The Head of the House of Coombe by Frances Hodgson Burnett (cool books to read .txt) 📕

Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited as well as allured him. Why hadn’t she told Robin she was her mother? Why did she never show her pictures in the Nursery and hold her on her knee? She was little enough to be held on knees! Did some mothers never tell their children and did the children never find out? This was what he wanted to hear explained. He took the gloved hand near him and held it close and a trifle authoritatively.

“I am glad I know you are my mother,” he said, “I always knew.”

He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as clearly as things usually were. But he was not really disturbed. He had remembered a book he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought of that. There was also a game in a little box which could be easily carried under his arm. His mother was “thinking” and he was used to that. It came on her sometimes and of his own volition he always, on such occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly possible.

After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny.

“You’re tired, ma’am,” the woman said when she saw her, “I’m afraid you’ve a headache.”

“I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon,” her mistress answered, “You were right about the nurse. The little girl might have been playing with any boy chance sent in her way—boys quite unlike Donal.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And because she loved her and knew her face and voice Nanny watched her closely.

“You will be as—startled—as I was. By some queer chance the child’s mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to me. Nanny—she is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.”

Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply.

“And she came in and spoke to you, ma’am!”

“Things have altered and are altering every day,” Mrs. Muir said. “Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her own—and she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going people who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband was a relation of Lord Lawdor’s.”

“And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie,” offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir’s hands clasped strongly as they lay on the table before her.

“That doesn’t come within my bailiewick,” she said in her quiet voice. “Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that blows.” She stopped just a moment and began again. “We must leave for Scotland by the earliest train.”

“What’ll he do?” the words escaped from the woman as if involuntarily. She even drew a quick breath. “He’s a strong feeling bairn—strong!”

“He’ll be stronger when he is a young man, Nanny!” desperately. “That is why I must act now. There is no half way. I don’t want to be hard. Oh, am I hard—am I hard?” she cried out low as if she were pleading.

“No, ma’am. You are not. He’s your own flesh and blood.” Nanny had never before seen her mistress as she saw her in the next curious almost exaggerated moment.

Her hand flew to her side.

“He’s my heart and my soul—” she said, “—he is the very entrails of me! And it will hurt him so and I cannot explain to him because he is too young to understand. He is only a little boy who must go where he is taken. And he cannot help himself. It’s—unfair!”

Nanny was prone to become more Scotch as she became moved. But she still managed to look grim.

“He canna help himsel,” she said, “an waur still, YOU canna.”

There was a moment of stillness and then she said:

“I must go and pack up.” And walked out of the room.

*

Donal always slept like a young roe in the bracken, and in deep and rapturous ease he slept this night. Another perfectly joyful day had passed and his Mother had liked Robin and kissed her. All was well with the world. As long as he had remained awake—and it had not been long—he had thought of delightful things unfeverishly. Of Robin, somehow at Braemarnie, growing bigger very quickly—big enough for all sorts of games—learning to ride Chieftain, even to gallop. His mother would buy another pony and they could ride side by side. Robin would laugh and her hair would fly behind her if they went fast. She would see how fast he could go—she would see him make Chieftain jump. They would have picnics—catch sight of deer and fawns delicately lifting their feet as they stepped. She would always look at him with that nice look in her eyes and the little smile which came and went in a second. She was quite different from the minister’s little girls at the Manse. He liked her—he liked her!

*

He was wakened by a light in his room and by the sound of moving about. He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed and Nanny putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his Mother looked taller than she had looked yesterday—and almost thin—and her face was anxious and—shy.

“We let you sleep as late as we could, Donal,” she said. “You must get up quickly now and have breakfast. Something has happened. We are obliged to go back to Scotland by very early train. There is not a minute to waste.”

At first he only said:

“Back!”

“Yes, dear. Get up.”

“To Braemarnie?”

“Yes, dear laddie!”

He felt himself grow hot and cold.

“Away! Away!” he said again vaguely.

“Yes. Get up, dear.”

He was as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as he was told. He was also a fine, sturdy little Scot with a pride of his own. His breeding had been of the sort which did not include insubordinate scenes, so he got out of bed and began to dress. But his mother saw that his hands shook.

“I shall not see Robin,” he said in a queer voice. “She won’t find me when she goes behind the lilac bushes. She won’t know why I don’t come.”

He swallowed very hard and was dead still for a few minutes, though he did not linger over his dressing. His mother felt that the whole thing was horrible. He was acting almost like a young man even now. She did not know how she could bear it. She spoke to him in a tone which was actually rather humble.

“If we knew where she lived you—you could write a little letter and tell her about it. But we do not where she lives.”

He