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

you?"
She nodded. "Yes, Bertie."
He looked at her intently for a moment, then, "_Eh Bien_!" he said briskly. "I will try."
"_Bon garcon_!" she said, with a merry smile. "That is settled, then. Why, there is Trevor! Has he finished that article of his already? He looked quite absorbed when I passed his window half an hour ago." She waved to him as he approached. "Why don't you wear a hat, you mad Englishman? Don't you know the sun is broiling?"
He smiled and ignored the warning. Bertrand sprang from his chair as he reached them, but Mordaunt instantly pressed him down again.
"No, no, man! Sit still! I have only come out for a moment."
"But I am going," Bertrand protested. "I cannot sit and do nothing. There are those accounts that you have given me to do. They are not yet finished. Also--"
"Also, they are not going to be done to-day," Mordaunt said, shaking him gently by the shoulder. "Chris, I am going to hand this fellow over to you for the next few days. You can do what you like with him so long as you don't let him do any work. That I absolutely forbid. You understand me, Bertrand?"
"But I cannot--I cannot," Bertrand said restlessly. "You are already much too good to me. You overwhelm me with kindness, and I--I make no return at all. No, listen to me--"
"I'm not going to listen to you," Mordaunt said. "You are talking nonsense, my friend, arrant drivel--nothing less. Chris will tell you the same."
"Of course," said Chris. "Besides, there are crowds of things you can do for me. No, he shan't be overworked, I promise you, Trevor. But I'm going to try a new cure. Just for this afternoon he is going to lie in the hammock and smoke cigarettes. But after to-day"--she nodded gaily at the perturbed Frenchman--"after to-day, Bertie, _nous verrons_!"
He smiled in spite of himself, but he continued to look dissatisfied till Mordaunt carelessly turned the conversation.
"Where's that young beggar Noel?"
"Fishing in the Home Meadow," said Chris.
"Quite sure?"
"I think so," she said. "Why?"
"Because he has taken one of my guns, and I believe he is potting rabbits."
Chris sat up with consternation in her eyes. "Trevor! I believe he is too! I heard someone shooting half an hour ago. And he has got Cinders with him! I know he will go and shoot him by mistake!"
"Or himself," said Mordaunt grimly.
"Oh, he won't do that," said Chris with confidence. "Nothing ever happens to Noel."
"Something will happen to him before long if he doesn't behave himself," observed Mordaunt. "My patience began to wear thin last night when I caught him asleep with a smouldering pipe on his pillow."
"Oh, but he always does what he likes in the holidays," pleaded Chris.
"Does he?" Mordaunt's voice was uncompromising.
She slipped a quick hand into his. "Trevor, you wouldn't spoil his fun?"
He looked down at her, faintly smiling. "My dear Chris, it depends upon the fun. I'm not going to have the place burnt down for his amusement."
"Oh no," she said. "But you won't be strict with him, will you? He will only do things on the sly if you are."
Mordaunt frowned abruptly. "If I catch him doing anything underhand--"
She broke in sharply in evident distress. "But we all do, Trevor! I--I've done it myself before now--often with Mademoiselle Gautier, and then with Aunt Philippa. One has to, you know. At least--at least--" His grey eyes suddenly made her feel cold, and she stopped as impulsively as she had begun.
There was a moment's silence, then quite gently he drew his hand away. "I think I will go and see what mischief the boy is up to."
She jumped up. "I'll come too."
He paused, and for a single instant his eyes met Bertrand's. At once the Frenchman spoke.
"But, Christine, have you not forgotten your roses? It is growing late, is it not? And you will be out this afternoon. Permit me to assist you with them."
He picked up the basket as he spoke. Chris stopped irresolute. Her husband was already moving away over the grass.
"Come!" said Bertrand persuasively.
Chris turned with a smile and took the basket. "All right, Bertie, let's go. It is getting late, as you say, and I must get the vases filled."
They went away together to the rose-garden, and here, after brief hesitation, Chris voiced her fears.
"I'm so afraid lest Trevor should ever get really angry with any of the boys. They won't stand it, you know. And he--I sometimes think he is just a little hard, don't you?"
Mordaunt's secretary pondered this proposition with drawn brows. "No," he said finally, "he is not hard, but he is very honourable."
Chris laughed aloud. "That sounds just like a French exercise, Bertie. I don't see what being honourable has to do with it, except that the people who preen themselves on being honourable are just the ones who can't make allowances for those who are not. You would think, wouldn't you, that being good would make people extra kind and forgiving? But it doesn't, you know. Look at Aunt Philippa!"
Bertrand's grimace was expressive. "And Aunt Philippa is good, yes?"
"Frightfully good," said Chris. "I don't suppose she ever told a story in her life."
His quick eyes sought hers. "And that--that is to be good?"
Chris paused an instant, her attention caught by the question. "Why, I suppose so," she said slowly. "Don't you call that goodness?"
He spread out his hands. "Me, I think it is the smallest kind of goodness. One does not lie, one does not steal; but what of that? One does not roll oneself in the mud. And that is a virtue, that?"
Chris became keenly interested. "Do go on, Bertie! I had no idea you thought such a lot. I don't myself--often."
He laughed, his sudden pleasant laugh that he uttered now so rarely. "But I am no philosopher," he said. "Simply I think--a little--sometimes. And to me--to be honourable is no more a virtue than to wash the hands. One cannot do otherwise and respect oneself."
"No?" said Chris, a little dubiously. "Then, Bertie, if honour is not goodness, what is?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Goodness? Bah! There is no goodness without love."
"Oh!" Chris's eyes opened wide. "You think--that?"
He nodded with vehemence. "_Si, cherie_! I think--that; more, I know it. I know that 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.' One does not need to go further than that. It is enough, no?" His eyes looked straight into hers; they were shining with the light that only friendship can kindle.
She smiled back at him. "I should almost think it is, Bertie. It is enough for you anyhow, since you believe it."
"Ah, yes," he said very earnestly. "I believe it, Christine. I should not be here now--if I did not believe it."
She puckered her brows a little. "I don't quite know what you mean," she said.
He turned from her questioning eyes, pulling his hat down over his own. "No," he said. "But--you know enough, _ma petite_, you know enough."
"I sometimes think I don't know anything," she said restlessly.
He stretched out a hand to her, as one who guides a child. "Ah, Christine," he said sadly, "but it is better to know the little than the much."
"You all say that," said Chris. "I think it is rather a horrid world for some things, don't you?"
"But the world is that which we make it," said Bertrand.


CHAPTER II
ONE OF THE FAMILY

"But, my dear chap, what bally rot! Anyone would think I'd never smoked a pipe or handled a gun before, when I've done both for years."
Noel Wyndham's smile was the most engaging part of him; it had the knack of disarming the most wrathful. It had served him many a time in the hour of retribution, and he never scrupled to make use of it. It was quite his most valuable asset.
"Don't be waxy, old chap," he pleaded, slipping an affectionate hand inside his brother-in-law's unresponsive arm. "I've been having such a high old time. And I'm not a bloomin' kid. I know what I'm about."
"All very well," Mordaunt said. "I don't object to anything in reason. But you are too fond of taking French leave with other people's property. That gun, for instance--"
"Oh, that's all right," the boy assured him eagerly. "It kicks most infernally, but I soon got the trick of it after a bruise or two. I say, you haven't seen anything of that little devil Cinders? He's gone down a rabbit-hole. Won't Chris be in a stew?"
Mordaunt possessed himself of the gun without further argument. "Then you'd better set to work and find him. Chris is going out this afternoon."
"In the motor?" Noel's eyes shone. "I'll go, too. You needn't bother about Cinders. He always turns up sooner or later. Don't tell Chris, or she'll spend the rest of the day hunting for him."
"She will probably want to know," observed Mordaunt.
"I shall say I never had him," said Noel unconcernedly. "He won't come to any harm, but you can turn that secretary fellow of yours on to the job if you're feeling anxious. I say, Trevor, we shan't want the chauffeur. Tell them, will you?"
"You certainly won't go without him," Mordaunt rejoined. "And look here, Noel, you're not to tell lies. Understand?"
Noel looked up with a flicker of temper in his Irish eyes, "Oh, rats!" he said.
"Understand?" Mordaunt repeated. "It's the one thing I won't put up with, so make up your mind to that."
He spoke quite temperately, but with unswerving decision. His eyes looked hard into Noel's, and the boy's spark of resentment went out like an extinguished match.
"I say, I like you!" he said with enthusiasm. "You're a regular sport!"
"Thank you," Mordaunt returned gravely.
"And what about Chris?" Noel proceeded mischievously. "Isn't she allowed to tell lies, either?"
Mordaunt stiffened. "Chris knows better."
"Oh, does she?" Noel yelled derision. "My dear chap, you'll kill me! Why, she--she's about the worst of us. I never knew anyone lie quite like Chris when occasion arises."
He broke off. Mordaunt had shaken his arm free with an abruptness not far removed from violence.
"That's enough," he said sternly. "I don't advise you to say any more upon that subject."
"But I assure you it's the truth," Noel protested. "She can look you straight in the face and swear that black is white till you actually believe it. I assure you she can."
He spoke with such naive admiration of the achievement that Trevor Mordaunt, on the verge of anger, found himself checked suddenly by an irrepressible desire to laugh.
Noel saw and seized upon his advantage. "But I daresay she wouldn't to you. She gets everything she wants without. I must say you're jolly decent to all of us. I'm sorry I took your gun--didn't know it was one you particularly valued. I'd get one of my own only I'm so beastly hard up. I suppose you couldn't lend me a fiver now, could you?"
He tucked his hand back into Mordaunt's arm persuasively, and smiled his winning smile. "I'll pay you back--with interest--when I come of age. That'll be in five years. I wouldn't ask you if I couldn't. But I daresay Chris can let me have it if you would rather not."
"No!" Mordaunt said very decidedly. "There must be no borrowing from Chris. I will give you five pounds if you are wanting it, but not to buy a gun with, and only on the understanding that for the future you come to me--and never to Chris--if you chance to be in difficulties."
"Oh yes, I'll promise that," said Noel readily. "But