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Besides, you will sleep all the better for it. Five minutes more or
less--"
He pulled gently but firmly at the imprisoned hand. "Well, just five
minutes--although it's really--"
She was drawn down to the bench beside him, and the man in the moon, as
he looked into their shining, happy eyes, seemed to wink knowingly.
"Oh, Debbie, isn't it a heavenly night? Oh, Debbie!" His arms went
round her, and she simply melted into them. "Oh, my love!..."
Five minutes! It ran to an hour and a half before she scudded across
the lawn to bed.
And it was Mary, the busy housekeeper, who, on her busiest day, drove
to the station to meet Guthrie Carey and the baby, and the baby's cheap
and temporary child-nurse.
Mary, though she was not Deb, was too sweet and good for words. She put
the little hired girl on the front seat with the groom, and sat in the
body of the waggonette to talk to Guthrie and to take care of his
child. There was no awkward shyness on her part now, and no boredom on
his. Little Harry fused them. She had remembered to bring fresh milk
and rusks for a possibly hungry baby, and he sat on her lap as she fed
him, and cooed to her when his mouth was not too full, and seemed to
forget that any other foster-mother had ever existed. His father's
relieved and astonished pleasure in the sight was only equalled by
Mary's pleasure in seeing his pleasure. "Isn't he a jolly little
cuss, Miss Pennycuick?" "He is a perfect darling," crooned Mary,
kissing him.
And, in fact, Harry Carey was a fine, clean, wholesome child, as worthy
of his old family as any born under the ancestral roof.
Mary shouldered him as if he belonged to her when they arrived at
Redford, shortly before the dinner hour.
"Now, Mr Carey, you must go to the bachelors' quarters, I am sorry to
say; but he will not miss you, since you have been away from him for so
long. He knows me now," said Mary proudly, "and I will take charge of
him. You may safely leave him to us now."
"Indeed, yes, I know that," said the thankful parent, and hastened to
his new quarters to receive the greetings and chaffings of the young
bachelors, and to dress himself for dinner, while Mary carried the baby
into the house, calling on Keziah Moon to come to her, the inadequate
nurse-girl trailing at her heels.
The house party gathered in the glazed corridor of the "middle part"--
a long, narrow room, that had once been a verandah, and that led to the
new big dining-room--to await the summons to the meal. Here Deb,
beautiful in limp white silk that showed up the lovely carmine of her
cheeks, came forward to welcome the returned guest with an eager warmth
that sadly misled him. He sat down to his dinner a few minutes later
with his head in a whirl and his appetite nowhere, as an effect of that
cordial pressure of the hand, those tender eyes, and that deep-hued
blush upon him.
Then, as he came to himself, there crept into his mind a sense
that things had been happening while he was away. All the eyes around
the table seemed continually to turn either towards Deb, who, still
flushed, and bestowing absent-minded smiles upon anybody and anything,
was certainly different from her usual stately self; or upon Claud
Dalzell, who sat beside her, and seemed to have appropriated some of
her lost dignity; or upon Mr Pennycuick, who fumbled oddly with carving
knife and gravy spoon, and gave other evidences, Guthrie thought, of
having been upset and shaken. The young man was still fumbling himself
for light upon these mysteries, when they were dispelled by a shock
that for the moment stunned him.
Mr Pennycuick called for a certain brand of wine long famous at his
board. When it came, and the bottles were being sent round, he stood
up, with a trembling goblet in his hand. The eyes round the table
dropped--all but Guthrie's, which stared at the old man.
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Cambridge, Ada, 1844-1926 - Sisters