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

Sheila said, as she gave him her hand.
He gripped it. "Of course! Maud will be delighted. I'm sorry you weren't asked before. About three then--if that suits you! Good-bye!"
He smiled his pleasant, boyish smile, and departed.
But as he raced back from Fairharbour in his little two-seater car to meet his young _fiancee_ on the downs, the memory of Sheila's word came back to him and he frowned again. It was true that they were not thinking of marriage for the next few months, and their plans were still somewhat vague, but the idea of waiting while Toby had her fling for a whole season in town revolted him. He could not have said definitely wherefore, save that he wanted to keep her just as she was in his eyes--fresh and young and innocent. He was angry with Sheila for having suggested it, and he wanted to thrust the matter from his mind.
Yet when he found himself alone with Toby, walking along the brow of the furze-strewn down, he attacked the subject with characteristic directness.
"Sheila Melrose thinks you ought to have a season in town before we get married. Would you like to do that?"
Toby looked up at him with her clear eyes wide with surprise. "What the--blazes has it to do with Sheila Melrose?" she said.
He laughed briefly. "Nothing, of course. Less than nothing. It's just a point of view. She thinks you're too pretty to be buried before you've had your fling--rot of that sort."
"My--fling!" said Toby, and with a sudden gesture that was almost of shrinking drew his arm more closely round her shoulders. "I should loathe it and you know it," she said with simplicity.
He held her to him. "Of course you would. I should myself. I hate the smart set. But, you know, you are--awfully pretty; I don't want to do anything unfair."
"Rats!" said Toby.
He bent his face to hers. "Are you beginning to care for me--just a little--by any chance?"
She laughed and flushed, twining her fingers in his without replying.
Bunny pursued his point. "You'd sooner marry me out of hand than go hunting London for someone more to your liking? Would you?"
"Oh, much," said Toby. "But, you see, I hate London."
"And you don't hate me?" persisted Bunny, his dark eyes very persuasive.
She dropped her own before them, and was silent.
"Say it, sweetheart!" he urged.
She shook her head. "Let's talk about something else!" she said.
"All right," said Bunny boldly. "Let's talk of getting married! It's high time we began."
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" said Toby quickly.
He laughed at her softly. "Of course you didn't! But you were thinking about it all the same. Do you know old Bishop is going to clear out and go and live in Fairharbour? I shall be left alone then. It's rather beastly living alone, you know, darling."
"You haven't tried it yet," said Toby.
"No. But I know what it'll feel like. I shall hate it." Bunny spoke with gloomy conviction.
Toby suddenly laughed. "No one to grouse to! It would be rather dull certainly. Why didn't you fall in love with Sheila Melrose?"
"Sheila Melrose! Why on earth should I?" Bunny spoke with some sharpness.
Toby lifted mischievous eyes. "She's pretty and graceful and accomplished. She'd make a charming Lady Brian, and she has an estate of her own for you to manage. It--it would be--a highly suitable arrangement for you both."
"Don't talk rot!" broke in Bunny with sudden heat.
His hold tightened upon her, and she made a quick, instinctive movement as though to free herself. "I'm not! You know I'm not! You know--quite well--that if--if--if it hadn't been for me--because you chanced to meet me first--you certainly would have--have fallen in love with her!"
Toby spoke breathlessly, stammering a little as her habit was when agitated. Her face was averted, and she was trying very, very hard to resist the closer drawing of his arms.
But there were times when Bunny would not endure resistance, and this was one of them. He simply ignored it, till abruptly she yielded to his mastery. And then in a moment he was tender again.
"Why did you say that?" he said, bending low to look into her downcast face. "Tell me why you said it! Are you--jealous--by any chance?"
"Oh, no!" declared Toby with vehemence. "No--no--no!"
"Then why?" he persisted. Then with sudden intuition: "You don't like her, do you?"
Toby's face was burning. "It--it's she that doesn't like me," she said.
"Oh, that's a mistake," said Bunny, decidedly. "Everyone likes you."
She shook her head. "She doesn't. She thinks I'm bad form, and I daresay she's right. She also thinks--" she lifted her face suddenly, challenging him--"she also thinks that I set out to catch you--and succeeded."
"She doesn't!" declared Bunny. "That's rot--damn' rot! You are not to say it. She's a very nice girl and ready to be friendly with you if you'll let her."
Toby made a rude face. "I knew you were getting fond of her! She's pretty and stylish and--and much more in your line than I am. Why don't you go and ask her to marry you? She wouldn't say No."
She flung the words with a little quivering laugh. She was trembling in his hold.
Bunny's eyes had flashed to sudden anger. He had taken her by the shoulders almost as if he would shake her.
"Toby, be quiet!" he commanded. "Do you hear? You're going too far! What do you mean by talking in this strain? What has she done to you?"
"Nothing!" gasped back Toby, backing away from him in a vain effort to escape. "She hardly knows me even. It's just instinct with her and she can't help it. But she likes you well enough not to want you to marry me. You don't suppose--you don't suppose--" the words came breathlessly, jerkily--"you--you really don't suppose, do you, that--that she made that suggestion about a season in town for my sake?"
"What other reason could she have had?" demanded Bunny sternly.
Toby was laughing, but her laughter had a desperate sound. "How green you are! Must I really tell you that?"
"Yes. Go on! Tell me!" His voice was hard. Hard also was the grip of his hands. He knew that in the moment he released her she would turn and flee like a fleeing hare.
There was fear in the blue eyes that looked up to his, but they held a glare of defiance as well. Her small white teeth showed clenched between her laughing lips.
"Go on! Tell me!" he reiterated. "You shan't go--I swear--until you tell me."
"Think I'm--think I'm afraid of you?" challenged Toby, with boyish bravado.
"I think you'll answer me," he said, and abruptly his tone fell level, dead level. He looked her straight in the eyes without anger, without mercy. "And you'll answer me now, too. What other reason could Miss Melrose have for making that suggestion if it was not intended for your benefit? Now answer me!"
His face was pale, but he was master of himself. Perhaps he had learned from Jake that fundamental lesson that those who would control others must first control themselves. He still held her before him, but there was no violence in his hold. Neither was there any tenderness. It was rather of a judicial nature.
And oddly at that moment a sudden gleam of appreciation shot up in Toby's eyes. She stood up very straight and faced him unflinching.
"I don't mind answering you," she said. "Why should I? Someone will tell you sooner or later if I don't. She said that because she knew--and she wanted you to know--that I am not the sort of girl that men want to--marry."
She was quite white as she spoke the words, but she maintained her tense erectness. Her eyes never stirred from his.
Bunny stood motionless, staring at her. He looked as if he had been struck a blinding blow.
"What--on earth--do you mean?" he asked slowly at last.
The tension went out of Toby. She broke into her funny little laugh. "Oh, I won't tell you any more! I won't! She thinks I'm too attractive, that's all. I can't imagine why; can you? You never found me so, did you, Bunny?"
The old provocative sweetness flashed back into her face. She went within the circle of his arms with a quick nestling movement as of a small animal that takes refuge after strenuous flight. She was still panting a little as she leaned against him.
And Bunny relaxed, conscious of a vast relief that outweighed every other consideration. "You--monkey!" he said, folding her close. "You're playing with me! How dare you torment me like this? You shall pay for it to the last least farthing. I will never have any mercy on you again."
He kissed her with all the renewed extravagance of love momentarily denied, and the colour flooded back into Toby's face as the dread receded from her heart. She gave him more that day than she had ever given him before, and in the rapture of possession he forgot the ordeal that she had made him face.
Only later did he remember it--her strange reticence, her odd stumbling words of warning, her curious attitude of self-defence. And he felt as if--in spite of his utmost resolution--she had somehow succeeded in baffling him after all.


CHAPTER X
THE MYSTERY

It was late that evening that Bunny strolled forth alone to smoke a reminiscent pipe along his favourite glade of larches in Burchester Park. He went slowly through the summer dusk, his hands behind him, his eyes fixed ahead. He had had his way with Toby. She had promised to marry him as soon as old Bishop's retirement left the house in the hollow at his disposal. But somehow, though he had gained his end, he was not conscious of elation. Sheila Melrose's words had disturbed him no less than Toby's own peculiar interpretation of them. There was a very strong instinct of fair play in Bunny Brian, and, now that he had won his point, he was assailed by a grave doubt as to whether he were acting fairly towards the girl. She was young, but then many girls marry young. It was not really her youth that mattered; neither, when he came to sift the matter, was it the fact that she had had so little opportunity of seeing the world. But it was something in Toby's eyes, something in Sheila's manner, that gave him pause. He asked himself, scarcely knowing why, if it would not be fairer after all to wait.
He wished that he could have consulted Jake, but yet it would have been difficult to put his misgivings into definite words. Jake was a brick and understood most things, but he was away for another week at least.
The thought of the girl's father crossed his mind, only to be instantly dismissed. Even if he had been within reach, Captain Larpent's sternly unapproachable exterior would have held him back. He was inclined to like the man, but he could not feel that Toby's welfare was, or ever had been, of paramount importance to him. He had thoughts only for his yacht.
Bunny began to reflect moodily that life was a more complicated affair than he had ever before imagined, and, reaching this point, he also reached the gate by the copse and became aware of cigar-smoke dominating the atmosphere above the scent of his own now burnt-out pipe.
He removed the pipe from his mouth and looked around him.
"Hullo!" said a voice he knew. "Do I intrude?"
Saltash stepped suddenly out of the shadow of the larches and met him with outstretched hand.
"Hullo!" said Bunny, with a start.
A quick smile of welcome lighted his face, and Saltash's eyes flashed in answer. He