Hesba Stretton - The Ultimate Christmas Library - 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems and Carols

He did so now, smiling up at her. He was so happy, that things were becoming a little dream-like again; not a nightmare—that would be impossible with Helen so near—but an exquisite dream; a dream too perfectly beautiful to be true.

"Darling," he said, "I brought the Infant home in a canvas bag. We must have a proper case made for it. Aubrey said you would probably want to put it into a bassinet! I suppose he thought your mind would be likely to run on bassinets. But the Infant always reminds me of the darkest horse-chestnut you ever saw in a bursting bur; so I intend to have a case of polished rosewood made for it, lined with white velvet."

Helen laughed, wildly.

"I have not the smallest desire, Ronald, to put your 'cello into a bassinet!" she said.

It dawned upon Ronnie that Helen was not pleased.

"It was a silly joke of Aubrey's. I told him so. I said I should tell you he said it, not I. Let's talk of something else."

He turned his eyes resolutely from the 'cello, and told her of his manuscript, of the wonderful experiences of his travels, his complete success in finding the long grass thirteen feet high, and the weird, wild setting his plot needed.

Suddenly he became conscious that Helen was not listening. She sat gazing into the fire; her expression cold and unresponsive.

Ronnie's heart stood still. Never before had he seen that look on Helen's face. Were his nightmares following him home?

For the first time in his life he had a sense of inadequacy. Helen was not pleased with him. He was not being what she wanted.

He fell miserably silent.

Helen continued to gaze into the fire.

The Infant of Prague calmly reflected the golden lamplight in the wonderful depths of its polished surface.

Suddenly an inspiration came to Ronnie. Brightness returned to his face.

He stood up.

"Darling," he said, "I told you that an even greater moment was coming for us."

She rose also, and faced him, expectant.

He put out his hand and lifted the Infant.

"Helen, let's go to the studio, where I first told you I felt sure I could play a 'cello. We will sit there in the firelight as we did on that last evening, seven months ago, and you shall hear me make the Infant sing, for the very first time."

Then the young motherhood in Helen, arose and took her by the throat.

"Ronald!" she said. "You are utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish! I am ashamed of you!"

They faced each other across the table.

Every emotion of which the human soul is capable, passed over Ronnie's countenance—perplexity, amazement, anger, fury; grief, horror, dismay.

She saw them come and go, and come again; then, finally, resolve into a look of indignant misery.

At last he spoke.

"If that is your opinion, Helen," he said, "it is a pity I ever returned from the African jungle. Out there I could have found a woman who would at least have given me a welcome home."

Then his face flamed into sudden fury. He seized the cup from which he had been drinking, and flung up his hand above his head. His upper lip curled back from his teeth, in an angry snarl.

Helen gazed at him, petrified with terror.

His eyes met hers, and he saw the horror in them. Instantly, the anger died out of his. He lowered his hand, carefully examined the pattern on the cup, then replaced it gently in the saucer.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I ought not to have said that—about another woman. There is but one woman for me; and, welcome or no welcome, there is but one home."

Then he turned from her, slowly, deliberately, taking his 'cello with him. He left the room, without looking back. She heard him cross the hall, pause as if to pick up something there; then pass down the corridor leading to the studio.

Listening intently, she heard the door of the studio close; not with a bang—Ronnie had banged doors before now—but with a quiet irrevocability which seemed to shut her out, completely and altogether.

Sinking into the chair in which she had awaited his coming with so much eagerness of anticipation, Helen broke into an uncontrollable paroxysm of weeping.

Precisely how long she remained alone in her sitting-room, Helen never knew; but it cannot have been the long hours it seemed, seeing that Simpkins did not appear to fetch the tea-tray, nor did Nurse send down any message from the nursery.

Helen had wept herself into the calm of exhaustion, and was trying to decide what her next move should be, when the hoot of a motor sounded in the park. In another moment she heard it panting at the door. Then the bell pealed.

With the unfailing instinct of her kind, to hide private grief and show a brave front to the world, Helen flew to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, put away her damp handkerchief; and, standing calmly beside the mantel-piece, one foot on the fender, awaited her unexpected visitor.

She heard voices in the hall, then Simpkins opened the door and tried to make an announcement, but some unseen force from behind whirled him away, and a broad-shouldered young man in an ulster, travel-stained and dishevelled, appeared in his stead, shut the door upon Simpkins, and strode into the lamplight, his cloth cap still on the back of his head, his keen dark eyes searching Helen's face eagerly.

His cap came off before he spoke to her; but, with his thick, short-cropped hair standing on end, a bare head only added to the wildness of his appearance.

He stopped when he reached the tea-table.

"Where's Ronnie?" he said, and he spoke as if he had been running for many miles.

"My husband is in the studio," replied Helen, with gentle dignity.

"What's he doing?"

"I believe he is playing his 'cello."

"Oh, lor! That wretched Infant! Is he all right?"

"So far as I know."

"What time did he get here?"

"At half-past four."

The dishevelled young man glanced at the clock.

"Oh, lor!" he said again. "To think I've travelled night and day and raced down from town in a motor to get here first, and he beat me by an hour and a half! However, if he's all right, no harm's done."

He dropped into Ronnie's chair, and rumpled his hair still further with his hands.

"I must try to explain," he said.

Then he lifted a rather white, very grubby face to Helen's. His lips twitched.

"I'm dry," he said; and dropped his face into his hands.

Helen rang the bell.

"Bring whisky and soda at once," she ordered, the instant Simpkins appeared in the doorway.

Then she crossed over, and laid her hand lightly on her visitor's broad shoulder.

"Don't try to explain," she said kindly, "until you have had something. I am sure I know who you are. You appear in all sorts of cricket and football groups in Ronnie's dressing-room. You are Ronnie's special chum, Dick Cameron."

Dick did not lift his head. As a matter of fact, at that moment he could not. But, though his throat contracted, so that speech became impossible, in his heart he was saying: "What a woman! Lor, what a woman! Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have offered me tea—and tea that had stood an hour; and the hundredth would have sent for a policeman! But she jumps instantly to whisky and soda; and then walks across and makes me feel at home. Eh, well! We shall save old Ronnie between us."

She administered the whisky and soda when it appeared; sitting gently beside him, in exceeding friendliness.

The rugged honesty of the youth appealed to her. His very griminess seemed but an earnest of his steadfast purpose, and suited her present mood of utter disillusion with the artistic and the beautiful.

Dick's look of keen alertness, his sense of forceful vigour, soon returned to him.

He stood up, surveyed himself in the glass, then turned with a rueful smile to Helen.