COMING HOME
The bolt grated, as if grudgingly, and slowly the door opened as far as
the limits of its chain would permit, and Mrs. Rainham's face appeared
in the aperture. She glared at them for a minute without speaking.
“So you have come home?” she said at last. The chain fell, and the door
opened. “I wonder you trouble to come home at all. May I ask where you
have been?”
“She has been with me, Mrs. Rainham,” Bob said cheerfully. “May I come
in?”
Mrs. Rainham did not move. She held the door half open, blocking the
way.
“It is far too late for me to ask you in,” she answered frigidly.
“Cecilia can explain her conduct, I presume.”
“Oh, there's really nothing to explain,” Bob answered. “It was so late
when she got out this afternoon that I kept her--why, it was after
half-past four before she was dressed.”
“I told her to be in for tea.”
“Yes; but I felt sure you couldn't realize how late she was in getting
out,” said Bob in a voice of honey.
“That was entirely her own mismanagement--” began the hard tones.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Rainham; really it wasn't,” said Cecilia mildly. “Your
accompaniments, you remember--your dress--your music,” she stopped,
in amazement at herself. It was rarely indeed that she answered any
accusation of her stepmother's. But to be on the mat at midnight, with
Bob in support, seemed to give her extraordinary courage.
“You see, Mrs. Rainham, there seems to have been quite a number of
little details that Cecilia couldn't mismanage,” said Bob, following
up the advantage. It was happily evident that his stepmother's rage was
preventing her from speaking, and, as he remarked later, there was no
knowing when he would ever get such a chance again. “She really needed
rest. I'm sure you'll agree that every one is entitled to some free
time. Of course, you couldn't possibly have realized that it was a week
since she had been off duty.”
“It's her business to do what I tell her,” said Mrs. Rainham, finding
her voice, in an explosive fashion that made a passing policeman glance
up curiously. “She knew I had company, and expected her help. I had
to see to the children's tea myself. And how do I know where she's
been?--gallivanting round to all sorts of places! I tell you, young
lady, you needn't think you're going to walk in here at midnight as if
nothing was the matter.”
“I never expected to,” said Cecilia cheerfully. “But it was worth it.”
Bob regarded her in solemn admiration.
“I don't think we gallivanted at all reprehensibly,” he said. “Just
dinner and a theatre. I haven't made much claim to her time during the
last four years, Mrs. Rainham; surely I'm entitled to a little of it
now.”
“You!” Mrs. Rainham's tone was vicious. “You don't give her a home, do
you? And as long as I do, she'll do what I tell her.”
“No; I don't give her a home--yet,” said Bob very quietly. “But I very
soon will, I assure you; and meanwhile, she earns a good deal more than
her keep in her father's house. You can't treat her worse than your
servants--”
Cecilia suddenly turned to him.
“Ah, don't, Bob darling. It doesn't matter--truly--not a bit.” With the
end of the long penance before her, it seemed beyond the power of the
angry woman in the doorway to hurt her much. What she could not bear was
that their happy evening should be spoiled by hard and cruel words at
its close. Bob's face, that had been so merry, was sterner than she
had ever seen it, all its boyishness gone. She put up her own face, and
kissed him.
“Good night--you mustn't stay any longer. I'll be all right.” She
whispered a few quick words of French, begging him to go, and Bob,
though unwillingly, gave in.
“All right,” he said. “Go to bed, little 'un. I'll do as I promised
about writing.” He saluted Mrs. Rainham stiffly. “You'll remember,
Mrs. Rainham, that she stayed out solely at my wish--I take full
responsibility, and I'll be ready to tell my father so.” The door closed
behind Cecilia, and he strode away down the street, biting his lip. He
felt abominably as though he had deserted the little sister--and yet,
what else could he do? One could not remain for ever, brawling on a
doorstep at midnight--and Tommy had begged him to go. Still--
“Hang it!” he said viciously. “If she were only a decent Hun to fight!”
In the grim house in Lancaster Gate Cecilia was facing the music alone.
She listened unmoved, as she had listened many times before, to
the catalogue of her sins and misdeeds--only she had never seen her
stepmother quite so angry. Finally, a door above opened, and Mark
Rainham looked out, his dull, colourless face weakly irritable.
“I wish you'd stop that noise, and let the girl go to bed,” he said.
“Come here, Cecilia.”
She went to him hesitating, and he looked at her with a spark of
compassion. Then he kissed her.
“Good night,” he said, as though he had called her to him simply to say
it, and not to separate her from the furious woman who stood looking
at them. “Run off to bed, now--no more talking.” Cecilia ran upstairs
obediently. Behind her, as she neared her attic, she heard her
stepmother's voice break out anew.
“Just fancy Papa!” she muttered. Any mother sensations were lost in
wonder at her father's actually having intervened. The incredible thing
had happened. For a moment she felt a wave of pity for him, left alone
to face the shrill voice. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
“Ah, well--he married her,” she said. “I suppose he has had it many a
time. Perhaps he knows how to stop it--I don't!” She laughed, turning
the key in the lock, and sitting down beside the open window. The
glamour of her happy evening was still upon her; even the scene with her
stepmother had not had power to chase it away. The scene was only to be
expected; the laughter of the evening was worth so every-day a penalty.
And the end of Mrs. Rainham's rule was nearly in sight. Not even to
herself for a moment would she admit that there was any possibility of
Bob failing to “make good” and take her away.
She went downstairs next morning to an atmosphere of sullen resentment.
Her father gave her a brief, abstracted nod, in response to her
greeting, and went on with his bacon and his Daily Mail; her
stepmother's forbidding expression checked any attempt at conversation.
The children stared at her with a kind of malevolent curiosity; they
knew that a storm had been brewing for her the night before, and longed
to know just how thoroughly she had “caught it.” Eliza, bringing
in singed and belated toast, looked at her with pity, tinged with
admiration. Cook and she had been awakened at midnight by what was
evidently, in the words of Cook, “a perfickly 'orrible bust-up,” and
knowing Cecilia to have been its object, Eliza looked at her as one may
look who expects to see the scars of battle. Finding none, but receiving
instead a cheerful smile, she returned to the kitchen, and reported to
Cook that Miss Cecilia was “nuffink less than a neroine.”
But as that day and the next wore on, Cecilia found it difficult to be
cheerful. That she was in disgrace was very evident, Mrs. Rainham said
no more about her sins of the night before; instead, she showed her
displeasure by a kind of cold rudeness that gave a subtle insult to her
smallest remark. The children were manifestly delighted. Cecilia was
more or less in the position of a beetle on a pin, and theirs was the
precious opportunity of seeing her wriggle. Wherefore they adopted
their mother's tone, openly defied her, and turned school-hours into a
pandemonium.
Cecilia at last gave up the attempt to keep order. She opened her desk
and took out her knitting.
“Well, this is all very pleasant,” she said, calmly. “You seem
determined to do no work at all, so I can only hope that in time you
will get tired of being idle. I can't attempt to teach you any more. I
am quite ready, however, if you bring your lessons to me.”
“You'll get into a nice row from the Mater,” jeered Wilfred.
“Very possibly. She may even punish me by finding another governess,”
said Cecilia, with a twinkle. “However that may be, I do not feel
compelled to talk to such rude little children as you any more. When
you are able to speak politely you may come to me for anything you
want; until then, I shall not answer you.” She bent her attention to the
mysteries of heel-turning.
The children were taken aback. To pinprick with rudeness a victim who
answered back was entertaining; but there was small fun in baiting
anybody who sat silently knitting with a half-smile of contempt at the
corners of her mouth. They gave it up after a time, and considered the
question of going out; a pleasant thing to do, only that their mother
had laid upon them a special injunction not to leave Cecilia, and she
was in a mood that made disobedience extremely dangerous. Cecilia quite
understood that she was being watched. No letters had yet come from Bob,
and she knew that her stepmother had been hovering near the letter-box
whenever the postman had called. Mrs. Rainham had accompanied them on
their walk the day before; a remark of Avice's revealed that she meant
to do so again to-day.
“It's all so silly,” the girl said to herself. “If I chose to dive into
a tube station or board a motor-bus she couldn't stop me; and she can't
go on watching me and intercepting my letters indefinitely. I suppose
she will get tired of it after a while.” But meanwhile she found the
spying rather amusing. Avice popped up unexpectedly if she went near the
front door; Wilfred's bullet head peeped in through the window whenever
she fancied herself alone in the schoolroom. Only her attic was
safe--since to spy upon it would have required an aeroplane.
The third day brought no letter from Bob. Cecilia asked for her mail
when she went down to breakfast, and was met by a blank stare from her
stepmother--“I suppose if there had been any letters for you they would
be on your plate.” She flushed a little under the girl's direct gaze,
and turned her attention to Queenie's table manners, which were at all
times peculiar; and Cecilia sat down with a faint smile. It was time to
obey orders and telegraph to Bob.
She planned how to do it, during a long morning when the children
actually did some work--since to be rude or idle meant that their
teacher immediately retired into her shell of silence, and knitted, and
life became too dull. To employ Eliza was her first thought--rejected,
since it seemed unlikely that Eliza would be able to get time off to go
out. If Mrs. Rainham's well-known dislike for walking proved too strong
for her desire to watch her stepdaughter, it would be easy enough to
do it during the afternoon; but this hope proved vain, for when she
appeared in the hall with her charges at three o'clock the lady of the
house sailed from the drawing-room, ready for the march. They moved off
in procession; Mrs. Rainham leading the way, with Avice and Wilfred,
while Cecilia brought up the rear, holding Queenie's podgy hand.
She had telegraph forms in her desk, and the message, already written,
and even stamped, was in the pocket of her coat. There was nothing for
it but to act boldly, and accordingly, when they entered a street in
which there was a post office, she let Queenie lag until they were
a little distance behind the others. Then, as they reached the post
office, she turned sharply in.
“Wait a minute, Queenie.”
She thrust her message across the counter hurriedly. The clerk on duty
was provokingly slow; he finished checking a document, and then lounged
across to the window and took the form, running over it leisurely.
“Oh, you've got the stamps on. All right,” he said, and turned away just
as quick steps were heard, and Mrs. Rainham bustled in, panting.
“What are you doing?”
Cecilia met her with steady eyes.
“Nothing wrong, I assure you.” She had had visions of covering her real
purpose by buying stamps--but rejected it with a shrug.
“Thethilia gave the man a pieth of paper!” said Queenie shrilly.
“What was it? I demand to know!” cried Mrs. Rainham. She turned to the
clerk, who stood open-mouthed, holding the telegram in his hand. “Show
me that telegram. I am this young lady's guardian.”
The clerk grinned broadly. The stout and angry lady made no appeal to
him, and Cecilia was a pretty girl, and moreover her telegram was for
a flying captain. The clerk wore a returned soldier's badge himself. He
fell back on Regulations.
“Can't be done, ma'am. The message is all in order.”
“Let me see it.”
“Much as my billet's worth, if I did,” said the clerk. “Property of the
Postmaster-General now, ma'am. Couldn't even give it back to the young
lady.”
“I'll report you!” Mrs. Rainham fumed.
“Do, ma'am. I'll get patted on the head for doin' me duty.” The clerk's
grin widened. Cecilia wished him good afternoon gravely, and slipped out
of the office, pursued by her stepmother.
“What was in that telegram?”
“It was to my brother.”
“What was in it?”
“It was to Bob, and that is guarantee that there was nothing wrong in
it,” Cecilia said steadily. “It was on private business.”
“You have no right to have any business that I do not know about.”
Cecilia found her temper rising.
“My father may have the power to say that--I do not know,” she said.
“But you have none, Mrs. Rainham.”
“I'll let you see whether I have the right!” her stepmother blazed. “For
two pins, young lady, I'd lock you up.”
Cecilia laughed outright.
“Ah, that's not done now,” she said. “You really couldn't, Mrs.
Rainham--especially as I have done nothing wrong.” She dropped her
voice--passers-by were looking with interest at the elder woman's
face. “Why not let me go? You do not approve of me--let me find another
position.”
“You'll stay in your father's house,” Mrs. Rainham said. “We'll see what
the law has to say to your leaving with your precious Bob. Your
father's your legal guardian, and in his control you stay until you're
twenty-one, and be very thankful to make yourself useful. The law will
deal with Bob if he tries to take you away--you're a minor, and it'd
be abduction.” The word had a pleasantly legal flavour; she repeated it
with emphasis. “Abduction; that's what it is, and there's a nice penalty
for it. Now you know, and if you don't want to get Bob into trouble,
you'd best be careful.”
Cecilia had grown rather white. The law was a great and terrible
instrument, of which she knew nothing. It seemed to have swallowed up
Aunt Margaret's money; it might very well have left her defenceless. Her
stepmother seemed familiar with its powers, and able to evoke them at
will; and though she did not trust her, there was something in her glib
utterance that struck fear into the girl's heart. She did not answer,
and Mrs. Rainham followed up her advantage.
“We'll go home,” she said. “And you make up your mind to tell me what
was in that telegram, and not to have any secrets from me. One thing I
can tell you--until you decide to behave yourself--Bob shan't show his
nose in my house, and you shan't go out to meet him, either. He only
leads you into mischief; I don't consider he has at all a good influence
over you. The sooner he's away somewhere, earning his own living in a
proper manner, the better for every one; and it'll be many a long day
before he can give you as good a home as you've got now.” She paused
for breath. “Anyhow, he's not going to have the chance,” she finished
grimly.