may be hurt, but he'll get over it. Anyway, give him his chance! There! He's moving! It wouldn't be fair not to give him his chance."
"It would be kinder to kill him," said Bunny.
"I hate you!" she cried back, weeping over Chops who stood strained against her. "If--if--if you touch him--I'll never, never speak to you again!"
Bunny came to her, took Chops by the collar, and fastened him with his whip to the gate. Then he stooped over Toby, his young face sternly set.
"Stop crying!" he said. "Let me have your hands!"
They were a mass of scratches from the hare's pounding feet. He began to look at them, but Toby thrust them behind her back. She choked back her tears like a boy, and looked up at him with eyes of burning indignation, sitting back on her heels in the long grass.
"Bunny, it's a damn' shame to trap a thing like that. Did you do it?"
"I? No. I'm not a poacher." Grimly Bunny made reply. That flare of anger made her somehow beautiful, but he knew if he yielded to the temptation to take her in his arms at that moment she would never forgive him. "Don't be unreasonable!" he said. "You'll have to come and bathe your hands. They can't be left in that state."
"Oh, what does it matter?" she said impatiently. "I've had much worse things than that to bear. Bunny, you believe in God I know. Why does He let things be trapped? It isn't fair. It isn't right. It--it--it hurts so."
"Lots of things hurt," said Bunny.
"Yes, but there's nothing so mean and so horrible as a trap. I--I could kill the man who set it. I'm glad it wasn't you." Toby spoke passionately.
"So am I," said Bunny.
He crumpled the wire gin in his hand, and dragged it up from the ground.
Toby watched him still kneeling in the grass. "What are you going to do with it?"
"Destroy it," he said promptly.
She smiled at him, the tears still on her cheeks. "That's fine of you. Bunny, I haven't got a handkerchief."
He gave her his, still looking grim. She dried her eyes and got up. The hare, recovering somewhat, gave her a frightened stare and slipped away into the undergrowth. She looked up at Bunny.
"I'm sorry I was angry," she said. "Are you cross with me?"
He relaxed a little. "Not particularly."
"Don't be!" she said tremulously. "I couldn't help it. He suffered so horribly, and I know--I know so well what it felt like."
"How do you know?" said Bunny.
Her look fell before his. She made an odd movement of shrinking. He put his arm swiftly round her.
"Never mind the wretched hare! He's got away this time anyway. And I'm not at all sure you didn't have the worst of it. Feeling better now?"
She nodded. "Yes, much better. I like you, Bunny, but I can't help thinking you're rather cruel. You didn't want to kill the poor thing?"
"I think it was rather prolonging the agony to let him live," said Bunny. "Let me see your hands!"
She tried to hide them, but he was insistent, and at length impulsively she yielded.
"You must come down to old Bishop's and bathe them," he said.