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

bring him, I shall come all by myself and fetch him."
"No, you mustn't do that," Mordaunt answered with decision.
"Then will you bring him?"
"I will do my best," he promised gravely.
"Will you really? Oh, thank you, Trevor. I shall expect you then, Bertie. Good-bye!"
Her hand lay for a couple of seconds in his, and he bent low over it, but he did not speak in answer.
She went out of the room with the silent Englishman. He heard her laughing as they went downstairs. He heard her gay young voice a while longer in the hall below. Then came the throb of a motor and the closing of the street door. She was gone.
He stood quite motionless, listening to the taxi as it whirred away. And even after he ceased to hear it he did not move. He was gazing straight before him, and his eyes were the eyes of a man in a dream. They saw naught.
Stiffly at last he moved, and something like a shudder went through him. He crossed the room heavily, with the gait of one stricken suddenly old. He sat down again at the writing-table, and took up the pen that he had dropped--how long ago!
He even wrote a few words slowly, laboriously, still with that fixed look in his eyes. Then quite suddenly he was assailed by a violent tremor. He pushed back his chair with a sharp exclamation, half-rose, then as swiftly flung himself forward and lay across the table, face downwards, gasping horribly, almost choking. His hands were clenched, and hammered upon the papers littered there. The pen rolled unheeded over the polished wood and fell upon the floor.
Seconds passed into minutes. Gradually the bony fists ceased their convulsive tattoo. The laboured breathing grew less agonized. The man's rigid pose relaxed. But still he lay with his arms outspread and his head bowed between them, a silent image of despair.
Slowly the minutes crawled by. Down in the street below a newsboy was yelling unintelligibly, and in the distance a barrel-organ jangled the latest music-hall craze; but he was deep, deep in an abyss of suffering, very far below the surface of things. There was something almost boyishly forlorn in his attitude. With his face hidden, he looked pathetically young.
The sound of the opening door recalled him at last, and he started upright. It was Holmes with the evening paper.
The man spied the pen upon the floor and stooped for it. Bertrand stretched out a quivering hand, took it from him, and made as if he would resume his writing. But the pen only wandered aimlessly over the paper, and in a moment fell again from his nerveless fingers.
Holmes paused. Bertrand sat with his head on his hand as if unaware of him.
"Can I get you anything, sir?" he ventured.
Bertrand made a slight movement. "If I might have--a little brandy," he said, speaking with obvious effort.
"Brandy? I'll get it at once, sir," said Holmes, and was gone with the words.
Returning, he found Bertrand so far master of himself as to force a smile, but his face was ghastly. There was a blue, pinched look about his mouth that Holmes, reminiscent of his hospital days, did not like. He had seen that look before.
But the first taste of spirit dispelled it. Very courteously Bertrand thanked him.
"You are a good man, Holmes. And I think that you are my friend, yes?"
"Very pleased to do anything I can for you, sir," said Holmes.
"Ah! Then I will ask of you one little thing. It is that you remember that this weakness--this malady of a moment--remain a secret between us two--between--us--two. _Vous comprenez; non_?"
His eyes, very bright and searching, looked with a certain peremptoriness into the man's face, and Holmes, accustomed to obey, made instinctive response.
"You mean as I am not to mention it to Mr. Mordaunt, sir?"
"That is what I mean, Holmes."
"Very good, sir," said Holmes. "You're feeling better, I hope, sir?"
Very slowly de Montville rose to his feet, and stood, holding to the back of his chair.
"I am--quite well," he said impressively.
"Very good, sir," said Holmes again, and withdrew, shaking his head dubiously as soon as he was out of the Frenchman's sight.
As for de Montville, he went slowly across to the window and, leaning against the sash, gazed down upon the empty street.
Not until he heard Mordaunt's step outside more than half an hour later did he move, and then very abruptly he returned to the writing-table and seized the pen anew. He was writing with feverish rapidity when Mordaunt entered.
Very quietly Mordaunt came up and looked over his shoulder. "My boy," he said, "I am very sorry, but that is not legible."
His tone was unreservedly kind, and Bertrand jerked up his head as if surprised.
He surveyed the page before him with pursed lips, then flashed a quick look into Mordaunt's face.
"It is true," he admitted, with a rueful smile. "I also am sorry."
"Leave it," Mordaunt said. "You are looking fagged, Yes, I mean it. It will keep."
"But I have done nothing!" Bertrand protested, with outspread hands.
"No? Well, I don't believe you ought to be doing anything at present. Come and sit down." Then, peremptorily, as Bertrand hesitated: "I won't have you overworking yourself. Understand that! I have had trouble enough to get you off the sick list as it is."
He spoke with that faint smile of his that placed most men at their ease with him. Bertrand turned impulsively and grasped his hand.
"You have been--you are--more than a brother to me, monsieur," he said, with feeling. "And I--I--ah! Permit me to tell you--I--am glad that Mademoiselle has placed herself in your keeping. It was a great surprise, yes. But I am glad--from my heart. She will be safe--and happy--with you."
He spoke with great earnestness; his sincerity was shining in his eyes. Mordaunt, looking straight down into them, saw no other emotion than sheer friendliness, a friendliness that touched him, coming from one who was so nearly friendless.
"I shall do my best to make her so," he made grave reply. "She has been telling me about you, Bertrand."
"Ah!" The Frenchman's eyes interrogated him for a moment and instantly fell away. "I am surprised," he said, "to be remembered after so long. No, I had not forgotten her; but that is different, _n'est-ce pas_? I think that no one would easily forget her." He smiled as though involuntarily at some reminiscence. "_Christine et le bon Cinders_!" he said in his soft voice. "We were all friends together. We were--" again his eyes darted up to meet the Englishman's level scrutiny--"what you call 'pals,' monsieur."
Mordaunt smiled. "So I gathered. It happened at Valpre, I understand."
Bertrand nodded. His eyes grew dreamy, grew remote. "Yes," he said slowly, "it happened at Valpre. The little one was lonely. We made games in the sand. We chased the crabs; we explored the caves; we played together--as children." He stifled a sudden sigh, and rose. "_Eh bien_," he said, "we cannot be children for ever. We grow up--some quick--some slow--but all grow up at last."
He broke off, and took up the evening paper to cut the leaves.
Mordaunt watched him in silence--a silence through which in some fashion he conveyed his sympathy; for after a moment Bertrand spoke again, still dexterously occupied with his task.
"Ah! you understand," he said. "I have no need to explain to you that this meeting with my little friend who belonged to the happy days that are past has given me almost as much of pain as of pleasure. I do not try to explain--because you understand."
"You will get over it, my dear fellow," Mordaunt said, with quiet conviction.
"You think it?" Bertrand glanced up momentarily.
"I do," Mordaunt answered, with a very kindly smile. "In fact, I think, with all due respect to you, that you are younger than you feel."
"Ah!" There was not much conviction in Bertrand's response. He stood up and handed the paper to Mordaunt with a quick bow. "But--all the same--you understand?" he questioned, with a touch of anxiety.
"Of course I understand," Mordaunt answered gently.


CHAPTER XII
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

"At last!" said Chris.
It was her birthday party, and she stood at the head of the stairs by her aunt's side, receiving her guests.
Very young she looked, a child still, despite her twenty-one years, and supremely happy. Her aunt, one of those ladies whose very smile is in itself an act of condescension, was treating her with unusual graciousness that night, and there was not a star awry in Chris's firmament.
She had just caught a glimpse of her _fiance_ in the crowd below her, and a hasty second glance had shown her that he was not unaccompanied. A slight man, olive-skinned, with a very small, black moustache and quick eyes that searched upwards restlessly, was ascending the stairs with him. In the instant that she looked those eyes found her, and flashed their quick recognition.
Chris waved her fan in eager greeting. "Ah, there he is!" she cried aloud.
"My dear child!" said Aunt Philippa.
Impetuously Chris turned to her. "He is a friend of mine, and Trevor's secretary. I told Trevor to bring him. He is French, and his name is Bertrand."
Her cheeks were flushed with excitement as she made this hasty explanation. She had purposely left it till a crowded moment, for Aunt Philippa was apt to be very searching in her inquiries, and Chris shrank at all times from being catechized by this somewhat formidable relative of hers.
"Trevor knows all about him; they are friends," she added, in response to a slight drawing of the brows, with which she was tragically well acquainted.
"All?" murmured Max in her ear from her other side, with a mischievous twinkle in his green eyes.
Chris ignored him, but she turned a vivid crimson, and the hand she stretched to Mordaunt was quivering with agitation. But in his quiet grasp it became still. She looked up into his eyes and smiled a welcome with recovered self-possession.
"Oh, Trevor, here you are! And you've brought Bertie as you promised." She gave her other hand to Bertrand with the words, but she did not speak to him--she went on talking to her _fiance_. "I've had a tremendous day, and thank you a million times for--you know what. It's a good thing you booked your dances beforehand, for I haven't any left."
"Not one for me?" murmured Bertrand, as he bent over her hand.
She turned to him with a radiant smile. "Yes, yes, of course! Should I be likely to forget all old pal like you? Trevor, will you introduce him to Aunt Philippa?"
"My friend Mr. Bertrand," said Mordaunt promptly.
Mrs. Forest acknowledged the introduction with extreme chilliness. She strongly disapproved of Chris's faculty for developing unexpected friendships. The child was so regrettably free-and-easy in all her ways. Of course, if Trevor Mordaunt approved of their intimacy, and apparently he did, there was nothing to be said, but she herself could not regard it with favour. Once more she congratulated herself that her responsibilities where Chris was concerned were nearly at an end.
But if her greeting were cold, Bertrand scarcely had time to remark it, for his attention was instantly diverted by the red-haired youth who lounged behind her. Max, whose presence had been annoying his aunt all day, thrust out a welcoming hand to the new-comer.
"Hullo!" he said. "You, is it?"
Bertrand raised his brows. He gave his hand, after an instant's hesitation, with a non-committing, "Myself--yes."
Max drew him aside out of the crowd. "It's all right. I'm Chris's brother, and I shan't give you away. But how long do you expect to remain