The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

go to the devil your own way."
Rupert coloured and threw back his shoulders, but he did not take offence. The leisurely proposal held none. "I'm not over keen on going to the devil," he said. "But neither am I going to let you pay my debts, thanks all the same."
Mordaunt glanced at him and smiled. "I think you will cancel that 'but,'" he said, "in view of our future relationship."
Rupert hesitated, obviously wavering. "It's jolly decent of you," he said boyishly. "You make it confoundedly difficult to refuse."
"You are not going to refuse," said Mordaunt. "No one knows better than I do that it's ten times pleasanter to give than to receive. But that--between friends--is not a point worth considering."
"I should think you have a good many friends," said Rupert.
"I believe I have."
"Well,"--the boy spoke with a tinge of feeling beneath his banter--"you've added to the list to-night, and I wish you joy of your acquisition! But don't say I didn't warn you."
"No," said Mordaunt quietly. "I won't say that." He added a moment later, as he dropped the end of his cigarette into his coffee-cup, "I believe in my friends, Rupert."
"Till they let you down," suggested Rupert.
"They never do."
"Then allow me to say that you are one of the luckiest fellows I have ever met."
"Perhaps."
"And the best," Rupert added impulsively.
There was a moment's silence, then, "Shall we join the ladies?" suggested Trevor Mordaunt, in a tone that sounded rather bored.


CHAPTER IV
DOUBTS

"He's nice, isn't he?" said Chris.
She was seated on a hassock close to her cousin's knee, a favourite position of hers.
Hilda's fingers fondled the sunny hair. Her eyes looked thoughtful. "I am so glad for you, dear," she said.
"I knew you would be," chuckled Chris. "Aunt Philippa is delighted too. It's the first time I've ever known her pleased with me. It feels so funny. Ah! There is my sweet Cinders! I must just let him in."
She sprang up to admit her favourite, whose imperious scratch at the door testified to the fact that he was not accustomed to being kept waiting. There ensued a tender if somewhat pointless conversation between himself and his mistress before she returned to her seat and her confidences.
"Did you ever refuse to marry anybody, Hilda?" she wanted to know then.
"Yes, dear."
"Many?"
"Three," said Hilda.
"Goodness!" Chris looked up with shining eyes of admiration. "How ever did you do it?"
"I wasn't in love with them," said Hilda simply.
"Oh! And you are in love with Percy?"
"Yes, dear." Again with the utmost simplicity the elder girl made answer.
"How nice!" said Chris. "But I can't think how you knew," she said, after a moment.
Hilda leaned forward to look into the clear eyes. A faint gleam of anxiety showed for a moment in her own. "But surely you know, Chris!" she said.
"I!" said Chris, with a gay shake of the head. "Oh, no, I don't. You know, I don't believe it's in me to fall in love in the ordinary way. I was quite angry with Rupert only this evening for jeering at me, as if I were. Oh, no, Hilda, I'm not in love like that."
"But, my dear--" Hilda looked down in grave perplexity, not unmixed with apprehension.
Chris leaned back against her quite unconcernedly, her hands clasped round her knees, and laughed like an elf. "Darling, don't look at me like that! It's too funny. Don't you know that it's only you staid, good people who ever fall in love properly? The rest of us only pretend. That's where the romance comes in."
"But, dear, Trevor Mordaunt is in love with you," Hilda reminded her gently.
"Oh yes," said Chris, "I know. That's why I had to accept him. I don't believe even you could have said No to him."
Hilda's face cleared a little. She pinched the soft cheek nearest to her. "After that, don't talk to me about not being in love!"
"Oh, but really I don't think I am," Chris assured her quite seriously. "I have only once in my life met anyone with whom I could possibly imagine myself falling in love. And he was not a bit like Trevor."
"What was he like?" asked Hilda. "A sort of fancy person? Or someone out of a book?"
"Oh no, he was quite real--the nicest man." A faraway look came into Chris's eyes; she suddenly spoke very softly as one in the presence of a vision. "I think--I am not sure--that he belonged to the old French _noblesse_. He was not tall, but beautifully made, just right in every way, and very handsome, with eyes that laughed--the sort of man one dreams of, but never meets."
"And yet he was real," Hilda said.
"Oh yes, he was real. But it was ages and ages ago. He may have changed by this time. He may even be dead--my _preux chevalier_." Chris came out of her dream with a shaky little laugh. "Ah, well, I've given up crying for him," she said. "Anyhow it was only a game. Let's talk of something else."
"It was the man at Valpre," said Hilda.
"Yes, it was the man at Valpre. I never told you about him, did I? I never told anyone. Somehow I couldn't. People made such a horrid fuss. But the very thought of him used to make me cry at one time. Wasn't it silly? But I missed him so. I couldn't help it. We won't talk about him any more. It makes me melancholy. Hilda, wouldn't it be a novel idea if your bridesmaids carried fans instead of Prayer Books? You could have the marriage service printed on them in gold with illuminated capitals. Would Aunt Philippa think it immoral, do you think?"
To anyone who did not know Chris this sudden change might have seemed bewildering; but Hilda was never taken unawares by her swift transitions. She did not even deem her flippant, as did her mother. For Chris was very dear to her. She knew and loved her in all her lightning moods. It was possible that even she did not wholly understand her, but she was nearer to doing so than any other in Chris's world just then.
When Chris danced across to the piano and began her favourite waltz to the accompaniment of muffled howls from Cinders, she knew that the hour for confidences was past. Nor had she any desire to prolong it, for it seemed better to her to leave the hero of Chris's girlhood in obscurity. She had not the smallest doubt that her young cousin invested him with all the glamour of a vivid imagination. He was fashioned of the substance of dreams, and she fancied that Chris herself was more than half aware of this.
But still her faint misgiving did not wholly die away. Though Trevor Mordaunt had secured for himself the girl of his choice, she could not suppress a grave doubt as to whether he had yet succeeded in winning her heart. He would ultimately win it; she felt convinced of that. He was a man who was bound sooner or later to rule supreme. And thus she strove to reassure herself; but still, in spite of her, the doubt remained. Chris was so young, so gay, so innocent. She could not bear to think of the troubles and perplexities of womanhood descending upon her. She was so essentially made for the joy of life.
She sat and watched her unperceived, the slim young figure in the shaded lamplight, the shining hair, the slender neck--all vivid, instinct with life; and she comprehended the witchery that had caught Mordaunt's heart. Of the man himself she knew but little. He was not expansive, and circumstances had not thrown them together. But what she knew of him she liked. She was aware that her brother valued his friendship very highly--a friendship begun on a South African battlefield; and though they had met but seldom since, the intimacy between them had remained unshaken.
Trevor Mordaunt was a man of many friends--friends in all ranks and of many nationalities. No one knew quite how he made them; no one ever saw his friendships in the making. But all over the world were men who hailed his coming with pleasure and saw him go with regret.
She supposed him capable of a vast sympathy, a wide understanding. It seemed the only explanation. But would he understand her little Chris? she wondered. Would he make full allowance for her dear caprices, her whimsical fancies, her butterfly temperament? Would he ever thread his way through these fairy defences to that hidden shrine where throbbed her woman's heart? And would he be the first to enter there? She hoped so; she prayed so.
"Hilda"--imperiously the gay voice broke through her reverie--"if Percy wants to know what sort of pendants to give the bridesmaids, be sure you say turquoise and pearl. It's most important."
She was still strumming her waltz, and did not hear Mordaunt enter behind her.
"I saw a most lovely thing to-day," she went on. "One of those heart-shaped things that are still hearts even if you turn them upside down."
"Is that an advantage?" asked Mordaunt.
She whizzed round on the music-stool. "Trevor! I wish you wouldn't make me jump. Of course it is an advantage if a thing never looks wrong way up. You will remember, won't you, Hilda? Turquoise and pearl."
"Are you going to be chief mourner?" asked Rupert.
"Don't be horrid! I'm going to be chief bridesmaid, if that's what you mean?"
"And turquoise and pearl is to be the order of the day?" queried Mordaunt.
"A white muslin frock and a blue sash, I suppose," supplemented Rupert. "Hair worn long and tied with a blue bow rather bigger than an ordinary-sized sunshade. No shoes and no stockings, but some pale blue sandals over white lace socks. Result--ravishing!"
Chris glanced round for a missile, found none, so decided to ignore him.
"Yes," she said to her _fiance_, "and we are going to carry bouquets of wheat and cornflowers."
"Sounds like the ingredients of a pudding," said Rupert.
Chris rose from the piano in disgust, and her brother instantly slipped into her place. "I say, Hilda," he called, "come and sing! There's no one to listen to you but me; but that's a detail. Trevor and Christina, pray consider yourselves excused."
"We don't want to be excused," said Chris mutinously "Do stop, Rupert! Cinders doesn't like it."
Rupert, however, was already crashing through Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and turned a deaf ear. She picked the discontented one up to comfort him, and as she did so Trevor moved up to her. He stood beside her for a few seconds, stroking the dog's soft head.
Chris looked hot and uncomfortable, as if Rupert's music pounded on her nerves; but yet she would not make a move. She stood hushing Cinders as if he had been an infant.
"Shall we go outside?" Mordaunt said at last.
She shook her head.
"Come!" he said gently.
She turned without a word, laid the dog tenderly in a chair, whispered to him, kissed him, and went to the open window.
They stepped out together, and the curtains met behind them.
The moon had passed out of sight behind the houses, but the sky was alight with stars. A faint breeze trembled through the trees in the quiet square garden, and the faint, wonderful essence of summer came from them. From a distance sounded the roar of countless wheels--the deep chorus of London's traffic.
They stood side by side in silence while behind them Rupert played the Wedding March to a triumphant end. Then quiet descended, and there came a long pause.
Chris broke it at last, moved, and shyly spoke. "Trevor!"
"What is it, dear?"
She