Part 3 (1/2)
It was noticeable amongst the houses, because a curious turnstile was let into the garden wall. The turnstile supported a small circular platform part.i.tioned off with screens. James Challoner placed his child upon the platform, rang the bell, and turned the stile. The platform revolved, the child disappeared from view within the garden, and the screens were so arranged that those who received the child within could not see James Challoner outside.
James Challoner went back into the middle of the road, yawned, and stretched his arms above his head. To-day you may cross the Andes from Valparaiso to Buenos Ayres in forty-eight hours. James Challoner had taken four months. He thought of his journey with a chuckle. His daughter had made his way easy.
”Nine hundred miles and I've done 'em on eiderdown,” he said. ”That's the only bit of comfort I've ever got out of my marriage.”
He had left his child in a foundling hospital kept by some wealthy old ladies. He had tied a bootlace round her arm, rather because it was the conventional thing to do, than with any intention of reclaiming her. He was now a free man. He lit his pipe and stuck his hands in his pockets. With a pleasant sense of lightness, he strolled down to exploit his freedom in the bright streets of Buenos Ayres.
CHAPTER IV
CYNTHIA'S BIRTHDAY
Cynthia woke on the eighth of January to the knowledge that a thrilling day for her had just begun. She looked out beneath the sun blinds across the Daventry estancia. Not a hand-breadth of cloud was visible. The brown earth baked under a blinding sun and the sky fitted down-upon it like a cap of bra.s.s. Inside the room, however, there was neither glare nor heat; and Cynthia stood with her expectations of the day fluttering about her like a shower of rose leaves. She was seventeen this morning, and the pride of it set her heart dancing.
There would be letters downstairs from her friends, she hoped. There was a string of pearls, she knew. It had been bought that winter in Buenos Ayres with so elaborate a secrecy, and after so much furtive discussion as to whether it was good enough, that she could not but know of it. Moreover, there was a most important telegram to be despatched immediately after breakfast; a telegram of so much consequence that no hand but hers must write it out and send it off.
So Cynthia was quick this morning. She dressed herself in a cool white frock, her white shoes and stockings, and ran lightly down the stairs into that room where years before a chandelier had of its own accord swung to and fro.
Valparaiso had long since been rebuilt, but Robert and Joan Daventry still kept house in Buenos Ayres through the winter, and made the estancia their summer home. The years, however, had brought their changes. Robert and Joan were frankly an old couple nowadays; a young Englishman was sitting at the breakfast table; he undertook the whole burden of management; and, finally, there was Cynthia. The ”other plan,” so often debated and so often shelved, had been adopted, after all; the experiment from which Robert Daventry had so shrunk had been risked; and Cynthia was the triumphant flower of it.
She greeted the old couple tenderly, shook hands with Richard Walton, the young manager, and received his good wishes with a pretty a.s.sumption of great dignity. But her eyes strayed to the table, where her place was piled high with parcels and letters, and her dignity vanished in her delight.
”I have many friends,” she cried, with a sort of wonder in her voice very taking to those who looked on her while she spoke. For she could not but have friends, it seemed. So frank a wish to please and so sweet a modesty were linked to so much beauty. It was not the beauty of Argentina, though a rhapsodist might have maintained that some of its sunlight was held prisoner in the heavy ripples of her hair. But the hair was light brown in color, where the gold did not s.h.i.+ne, and the rose was in her cheeks. A broad forehead, eyebrows thick and brown, curving across a fair skin above great eyes of a deep blue set rather wide apart, gave to her face a curious distinction. And her eyes looked out from so dark a wealth of lashes that they seemed unfathomable with mysteries--until she spoke. Then kindliness and a fresh joy in life lit them with soft fires. For the rest, she was neither short nor remarkable for height, the nose and the nostrils delicate, the chin small, but a definite chin. As for her mouth, it was not a rosebud, nor again was it a letter-box. It suited her and she could afford to smile. One granted her, at a glance, health and a look of race.
She began to open her letters and her presents. ”Yes, I have many friends,” she repeated.
”It may be surprising,” said Robert Daventry. ”But it seems to be true. In fact, I am not quite sure that I have not some small token about me that Joan and I don't dislike you altogether.”
He fumbled first in one pocket, then in another.
”Really?” cried Cynthia. She leaned toward him, all eagerness and curiosity. Her lips were parted in a smile. She followed the movements of his hands with an air of suspense. She knew very well that half the pleasure of the givers would be spoilt if she betrayed any knowledge of the gift.
”What can it be?” Her whole att.i.tude asked, while Robert Daventry slapped himself and looked under the table in a great fl.u.s.ter lest he should have mislaid the present. His concern was sheer farce; she, with a subtle skill of comedy, played her little part of happy impatience.
”Ah!” cried Robert Daventry at last. ”It is not lost;” and he took out from his breast pocket a narrow case of green leather and from the white satin lining of the case the expected string of pearls. She stood up while Robert Daventry clasped it about her throat, and, as she took her seat again, she said in a low voice:
”You are both extraordinarily kind to me. I often wonder what would have become of me but for you--where I should be now.”
For a moment both of the old people looked startled. Then Robert Daventry hastened to protest.
”My dear,” he cried in a flurry, ”you are, after all, of my flesh and blood. And flesh and blood has its claims.”
Joan's quiet voice came to his help:
”Besides, the debt is not all on one side, Cynthia. We were not very contented until you came to us, were we Robert?”
”No, we weren't,” he replied with relief, like a man floundering who finds solid ground under his feet. ”We had lived hard and had done a great deal of work, and we were beginning to ask ourselves why. The heat and the ardor were over, you see. Our lives were cooling down. We had come to a time when one is apt to sit at night over the fire and wonder regretfully, now that no change is possible, whether we hadn't aimed at the wrong things and got less than we might have got out of our lives. We had piled up, and were still piling up, a great deal more money than we had any use for. We had made Daventry out of a plain as bare as the palm of my hand, and we had no one very dear to us to whom we could leave it. There didn't seem to be much use in things. Next week was going to be like this week, and the week after like next week, and life altogether nothing more than a succession of dull things. We were very nearly abandoning the estancia and retiring to England when my brother died.”
”And left me to you,” said Cynthia.
Robert Daventry nodded.