THE ALLY
They found Maud awaiting them in the long low room that overlooked her
favourite view of the down. Saltash entered as one who had the right, and
she greeted him with momentary surprise but evident pleasure.
"I couldn't spend twenty-four hours at Burchester without calling upon
you," he said.
"You know you are always welcome," she made answer, with the smile which
only her intimate friends ever saw.
They sat down by one of the wide French windows and General Melrose began
to occupy his hostess's attention. Sheila took a chair that Bunny pushed
forward, and Saltash glanced round for Toby. She was sitting on the end
of a couch, playing with the silky ears of the old red setter. Her hat
was flung down beside her; her pretty face downcast. He crossed to her
deliberately and bent also to fondle the dog.
She started slightly at his coming, and a faint flush rose in her cheeks;
but she neither glanced at him nor spoke.
For the moment they were alone, unobserved by the laughing group at the
window. Saltash bent suddenly lower. His quick whisper came down to her:
"Go and put on the most girlish thing you've got!"
She looked up at him then, her blue eyes seeking his. A rapid flash of
understanding passed between them. Then, without a word she rose.
When Maud looked round for her a few seconds later, Saltash was lounging
alone against the sofa-head pulling Chops absently by the ear while he
stared before him out of the window in a fit of abstraction that seemed
to her unusual.
She called to him to join them at the tea-table, and he jerked himself to
his feet and came across to her with the monkeyish grin on his face that
she had learned long since to regard as the shield wherewith he masked
his soul.
He sat down by her side, devoting himself to her with the gallantry that
always characterized him when with her. No one seemed to notice that Toby
had disappeared. They talked about the horses, about Jake and his recent
victories, about the season at Fairharbour, about the Melroses' plans for
the winter.
When questioned by the General on this subject, Saltash declared airily
that he never made any.
"If I do, I never stick to them, so what's the use?" he said.
"How weak of you!" said Maud.
And he threw her the old half-tender, half-audacious look, and tossed the
subject banteringly away.
He was the first to make a move when the careless meal was over, but not
to go. He sauntered forth and lounged against the door-post smoking,
while Bunny and Sheila talked of tennis and golf, and Maud listened with
well-disguised patience to the old General's oft-repeated French
reminiscences.
And then when the tea was cold and forgotten and Sheila was beginning to
awake to the fact that it was growing late, there came a sudden, ringing
laugh across the lawn and Toby scampered into view with little Molly
on her shoulder and Eileen running by her side. She was dressed in white,
and she looked no more than a child herself as she danced across the
grass, executing a fairy-like step as she came. The tiny girl's tinkling
laughter mingled with hers. Her little hands were fondly clasped about
the girl's neck; she looked down into her face with babyish adoration
while Eileen, the elder child, gazed upward with a more serious devotion.
General Melrose interrupted his narrative to look at the advancing trio.
"My Jove, Mrs. Bolton," he said, "but that's a pretty sight!"
Sheila also ceased very suddenly to converse with Bunny, while Saltash
made a scarcely perceptible movement as though he braced and restrained
himself in the same instant.
"The prettiest picture I've seen for years!" vowed the General. "How that
little Larpent girl changes! She is like a piece of quicksilver. There's
no getting hold of her. How old is she?"
"She is nearly twenty," said Bunny with the swiftness of ownership.
"Nearly twenty! You don't say so! She might be fourteen at the present
moment. Look at that! Look at it!" For Toby was suddenly whizzing like a
butterfly across the lawn in a giddy flight that seemed scarcely to
touch the ground, the little girl still upon her shoulder, the elder
child standing apart and clapping her hands in delighted admiration.
"Yes, she is rather like fourteen," Maud said, with her tender smile. "Do
you know what she did the other day? It was madness of course, and my
husband was very angry with her. I was frightened myself though I have
more faith in her than he has. She climbs like a cat, you know, and she
actually took both those children up to a high bough of the old beech
tree; I don't know in the least how she did it. None of the party seemed
to think there was any cause for alarm till Jake came on the scene. He
fetched them down with a ladder--all but Toby who went higher and pelted
him with beech nuts till he retreated--at my urgent request."
"And what happened after that?" questioned Saltash, with his eyes still
upon the dancing figure. "From what I have observed of Jake, I should say
that an ignominious retreat is by no means in his line."
Maud laughed a little. "Oh, Jake can be generous when he likes. He had it
out with her of course, but he wasn't too severe. Ah, look! She is going
to jump the sun dial!"
Sheila turned to her. "Surely you are nervous! If she fell, the little
one might be terribly hurt."
"She won't fall," Maud said with confidence.
And even as she spoke, Toby leapt the sun dial, leaving the ground as a
bird leaves it, without effort or any sort of strain, and alighting again
as a bird alights from a curving flight with absolute freedom and a
natural adroitness of movement indescribably pleasant to watch.
"A very pretty circus trick!" declared the General, and even Bunny's
clouded brow cleared a little though he said nothing.
"A circus trick indeed!" said Sheila, as if speaking to herself. "How on
earth did she do it?"
"She is like a boy in many ways," said Maud.
Sheila looked at her. "Yes. She is just like a boy, or at least--" Her
look went further, reached Saltash who lounged on Maud's other side, and
fell abruptly away.
As Toby came up with the two children, all of them flushed and laughing,
Toby herself in her white frock looking like a child just out of school,
she rose and turned to Bunny.
"We ought to go now," she said. "I am going to fetch the car round for
Dad."
"I'll do it," he said.
But she went with him as he had known she would. They left the group at
the window and moved away side by side in silence as they had walked that
afternoon.
Saltash stood up and addressed Maud. "I'm going too. Bunny is dining with
me tonight. I suppose you won't come?"
She gave him her hand, smiling. "I can't thank you. Ask me another day!
You and Bunny will really get on much better without me."
"Impossible!" he declared gallantly, but he did not press her.
He turned to the General and took his leave.
Toby and the two children walked the length of the terrace with him, all
chattering at once. She seemed to be in a daring, madcap mood and Saltash
laughed and jested with her as though she had been indeed the child she
looked. Only at parting, when she would have danced away, he suddenly
stopped her with a word.
"Nonette!"
She stood still as if at a word of command; there had been something of
compulsion in his tone.
He did not look at her, and the smile he wore was wholly alien to the
words he spoke.
"Be careful how you go! And don't see Bunny again--till I have seen him!"
A hard breath went through Toby. She stood like a statue, the two
children clasping her hands. Her blue eyes gazed at him with a wide
questioning. Her face was white.
"Why? Why?" she whispered at length.
His look flashed before her vision like the grim play of a sword. "That
girl remembers you. She will give you away. She's probably at it now.
I'll see him--tell him the truth if necessary. Anyhow--leave him to me!"
"Tell him--the truth?" The words came from her like a cry. There was a
sudden terror in her eyes. He made a swift gesture of dismissal. "Go,
child! Go! Whatever I do will make it all right for you. I'm standing
by. Don't be afraid! Just--go!"
It was a definite command. She turned to obey, the little girls still
clinging to her. The next moment she was running lightly back with them,
and Saltash turned in the opposite direction and passed out of sight
round the corner of the house on his way to the stable-yard.