i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

was no exception. In fact, the whole thing was laughable; it paid one to finish off abroad. Of course, the knowledge had been of little use to her there, for she wasn't inclined that way. But it had stood her in good stead since her marriage, and Rodney had never guessed. He had always underestimated her intelligence; it was just as well, in that direction, at any rate.

Hearing the 'chunk-chunk' of his car behind the house, she rose and went out of the drawing-room, across the hall and into the dining-room, opposite. A glance at the table told her everything was in order. She rang a small hand-bell, and when a smartly dressed maid appeared she said, "Tell cook not to serve dinner for fifteen minutes, Mary." She returned to the drawing-room, picked up the letter from the desk, and stood near the fire-place, waiting. As she listened to the side-door opening, she was at a loss to account for what she heard. Who on earth was he talking to?

"Here we are, then. Let me take your hat and coat off. What a fine young lady! Now we're all ready."

When Rodney stood in the drawing-room doorway, holding by the hand a child, the most startling blonde child she had ever seen, her surprise could not have been more genuine had he appeared sprouting horns out of his black head.

"I've brought a little lady to see you, Stella." He advanced across the room, suiting his steps to the child's.

"Who on earth... ?" began Stella.

"Now, Annie, say, " How do you do, Mrs. Prince? " Go on; like Kate showed you." Rodney squatted down beside the child, his head level with hers. Annie gazed at him, her green slant eyes full of trust and adoration; her flaxen hair, dropping straight on to the shoulders of her white, frilled pinafore, lay in little tendrils; her mouth was wide, and when she smiled two gaps showed in her lower set of teeth.

She turned from him, quick 'to obey his command, and, thrusting her hand up to the very dean lady, said: "How ... do ... you ... do!" in a soft voice, thick with the Northern accent.

"There! Isn't she a clever girl?"

As Stella's fingers touched those of the child, she thought, "Of all the impossible incidents! What does he mean?"

Seeing the expression on his wife's face, Rodney straightened himself, and, under pretext of poking the fire, murmured, "Just thought I'd give her a treat, Stella. Hope you don't mind me bringing her; she waits for me nearly every day at the end of the fifteen streets; it's pathetic. And if you could see where she lives! The surroundings are dreadful...."

"Who is she?"

"Kate Hannigan's child; you know, the one I nearly lost four years tonight ... in fact, I nearly lost the pair of them."

"Won't her mother miss her?"

"Oh, she's in service in Westoe; I told the grandmother I was bringing her."

Stella looked at her husband in amazement. Of all the unorthodox, undignified people! "What do you intend to do with her, now that she's here? You can't let a child run wild around the house!"

Rodney's black brows contracted, and his beard took on a slight forward tilt.

"I intend to give her some lunch 1' he answered, in what she termed his stubborn voice.

"Very well! I'll ring for Mary to take her into the kitchen."

"She's not going into the kitchen!"

"You don't propose to sit her at table with us?"

"That's just what I do propose 1' " Doctor! " Annie was gripping the bottom of his coat and staring up at him, the laughter gone now from her face, her eyes timorous. She sensed the warning element; her gran da voice was sharp like that when he pushed her out of the way or frightened her grandma.

"It's all right, my dear. It's all right," said Rodney, picking her up in his arms.

Stella's eyes were like pieces of blue glass.

"There is a hand-worked lace doth on the dining-table; there is cut glass and Spodel Why, even I wasn't allowed in the dining-room until I was ten, and then only on ..."

"All right! all right!" he snapped.

"Say no more about it." He walked out of the drawing-room, down the passage, and into the kitchen, forcing himself to laugh and chat to take the look of fear from the child's face. The look had wrung his heart, for he knew that she had had, and would have, many occasions for fear in Tim Hannigan^s house;

but that she should have it in his was unthinkable 1 The three women in the kitchen were not unprepared for his entry, for they had stared, in various degrees of astonishment, some minutes earlier when they had watched him, from the kitchen window, lifting the child from the car.

Mary Dixon had simply gaped. Kate Hannigan's hairn! and him bringing it here I Dorrie Clarke mightn't be so far wrong with her hints and

"My, there

are things I could tell you if I had a mind! " She hadn't taken much notice of her, for she was a bitter old pig, and a Catholic at that, so you couldn't believe a word of what she said. But now, when you put two and two together ... and all the grand clothes of Kate Hannigan's well, what a kettle of tish! ... She looked at the doctor through new eyes.

"I've brought you a visitor, cook. Would you like to give this little lady some lunch?"

"With pleasure, doctor. With pleasure." Mrs. Summers looked at the dark and fair heads close together; she gave an apt description of them to herself. He looks like a kindly divil holding a wee angel.

It's hairns that man wants; he'd be a different man if he had hairns.

But