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

you know. Chris bolted last night. Heaven only knows where she's gone. I think she might have told me first."
"I can tell you," said Jack. "She is with Hilda at Graysdale. I have just come from there. Trevor is in town, you say?"
Noel nodded. "Bertrand's gone too, you know. That was the beginning of it. Trevor kicked him out for robbing him. Beastly little thief! I told Trevor he would long ago. I say, you are not going again!"
Jack, still standing on the mat, was consulting his watch. "If there is another up train to-night I must catch it. There's a motor here, isn't there? Send round word that it is wanted."
"But there isn't a train!" Noel protested. "I know the last one goes at nine-fifty, and it's past ten now. Have you all gone raving mad? I always thought you, anyhow, had a little sense."
Jack uttered a grim laugh. "Well, find a time-table. I must go by the first train in the morning, whatever the hour. I've got to see Trevor before he leaves England."
"You won't get any sense out of him," Noel remarked. "I told him he was a beastly cad myself before he went, and he didn't even punch my head. Oh, I say, Jack, this place is pretty ghastly with no one in it. I can't stick it much longer."
"Just get me a drink," Jack said, "and we will discuss your affairs at length."
Noel departed with his customary expedition. He returned with drinks for two, which he proceeded to mix with a lavish hand.
"I'm not going to let you have that," Jack observed. "You have dined, and I haven't. Get me some food like a good chap, and then we will have a talk."
Noel submitted meekly. He was fond of Jack. Returning with sufficient to satisfy his cousin's immediate needs, he seated himself on the table while he ate, and embarked upon a more detailed account of the happenings of the past two days.
"I only saw Chris for a few minutes," he said in conclusion. "She looked pretty desperate, and seemed horribly scared. But she wouldn't tell me why. I knew there was something up, of course. Trevor had told me she was upset about Bertrand. But I had no idea she was going to cut and run. I don't know if Trevor had, but I couldn't get anything out of him. It's my belief the silly ass was jealous."
Jack grunted.
"I didn't know what to do," Noel ended. "So I thought I'd stick on here till someone turned up."
"You ought to be going back to school," Jack remarked.
Noel leaned carelessly down upon his elbow and looked him straight in the eyes. "I'm not going," he said.
"Why not?"
"I've other things to think about. I'm going to Graysdale. Can you lend me a couple of quid for the journey? I'll pay you back when I come of age."
Jack surveyed him with one brow uplifted. "Suppose I can't?"
"I shall tramp, that's all." Noel made unconcerned response. He was accustomed to fend for himself, and the prospect of such an adventure was rather alluring than otherwise.
Jack smiled a little. He liked the boy's independence. "What do you want to go to Graysdale for?" he asked.
"To look after Chris, of course."
"Hilda can do that."
"Not in the same way. You needn't try to put me off. I'm going." Noel got off the table with his hands in his pockets and broke into a whistle.
Jack went on with his meal in silence.
Finally Noel came round and stood beside him. "That's understood, is it?" he said. "One of us ought to be with her, and as you and Rupert are chasing after Trevor, and Max is in town, it looks like my job. Anyhow, I'm going to take it on."
"All right," Jack said. "Go and prosper. I'm not sure that you will be wanted. But that's a detail. I daresay Chris may like to have you."
Noel grinned boyishly. "You're a white man, Jack! I'm jolly glad you turned up. Between ourselves, I don't mind telling you that I've been in a fairly stiff paste all day. It's a beastly feeling, isn't it? I'd have looked after her better if I'd known."
"You're a white man too," said Jack kindly. "Mind you behave like one."
They parted for the night soon after, to meet again very early in the morning, and finally separate upon their various errands.
Noel departed upon his in obviously high spirits; but he maintained his air of responsibility notwithstanding, and Jack took leave of him with a smile of approval.
He himself telegraphed to Hilda as soon as he arrived in town, and acquainted her with the fact of the boy's advent. He directed her to send her answering message to him at Mordaunt's rooms, and then proceeded thither with the firm determination to see the owner thereof without further delay.
Holmes admitted him, and imparted the information that his master was at breakfast with the eldest Mr. Wyndham, who had arrived overnight.
Jack's jaw hardened at the news. He had not expected to find Rupert accepting his brother-in-law's hospitality. He shrugged his shoulders over the volatility of the Wyndhams, and announced curtly that he desired to see Mr. Mordaunt in private.
"Will you come into the smoking-room, sir?" asked Holmes.
"Certainly. But tell him I can't wait," said Jack.
He marched into the smoking-room therewith, and Holmes softly closed the door upon him. The window by which Mordaunt had sat all night long was open, and the sounds of the street below came cheerily in. Jack crossed over and quietly shut it.
Turning from this, his eyes fell upon a photograph on the mantelpiece. He went up to it and took it between his hands. Gaily the pictured face laughed up at him--Chris in her happiest, wildest mood, with Cinders clasped in her arms; Chris, the child of the sunny eyes that no shadow had ever darkened!
Something rose suddenly in Jack's throat. He gulped hard, and put the portrait back. Was it indeed Chris--the broken-hearted woman he had held in his arms but yesterday? Then was the Chris of the old days gone for ever.
Someone entered the room behind him and he wheeled round.
"Good morning," said Mordaunt.
He offered his hand, but Jack ignored it and his greeting alike.
He stood for a couple of seconds in silence, looking at him, while Mordaunt waited with absolute composure. Then, "I daresay you are wondering what I have come for," he said. "Or perhaps you can guess."
"Why should I?" Mordaunt said.
Jack frowned abruptly. He had met this impenetrable mood before. But he would not be baffled by it. It was no moment for subtleties. He went straight to the point.
"I have come to tell you that Chris is at Graysdale with Hilda," he said.
Mordaunt's brows went up. He said nothing.
But Jack was insistent. "Did you know that?"
"I did not." Very deliberately came Mordaunt's answer; it held no emotion of any sort. The subject might have been one of utter indifference to him.
"Then where did you think she was?"
There was an undernote of ferocity in Jack's question, almost a hint of menace; but Mordaunt seemed unaware of it.
"Forgive me for saying so, Jack," he said. "But that is more my affair than yours. I have nothing whatever to discuss with you, nor do I hold myself answerable to you in any way for my actions."
"But I do," Jack said curtly. "I have always held myself responsible for Chris's welfare. And I do so still."
Mordaunt listened unmoved. "You can hardly expect me to acknowledge your authority," he said, "since my responsibility in that respect is greater than yours."
"I have no desire to dictate to you," Jack answered quickly. "But I do claim the right to speak my mind on this matter. Remember, it was I who first brought you into her life."
Mordaunt shrugged his shoulders slightly. "As to that, I am fatalist enough to believe that we should have met in any case. But isn't that beside the point? I have declined to discuss the matter with anyone, and I am not going to make an exception of you."
"You must," Jack said. He threw back his shoulders as if bracing himself for a physical conflict. He was plainly in earnest.
Mordaunt turned to the table and sat down. "You are wasting your time," he said. "Argument is quite useless. I have already decided upon my plan of action, and quarrelling with you is no part of it."
"What is your plan of action?" Jack demanded.
Mordaunt took out his cigarette-case. "I shall start for Paris in a couple of hours. Meantime"--he glanced up--"I suppose you won't smoke? Have you had any breakfast?"
"Then you mean to desert her?" Jack said.
Mordaunt's face remained immovable. He began to smoke in dead silence.
Jack's teeth clenched. "I am going to have an answer," he said.
"Very well." Coldly the words fell; there was something merciless in their very utterance. "Then I will answer you; but it is my last word upon the subject. My wife followed her own choice in leaving me, and it is my intention to abide by her decision. If you call that desertion--"
"I do," Jack broke in passionately. "It is desertion, nothing less. She left you--oh, I know all about it--she left you because you literally scared her away. You terrified her into going; there was nothing else for her to do. She had done nothing wrong. But you--you dared to suspect her of Heaven knows what. You dared to think that Chris--my Chris--was capable of playing you false, you who were the only man on earth I thought good enough for her. And do you know what you have done? You have broken her heart!" He took the portrait from the mantelpiece and thrust it in front of the man at the table. "That," he said, and suddenly his voice was quivering, "that was the child you married. I gave her into your care willingly, though, God knows, I worshipped her. No, you didn't cut me out. I was never in the running. I never so much as made love to her. I always knew she was not for me. When she accepted you, I thought it was the best thing that could possibly happen. I felt she would be safe with you. You were the one fellow I would have chosen to guard her. And she needed guarding. She was as innocent and as inexperienced as a baby. She didn't know the world and its beastly ways. I thought you were to be trusted to keep her out of the mud; I could have sworn you were. But you withdrew your protection just when she needed it most. You practically turned her out, cut her adrift. She might have gone straight to the bad for all you cared. And now, like the damned blackguard that you are, you are going to clear out and leave her to break her heart!"
Fiercely the words rushed out. Jack, the placid, the kindly, the careless, was for the moment electrified by a tornado of feeling that swept him far beyond the bounds of his customary easy _bonhomie_. He towered over the man in the chair as if at the first movement he would fell him to the ground.
But Mordaunt remained quite motionless. He had removed his cigarette, and sat looking straight up at him with steely eyes that never changed. When Jack ceased to speak, there fell a silence that was in a sense more fraught with conflict than any war of words.
Through it at length came Mordaunt's voice, measured and distinct and cold. "It is not particularly wise of you to take that tone, but