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

as she passed his chair.
"None at all," said Aunt Philippa.
"Oh, Aunt Philippa, I have, indeed!" protested Chris, colouring vividly. "Besides, I'm not hungry."
"Besides!" echoed Mordaunt, faintly smiling. "Drink a cup of hot milk before you go."
She made a wry face. "I can't. I hate it. Please don't keep me!"
"Then do as you are told," he said. "I thought I ordered you to stay in bed."
"Oh, don't be absurd!" said Chris; but she went back to her place and poured out the milk as he desired.
"Now drink it," he said, with his eyes upon her.
She obeyed him without further protest, finally setting the cup down with a sigh of relief.
Mordaunt rose to open the door. "You are not to do anything energetic to-day," he said.
She threw him a smile, half-shy, half-wistful, and departed without replying.
He turned back into the room and sat down. "I am not quite satisfied about Chris," he said.
"Neither am I," said Aunt Philippa, with unexpected severity.
He looked at her with awakened attention. "No?" he said courteously.
"No." Very decidedly came Aunt Philippa's reply. "I intended to speak to you upon the subject, my dear Trevor, and I am glad that an early opportunity for so doing has presented itself."
"You think she looks ill?" Mordaunt asked.
"Not at all," said Aunt Philippa. "The intense heat we have had lately is quite sufficient to account for her jaded looks. She has probably also been fretting unreasonably over the death of her dog. I believe that animal was the only thing in the world she ever really cared for."
Mordaunt rested his chin on his hand, and looked at her thoughtfully. "Indeed!" he said.
Neither his voice nor his face expressed anything whatever beyond a decorous gravity. Aunt Philippa began to feel slightly exasperated.
"She will get over that," she said, with a confidence that held more of contempt than tolerance. "None of the Wyndhams are fundamentally capable of taking anything seriously for long. You must have discovered their instability for yourself by this time."
"Not with respect to Chris." Was there a hint of sternness underlying the placidity of the rejoinder? There might have been, but Aunt Philippa was too intent upon the matter she had taken in hand to notice it.
"Oh, well," she said, "you haven't been married six weeks yet, have you? You will see what I mean sooner or later. But you may take it from me that all of them--Chris included--are without an atom of solidity in their composition. I warn you, Trevor, very seriously; they are not to be depended upon."
Mordaunt heard her without changing his position. His eyes looked straight at her from under lids that never stirred. "Is that what you have to say to me?" he asked, after a moment.
"It leads to what I have to say," returned Aunt Philippa with dignity.
She was quite in her element now, and enjoying herself far too thoroughly to be lightly disconcerted.
"Pray finish!" he said.
That gave her momentary pause. "I am speaking solely for your welfare," she told him.
"I do not question it," he returned.
Yet even she was aware that his stillness was not all the outcome of courteous attention. There was about it a restraint which made itself felt, as it were, in spite of him, a dominance which she set down to his forceful personality.
"The subject upon which I chiefly desire to speak a word of warning," she said, "is the presence in the house--the constant presence--of your young French secretary."
"Yes?" said Mordaunt.
He betrayed no surprise, but the word fell curtly, as if he found himself face to face with an unpleasant task and desired to be through with it as quickly as possible.
Aunt Philippa proceeded with just a hint of caution. "My dear Trevor, surely you are aware of the danger!"
"What danger?"
A difficult question, which Aunt Philippa answered with diplomacy. "Chris was always something of a flirt."
"Indeed!" said Mordaunt again.
His manner was so non-committal that Aunt Philippa began to lose her patience. "I should have thought that fact was patent to everyone."
"Never to me," said Chris's husband very deliberately.
Aunt Philippa smiled. "Then you are remarkably blind, my dear Trevor. Flightiness has been her chief characteristic all her life. If you have not yet found that out, I fear she must be deceitful as well."
"I am not discussing my wife's character," Mordaunt made answer very steadily.
"You prefer to shut your eyes to the obvious," said Aunt Philippa, beginning to be aware of something formidable in her path but not quite grasping its magnitude.
"I prefer my own estimate of her to that of anyone else," he made quiet reply.
Aunt Philippa made a slight gesture of uneasiness. The steady gaze was becoming a hard thing to meet. Had the man been less phlegmatic, she could almost have imagined him to be in a white heat of anger. He was so unnaturally quiet, his whole being concentrated, as it were, in a composure that she could not but feel to be ominous.
It was with an effort that the woman who sat facing him resumed her self-appointed task. "That I can well understand," she said. "But even so, I think you should bear in mind that Chris is young--and frail. You are not justified in exposing her to temptation."
"As how?"
Aunt Philippa hesitated for the first time in actual perturbation.
Mordaunt waited immovably.
"I think," she said at length, "that you would be very ill-advised if you went to town and left her here--thrown entirely upon her own resources."
"May I ask if you are still referring to my secretary?" he said.
She bent her head. "I have never approved of her being upon such intimate terms with him. She treats him as if--as if--"
"As if he were her brother," said Mordaunt quietly. "I do the same. I have many friends, but he is the one man in the world who possesses my entire confidence. For that reason I foster their friendship, for I know it to be a good thing. For that reason, if I were dying, I would confidently leave her in his care."
"My dear Trevor, the man has bewitched you!" protested Aunt Philippa.
His eyes fell away from her at last, and she was conscious of distinct relief, mingled with a most unwonted tinge of humiliation.
"I am obliged to you," he said formally, "for taking the trouble to warn me. But you need never do so again. Believe me, I am not blind; and Chris is safe in my care."
He rose with the words, and went to the sideboard for his breakfast. Here he remained for some time with his back turned, but when he finally came back to the table there was no trace of even suppressed agitation about him.
He sat down and began to eat with a perfectly normal demeanour. The silence, however, remained unbroken until Noel burst tempestuously into the room. No silence ever outlasted his appearance.
He flung his arms round his brother-in-law and embraced him warmly, with a friendly, "Hullo, you greedy beggar! Hope you haven't gobbled up everything! I'm confoundedly hungry. Morning, Aunt Philippa! I suppose you fed long ago? It's a disgusting habit, isn't it? But one we can't dispense with at present. Where's Chris?"
"Chris," said Aunt Philippa icily, "has already breakfasted, and so have I."
She moved towards the door as she spoke. Noel sprang with alacrity to open it, and bowed to the floor behind her retreating form.
"She looks like a dying duck in a thunderstorm," he observed, as he returned to the table. "What have you been doing to her? Has there been a thunderstorm?"
Mordaunt met his inquiring eyes without a smile. "Noel," he said, "if you can't be courteous to your aunt and your sister, I won't have you at the table at all--or in the house for that matter."
Noel uttered a long whistle. "I thought I smelt the reek of battle in the air! What's up? Anything exciting?"
"Do you understand me?" Mordaunt said, sticking to his point.
Noel broke into smiles. "Oh, perfectly, my dear chap! You're as simple as the Book of Common Prayer. But it would be a pity to kick me out of the house, you know. You'd miss me--horribly."
Mordaunt leaned back in his chair. "Then I'll give you a sound caning instead."
Noel nodded vigorous approval. "Much more suitable. I like you better every day. So does Chris. I believe she'll be in love with you before long."
"Really?" said Mordaunt.
"Yes, really." Noel was munching complacently between his words. "I never thought you'd do it. The odds were dead against you. She only married you to get away from Aunt Philippa. Of course you know that?"
"Really?" Mordaunt said again. He was not apparently paying much attention to the boy's chatter.
"Yes, really," Noel reiterated, with a grin. "It's solid, simple, sordid fact. The only chap she ever seriously cared about was a little beast of a Frenchman she chummed up with years ago at Valpre. I never met the beggar myself, but I'm sure he was a beast. But I'll bet she'd have married him if she'd had the chance. They were as thick as thieves."
At this point Mordaunt opened the morning paper with a bored expression, and straightway immersed himself in its contents.
Noel turned his attention to his breakfast, which he dispatched with astonishing rapidity, finally remarking, as he rose: "But you never can tell what a woman will do when it comes to the point--unless she's a suffragette, in which case she may be safely relied on to make a howling donkey of herself for all time."


CHAPTER XI
A BROKEN REED

"But, my good girl, five hundred pounds!" Rupert looked down at his sister with an expression half-humorous, half-dismayed. "What do you think I'm made of?" he inquired.
She stood before him, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. "I must have it! I must have it!" she said piteously. "I thought you might be able to raise it on something."
"But not on nothing," said Rupert.
"I would pay it back," she urged. "I could begin to pay back almost at once."
"Why on earth don't you ask Trevor for it?" he said. "He's the proper person to go to."
"Oh, I know," she answered. "And so I would for anything else, but not for this--not for this! He would ask questions, questions I couldn't possibly answer. And--oh, I couldn't--I couldn't!"
"What have you been up to?" said Rupert curiously.
"Nothing--nothing whatever. I've done nothing wrong." Chris almost wrung her hands in her agitation. "But I can't tell you or anyone what I want it for. Oh, Rupert, you will help me! I know you will!"
"Steady!" said Rupert. "Don't get hysterical, my child. That won't serve anybody's turn. I suppose you've been extravagant, and daren't own up. Trevor is a bit of a Tartar, I own. But five hundred pounds! It's utterly beyond my reach."
"Couldn't you borrow it from someone?" pleaded Chris. "Rupert, it's only for a time. I'll pay back a little every month. And you have so many friends."
Rupert made a grimace. "All of whom know me far too well to lend me money. No, that cock won't fight. I've a hundred debts of my own waiting to be settled. Trevor wasn't disposed to be over-generous the last time I approached him. At least, he was generous, but he wasn't particularly encouraging. He's such a rum beggar, and I have my own reasons for not wanting to go to him again at present."
"Of course you couldn't go to him for this," said Chris. "But--Rupert, if you could only help me in this matter, I would do all I could for you. I would