The Children

“I believe it’s something about the shape of my nose,” he had said to himself that very morning as he shaved in his spacious cabin on the upper deck of the big Mediterranean cruising-steamer.

The nose in question was undoubtedly not adventurous in shape; it did not thrust itself far forward into other people’s affairs; and the eyes above, wide apart, deep-set, and narrowed for closer observation, were of a guarded twilight gray which gave the nose no encouragement whatever.

“Nobody worth bothering about—as usual,” he grumbled. For the day was so lovely, the harbour of Algiers so glittering with light and heat, his own mood so full of holiday enterprise—it was his first vacation after a good many months on a hard exhausting job—that he could hardly believe he really looked to the rest of the world as he had seen himself that morning: a critical cautious man of forty-six, whom nobody could possibly associate with the romantic or the unexpected.

“Usual luck; best I can hope for is to keep my cabin to myself for the rest of the cruise,” he pondered philosophically, hugging himself at the prospect of another fortnight of sea-solitude before—well, before the fateful uncertainty of what awaited him just beyond the voyage....

“And I haven’t even seen her for five years!” he reflected, with that feeling of hollowness about the belt which prolonged apprehension gives.

Boyne, at this, invoking Uncle Edward, patron saint of the adventurous, risked a playful comment. “You’ve got them wonderfully well in hand.”

She smiled. “Oh, they’re very good children; all except ... Zinnie—!” she screamed; and Boyne, following her horrified glance, saw a stark naked little figure with a shock of orange-coloured hair and a string of amber beads capering toward them to the wonder and delight of the double row of spectators in the deck-chairs.

In a flash the young lady was on her feet, and Boyne was pressing a soap-scented bundle to his breast. “Hold Chip!” she commanded. “Oh, that little red devil!” She sped down the deck and catching up the orange-headed child gave her a violent shaking. “You’ll be catching cold next, you wretch,” she admonished her, as if this were the head and front of the child’s offending; and having pushed the culprit into the arms of a pursuing nurse she regained her seat.

“How nicely you’ve held him! He’s still asleep.” She received back the hot baby, all relaxed and slumber-scented, and the eyes she turned on Boyne were now full of a friendly intimacy—and much younger, he thought, than Blanca’s. “Did you ever mind a baby before?” she asked.

“Child! Where in the world have you dropped from?”

“Oh, Martin, Martin! I was so afraid you’d gone!”

He caught her by both hands, and she lifted a drawn little face to his. Well, why not? He had kissed her goodbye in Venice; now he touched his lips to her cheek. “Judy, how in the world did you get here? Have the heads of the clan come too?”

“Oh, Martin, Martin!” She kept fast hold of him, and he felt that she was trembling. She paid no attention to his question, but turned and glanced about her. “Isn’t there a writing-room somewhere that we could go to? There’s never anybody in them after dinner.”

He guided her, still clinging to him, to one of the handsomely appointed rooms opening off the corridor beyond the hall. As she had predicted, its desks were deserted, its divans unoccupied. She dropped down by Boyne, and threw her arms about his neck.

“Oh, Martin, say you’re glad! I must hear you say it!”

“Glad, child? Of course I’m glad.” Very gently he released himself. “But you look dead-beat, Judy. What’s the matter? Has anything gone wrong? Are your people here?”

She drew back a little and turned full on him her most undaunted face. “If you mean father and mother, they’re in Venice. They don’t know we’re here. You mustn’t be angry, Martin: we’ve run away.”

“Don’t gape at me, Martin. If you like to call it so, I stole the money. He always has a lot about, because it bores him so to write cheques.”

“And you helped yourself—to what you wanted?”

“It was awfully easy. I knew where the key was.” She seemed anxious to disclaim any undeserved credit in the matter. “And, anyhow, I knew part of it was intended for our expenses in the Engadine this summer. So it really wasn’t exactly like stealing—was it?”

Boyne sat down again, this time in a chair on the farther side of the room. There seemed to be something almost maleficent in the proximity of the small scarlet figure with rumpled hair and sleep-misted eyes, curled up defiantly in the sofa corner. “You told your father this, I suppose, in the letter you left for him?”

“Told him I’d taken the money?” She laughed. “If I had, there wouldn’t have been much use in taking it—would there?”

He groaned, and sat silent, his eyes fixed on the carefully scrubbed boards of the floor. For a while he concentrated his whole attention on one of their resinous knots; then, with limbs of lead, he slowly stood up again. “Well, I wash my hands of you—all of you.”

“Take away my children? Take them away from me?” Judith Wheater had pushed open the door, and stood there, small and pale, in her dripping mackintosh and bedraggled hat. She gave a little laugh, and her gray eyes measured the stranger with a deliberate and freezing scrutiny. “I don’t in the least know who you are,” she said, “but I know you don’t know what you’re talking about....” She glanced away to the ravaged scene, and the frightened excited faces of the children. “Heavens! What an unholy mess! What on earth has been happening? Oh, the poor drenched rabbit.... Here, wrap it up in my scarf.... Nanny, take the children upstairs, and send Susan at once to tidy up. Yes, Blanca; you must go too. If you can’t keep the little ones in order you’ve got to be treated like one of them.” She turned to the bewildered visitor. “I’m Miss Wheater. If you want to see me, will you please come into the sitting-room?” Her eye fell on Boyne, who had drawn back into the dusk of the passage, as if disclaiming any part in the impending drama. “Martin,” she challenged him, “was it you who brought this lady here?”

“It’s the Princess Buondelmonte, Judith.”