Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 23

Every movement about her set her heart pounding afresh. Sometimes it was the rustle of the trees outside; sometimes it was the call of a bird.

“Everard, come back.” she prayed.

“I can talk now … I can talk.” And she went on talking, just to assure herself that her voice was still hers to command.

Surely Everard would come back! Why had he said her name if he had not thought she might be there?

“Carolan!” A key turned in the lock, and Everard almost fell over her, lying there. He picked her up. She stared at him, still terrified, wondering if one of the dead ones had come for her and, as an additional torture, had made himself look like Everard. Everard sat down on the top step, just as though it was anybody’s step, and held her in his arms. She thought he looked frightened, but she only seemed to see things through a haze.

He said: “Everything is all right now, Carolan. I am taking you out of here.”

She was shaking so much she could not answer him. He was very tender, Jennifer said he was a mollycoddle. He did not play games; he liked his books; one day he would be a parson like his father, and write sermons all day long. But one thing Carolan knew instinctively about Everard; he would never lock frightened little girls in with the dead; and to Carolan, newly released from hell, he was wonderful.

He went on talking while she lay in his arms, which was just what she wanted him to do.

“There is nothing to be afraid of, Carolan. The dead cannot hurt anyone; besides, they are your own dead here. They would love you if they were alive, just as people at home love you.”

Just as people at home loved her? Charles? Jennifer? The squire? But did it matter what Everard said! She only wanted his protecting arms round her and to listen to his soothing voice.

“There!” said Everard softly, like somebody’s mother. There! You feel better now.”

Then her tears began to fall, and she could not stop them.

“Oh, I say!” cried Everard in real dismay.

“Oh, I say, you know, it is all right now, you know.”

But she could not stop the tears, and to show him that they were not really sad tears she began to laugh, and she was laughing and crying all at once, which frightened Everard. He kept saving her name.

“Carolan! Carolan!” and rocking her to and fro as though she were a baby. And eventually she stopped laughing and was only crying. Then Everard said: “I hope I have hurt him badly, I do!” She was so interested that she stopped crying and asked: “Who, Everard?”

“Charles!” said Everard.

“Let us get away from this place. We ought not to have stopped here; it is a dismal hole.”

They went out and he locked the door after him. She stared round-eyed at the key.

He said: “Your eyes are red!” And she began to sniff again. Then he added: “I don’t mind admitting I should not have liked being shut in there alone myself… much.”

And saying that was almost as wonderful as letting her out. He was twelve years old and she was five, and yet she felt a wonderful companionship spring up between them.

She could see the sunshine glinting through the trees, and she stared up at it, at the lovely sun itself. And when she blinked and shut her eyes she saw red suns on her lids, as though it were saying to her: “It is all right. It is all right. You see I am here, even when you shut your eyes!” And she was suddenly wonderfully happy; she leaped up and kissed Everard. He did not much like being kissed by a little girl of five, but he was faintly aware of the charm of Carolan, of green eyes shining between swollen lids and a sweet and tremulous baby mouth.

“I say.” he said.

“I say!” and wiped off Carolan’s kiss, smiling at her as he did so to show that he was not as annoyed as he might easily have been.

“You should bathe your eyes,” he said.

“I will take you to the pump in the yard, shall I?”

She nodded. Willingly she would have followed Everard to the end of the world.

Just as, a little while ago, everything had been dark tragedy, now everything was very gay or extremely comic. She laughed when Everard pumped the water and gave her a lace-edged handkerchief, which she held under the water. Then he stopped pumping, and said: “Here! Give it to me.” And he took it and bathed her face with it, and again she thought he was like somebody’s mother.

“Everard,” she asked him, ‘how did you get the key?”

“I knew he had it,” he told her, and that was another delightful characteristic of Everard’s; he did not say, as the others would: “Oh, shut up, baby.” or “You wouldn’t understand.” Everard went on: “He showed it to me this afternoon. Then, when I saw him without you and asked where you were, he looked sly and I guessed: so I came and called you, and when you did not answer I was afraid you had fainted.”

“I did not faint,” said Carolan proudly, ‘but when I tried to speak my voice would not come.”

“Well,” he said, ‘you are all right now.” She leaped high into the air to show him that she was indeed all right. She was happier than she had been all the afternoon or for many days; she was not sure why, but she was a mercurial little creature, often very sad, often very happy; but rarely had she been as happy as she was now. Perhaps it was because Everard, twelve years old and admired and respected by the others, was being so kind to her.

While they were at the pump, Charles and Margaret came up. There was a cut right across Charles’s forehead and it was bleeding. Charles and Everard glowered at each other, and Margaret looked frightened.

Everard said contemptuously: “You can say you fell over one of the tombstones and cut your forehead. Carolan can say she was with you and she fell first, and you went down after her. That will do.”

He went on bathing Carolan’s eyes, and there was a deep silence. After a while they went into the house.

Mrs. Orland was distressed that the children had come to harm at her house. She bathed Charles’s forehead and looked in dismay at the strange appearance of Carolan. She sat down and wrote a note to Kitty, which when she had summoned Jennifer from Mrs. Privett’s room she gave to her to take to her mistress.

Everard said: “It is nothing much, Mamma!” and Mrs. Orland said: “For shame, Everard! Your guests …!” Then Mr. Orland left his sermon for a little while and came out to say a few words before they left, but he noticed nothing unusual. Mr. Orland would not notice, Margaret had once said, if you walked on all fours. It was altogether a most exciting afternoon for Carolan, until they were riding home in the carriage; then her elation vanished.

Jennifer said: “Now, what was all the fuss about?”

They told her the story they had told Mrs. Orland.

“It was her fault!” said Charles, pointing to Carolan. and Margaret did not defend her. She was disliking Carolan almost as heartily as the others did. The silly baby! Why, Margaret had been looking at Everard’s books and then suddenly he had escaped from her, which had wounded her deeply, for she always tried to pretend that Everard wanted to be with her as much as she did with him; and then when she found him he had been bathing Carolan’s eyes because the silly baby had been crying! He had escaped from her to go to Carolan’s aid. She felt impatient with Carolan, so said nothing when Charles laid on the child’s shoulders the blame for the afternoon’s disturbance.

“I’ll warrant it was I’ said Jennifer, and decided to ask for no more details.

“She shall be punished; she shall be taught that it she is very ill-bred to make trouble in other people’s houses. Ill-bred, indeed! Well, and what else can we expect?”

Carolan’s happiness gave way to despair. She wondered whether Jennifer would whip her when they were back in the nursery. Perhaps she would content herself with a threat that she should be moved from the room she shared with Margaret to a dark one of her own. Suppose that her threat was followed by that action which Carolan dreaded more than anything else in the world. Carolan prayed fervently that it would only be a whipping, but from the way in which Jennifer was smiling, she was filled with fear. She could not bear it if she were sent to bed alone in a dark room. It would be almost as bad as being shut in the dark this afternoon, and it would not end suddenly with the kindness of Everard, but would go on night after night.