Part 9 (2/2)

”No,” she said slowly. ”I know no one on board. But I am glad to have seen the s.h.i.+p, for I was interested in it in a part of my life which is now over.”

The first officer was about to smile. Here was a remarkably pretty girl of seventeen or so, talking about a part of her life which was over! But the big, dark-blue eyes swept round and rested gravely on his face, and he bowed to her with a fitting solemnity.

Cynthia exaggerated, no doubt, taking herself seriously as young girls will. But the shock of that last night in the estancia had wrought a revolution in her thoughts. Though James Challoner no longer seemed to grip her hand, she walked in the chill shadow of his presence. Nor did that shadow quite lift even when she had landed in England.

They travelled into Warwicks.h.i.+re, and so came to that white house behind the old wall of red brick on the London road which Robert Daventry had once coveted for himself and had afterward bought for Cynthia. The Daventrys made it their home now. Though Cynthia never read a word about it in the papers, that disputed t.i.tle took a long while in the settling. Robert Daventry resumed the old ties. Joan, with Cynthia at her side, found the making of new ones not the laborious business she had feared, and Cynthia had her horses and as many friends as she had room for in her life. But the shadow was still about her. James Challoner might have found the means to follow them to England. At any corner of a lane she might discover his gross and sinister figure upon the path. A few miles away, the ancient city of Ludsey lifted high its old steeples and its modern chimneys. She was always secretly upon her guard in its climbing streets. There was always in her life a mirror facing a closed door, and at her heart a great fear lest she should see the door open.

CHAPTER IX

ROBERT DAVENTRY EXPLAINS

Thus the greater part of three years pa.s.sed, but toward the end of the third the influenza became virulent throughout that country. It was a winter of sharp frosts and sudden thaws. One week the lanes were deep in snow and the fields white squares ruled off by the hedges; the next the whole country-side ran water. The epidemic was at its worst in November, and during that month it attacked Joan Daventry. She was now a woman of seventy, and the activity of her life had worn out her heart. She died within a week of her seizure, and from that time Robert Daventry's strength steadily declined. It may have been that the loss of Joan loosened his hold on life, or, again it may have been, as Dr. Hill declared, that he caught a chill at the graveside which he could not shake off. But, whatever the cause, he ailed through November, and in the beginning of the following month, while sitting on the bench at Ludsey, he was seized with a great faintness.

He was driven back to the white house, and took to his bed; and on the next day the snow fell again.

Ten days after he had fallen sick, Dr. Hill came from the bedroom and found Cynthia waiting as ever for his news. He was an oldish man, and quite at home in that house. He slipped his arm through hers and said in a grave and gentle voice:

”Your father wants you, my dear. He has something to say to you.”

Cynthia looked at him anxiously.

”Won't it tire him too much to talk?”

”He will not, I think, be tired for very long. You had better go to him at once, for his mind is quite clear now. I will come back to-morrow morning, unless you telephone to me before then that you want me. It is now, I am afraid, a matter of waiting.”

He drove away from the door. Cynthia walked back along the pa.s.sages to the room where the old man lay in a great four-poster bed. The afternoon was closing in, and the room was not yet lit. But there was light enough for her to appreciate all that Dr. Hill had meant. Robert Daventry had grown so frail, his hands and face were so very nearly transparent.

”I have a good deal to tell you, Cynthia,” he said feebly, and his lips tried to smile. ”So listen to me carefully.”

The nurse went out of the room. Cynthia sat down by the bed and took the old man's hand in hers. She made no pretence that another opportunity would come.

”You will be very well off, my dear, I am thankful to say,” he continued. ”There's the estancia, about which I will say a word to you later, and a little more than four hundred thousand pounds in the stocks. It's practically all coming to you. Of course, the profit on the estancia varies with the season, and may in bad years mean nothing; but on the average, I reckon you ought to have about twenty-five thousand a year. That leaves out this house and the little farm which goes with it. They are yours already. I have made Hill one of my executors--he'll be rather a figurehead, I expect--and Isaac Benoliel, of Culver, the other. They are both friends and neighbors of yours, and understanding people. I have tied up half the money on you and your children. If you haven't any children you will bequeath it as you like. But I am hoping very much that you will have them. I once asked a woman what she looked back upon as the happiest time of her life, and she said the evenings when she and her husband used to sit alone together before their first child was born. I think that was a wise saying, Cynthia. It struck me very much at the time, and has never since seemed to me less true than it did then. And, you know, everybody can't expect quite the same luck as Joan and I had in finding you.” He pressed her hand with such strength as he had, and lay for a little while silent, husbanding his strength.

”I was advised by my lawyer,” he resumed, ”to tie my whole fortune up.

But I talked it over with Joan and we were afraid that it might perhaps occur to you afterward that we didn't completely trust you.”

”Oh, father, I should never have thought that,” Cynthia protested gently.

The old man shook his head.

”One can never be quite certain that queer, stinging ideas won't come,” he said. ”And we both were anxious that you should be sure always that we had no fear of the way in which you would manage your life. So you will be completely mistress of half your fortune,” and he hesitated for a moment, ”when you come of age. But I would like you, when you are in doubt, to consult Isaac Benoliel. I have a great faith in him.”

”I, too,” said Cynthia. ”I will consult him.”

A look of relief came into Robert Daventry's face.

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