However, like the proverbial dog in the manger, whether she valued her rights in Captain Pullen or not, Miss Leyton had no intention of permitting them to be interfered with. She would have died sooner than admit that he was necessary to her happiness. At the same time she considered it due to her dignity as a woman never to give in to his wishes when they opposed her own, and often when they did not.
She displayed no particular enthusiasm when they met, nor distress when they parted—neither was she ever troubled by any qualms lest during their frequent separations he should meet some woman whom he might perchance prefer to herself. They were engaged, and when the proper time came they would marry—meanwhile their private affairs concerned no one but themselves. In short, Elinor Leyton was not what is termed “a man’s woman”—all her friends (if she had any) were of her own sex.
Having perused her letter she refolded and replaced it in its envelope without a glance in the direction of Mrs. Pullen. Margaret thought she had a right to be informed of her brother-in-law’s movements. She had invited Miss Leyton to accompany her to Heyst at his request, and any prepar-ations which might be requisite before he joined them would have to be made by herself.
“Is that from Ralph? What does he say?” she enquired in a low voice.
“Nothing in particular!”
“But when may we expect him at Heyst?”
“Next week, he says, in time for the Bataille des Fleurs!”
“Are you not pleased?”
“Of course I am!” replied Elinor, but without a sparkle or blush.
“O! if it were only my Arthur that were coming!” exclaimed Margaret, fervently, “I should go mad with joy!”
“Then it is just as well perhaps that it is not your Arthur!” rejoined her companion, as she put the letter into her pocket.
“Now, Bobby,” announced the strident tones of the Baroness Gobelli from the other side of the balcony, “leave off picking the shrimps! You’ve ’ad more than enough! Ain’t bread and butter good enough for you? What’ll you want next?”
“But Mamma,” pleaded the youth, “I’ve only had a few! I’ve been shelling Papa’s all this time!”
“Put ’em down at once, I say!” reiterated the Baroness, “’ere William, take Bobby’s plate away! He’s ’ad plenty for this morning!”
“But I haven’t begun yet. I’m hungry!” remonstrated Bobby.
“Take ’is plate away!” roared the Baroness. “’Ang it all! Can’t you ’ear what I say?”
“Mein tear! mein tear!” ejaculated the Herr Baron in a subdued voice.
“Leave me alone, Gustave! Do you suppose I can’t manage my own son? He ain’t yours! ’E’d make ’imself ill if I didn’t look after 'im. Take ’is plate away, at once!”
The man-servant William lifted the plate of peeled shrimps and bread and butter from the table, whilst Bobby with a very red face rose from his seat and rushed down the steps to the beach.
“He! he! he!” cackled the Baroness, “that’ll teach ’im not to fiddle with ’is food another time! Bobby don’t care for an empty belly!”
“What a shame!” murmured Margaret, who was nothing if she was not a mother, “now the poor boy will go without his breakfast.”
Presently William was to be seen sneaking past the Hotel with a parcel in his hands. The Baroness pounced upon him like a cat upon a mouse.
“William!” she cried from the balcony, “what ’ave you got in your ’and?”
“Summat of my own, my lady!”
“Bring it ’ere!”
The man mounted the steps and stood before his mistress. He held a parcel in his hands wrapped up in a table napkin.
“Open that parcel!” said the Baroness.
“Indeed, my lady, it’s only the shrimps as Master Robert left behind him and I thought they would make me a little relish on the sands, my lady!”
“Open that parcel!”
William obeyed, and disclosed the rolls and butter and peeled shrimps just as Bobby had left them.
“You were going to take ’em down to Bobby on the beach!”
“No, indeed, my lady!”
“Confound you, Sir, don’t you lie to me!” exclaimed the Baroness, shaking her stick in his face. “I’ve ways and means of finding out things that you know nothing of! Throw that stuff into the road!”
“But, my lady——”
“Throw it into the road at once or you may take your month’s warning! ’Ang it all! are you the mistress, or am I?”
The servant threw a glance of enquiry in the direction of the Herr Baron, but the Herr Baron kept his face well down in his plate, so after a pause, he walked to the side and shook the contents of the napkin upon the Digue.
“And now don’t you try any more of your tricks upon me or I’ll thrash you till your own mother won’t know you! You leave Bobby alone for the future, or it’ll be the worst day’s work you ever did! Remember that!”
“Very good, my lady!” replied William, but as he left the balcony he gave a look at the other occupants which well conveyed his feelings on the subject.
“I should not be surprised to hear that that woman had been murdered by her servants some day!” said Margaret to Elinor Leyton.
“No! and I should not be sorry! I feel rather like murdering her myself. But let us go down to the sands, Margaret, and try to find the disconsolate Bobby! I’m not afraid of his mother if William is, and if he wants something to eat I shall give it him!”
They fetched their hats and parasols, and having left the Hotel by a side entrance, found their way down to the sands. It was a pretty sight there and in some cases, a comical one. The bathing machines were placed some sixty or more feet from the water, according to the tide, and their occupants, clad in bathing costumes, had to run the gauntlet of all the eyes upon the beach as they traversed that distance in order to reach the sea. To some visitors, especially the English ones, this ordeal was rather trying. To watch them open a crevice of the machine door and regard the expectant crowd with horror;—then after some hesitation, goaded on by the cries of the bathing women that the time was passing, to see them emerge with reluctant feet, sadly conscious of their unclothed condition, and of the unsightly corns and bunions which disfigured their feet—to say nothing of the red and blue tint which their skin had suddenly assumed—was to find it almost impossible to refrain from laughter.
The very skinny and knuckle-kneed ones; the very fat and bulging ones; the little fair men who looked like Bobby’s peeled shrimps, and the muscular black and hairy ones who looked like bears escaped from a menagerie—these types and many others our ladies could not help being amused at, though they told each other it was very improper all the time. But everybody had to pass through the same ordeal and everybody submitted to it, and tried to laugh off their own humiliation by ridiculing the appearance of their neighbours. Margaret and Elinor were never tired of watching the antics of the Belgians and Germans whilst they were (what they called) bathing. The fuss they made over entering two feet of water—the way in which they gasped and puffed as they caught it up in their hands and rubbed their backs and chests with it—the reluctance with which the ladies were dragged by their masculine partners into the briny, as if they expected to be overwhelmed and drowned by the tiny waves which rippled over their toes, and made them catch their breath. And lastly, when they were convinced there was no danger, to see them, men and women, fat and thin, take hands and dance round in a ring as if they were playing at “Mulberry Bush” was too delightful. But if one bather, generally an Englishman more daring than his fellows, went in for a good swim, the coast-guardsmen ran along the breakwater shouting “Gare, gare!” until he came out again.
“They are funnier than ever to-day,” remarked Margaret, after a while. “I wonder what they will say when they see Ralph swimming out next week. They will be frightened to death. All the Pullens are wonderful swimmers. I have seen Anthony Pennell perform feats in the water that made my blood run cold! An
d Ralph is famous for his diving!”
The topic did not appear to interest Elinor. She reverted to the subject of Anthony.
“Is that the literary man—the cousin?”
“Yes! Have you not met him?”
“Never!”
“I am sure you would like him! He is such a fine fellow! Not such a ‘beauty man’ as Ralph, perhaps, but quite as tall and stalwart! His last book was a tremendous success!”
“Ralph has never mentioned him to me, though I knew he had a cousin of that name!”
“Well!—if you won’t be offended at my saying so—Ralph has always been a little jealous of Anthony, at least so Arthur says. He outstripped him at school and college and the feeling had its foundation there. And anyone might be jealous of him now! He has shewn himself to be a genius!”
“I don’t like geniuses as a rule,” replied Elinor, “they are so conceited. I believe that is Bobby Bates sitting out there on the breakwater! I will go and see if he is still hungry!”
“Give the poor boy a couple of francs to get himself a breakfast in one of the restaurants,” said Margaret, “he will enjoy having a little secret from his terrible Mamma!”
She had not been alone long before the nurse came up to her with the perambulator, piled up with toys but no baby. Margaret’s fears were excited at once.
“Nurse! nurse, what is the matter? Where is the baby?” she exclaimed in tones of alarm.
“Nothing’s the matter, Ma’am! pray don’t frighten yourself!” replied the servant. “It’s only that the young ladies have got baby and they’ve bought her all these toys and sent me on to tell you that they would be here directly!”
The perambulator was filled with expensive play things useless for an infant of six months old. Dolls, woolly sheep, fur cats, and gaily coloured balls with a huge box of chocolates and caramels, were piled one on the top of the other. But Mrs. Pullen’s face expressed nothing but annoyance.
“You had no right to let them take her, Nurse—you had no right to let the child out of your sight! Go back at once and bring her here to me! I am exceedingly annoyed about it!”
“Here are the young ladies, Ma’am, and you had better lay your orders on them yourself, for they wouldn’t mind me,” said the nurse somewhat sullenly.
In another minute Harriet Brandt and Olga Brimont had reached her side, the former panting under the weight of the heavy infant, but with her face scarlet with the excitement of having captured her.
“O! Miss Brandt!” cried Margaret, “you have given me such a fright! You must never take baby away from her nurse again, please! As I told you last night she is afraid of strangers, and generally cries when they try to take her! Come to me, my little one!” she continued, holding out her arms to the child, “come to mother and tell her all about it!”
But the baby seemed to take no notice of the fond appeal. It had its big eyes fixed upon Miss Brandt’s face with a half-awed, half-interested expression.
“O! no! don’t take her away!” said Harriet eagerly. “She is so good with me! I assure you she is not frightened in the least bit, are you my little love?” she added, addressing the infant. “And nurse tells me her name is Ethel, so I have ordered them to make her a little gold bangle with ‘Ethel’ on it, and she must wear it for my sake, darling little creature!”
“But, Miss Brandt, you must not buy such expensive things for her, indeed. She is too young to appreciate them, besides I do not like you to spend so much money on her!”
“But why shouldn’t I? What am I to do with my money if I may not spend it on others?”
“But, such a quantity of toys! Surely you have not bought all these for my baby!”
“Of course I have! I would have bought the whole shop if it would have pleased her! She likes the colours! Little darling! look how earnestly she gazes at me with her lovely grey eyes, as if she knew what a little beauty I think her! O! you pretty dear! you sweet pink and white baby!”
Mrs. Pullen felt somewhat annoyed as she saw the dolls and furry animals which were strewn upon the sands. At the same time she was flattered by the admiration exhibited of her little daughter, and the endearments lavished upon her. She considered them all well deserved (as what mother would not?)—and it struck her that Harriet Brandt must be a kindhearted as well as a generous girl to spend so much money on a stranger’s child.
“She certainly does seem wonderfully good with you,” she observed presently. “I never knew her so quiet with anybody but her nurse or me before. Isn’t it marvellous, Nurse?”
“It is, Ma’am! Baby do seem to take surprisingly to the young lady! And perhaps I might go into the town, as she is so quiet, and get the darning wool for your stockings!”
“O! no! no! We must not let Miss Brandt get tired of holding her. She is too heavy to be nursed for long!”
“Indeed, indeed she is not!” cried Harriet, “do let me keep her, Mrs. Pullen, whilst nurse goes on her errand. It is the greatest pleasure to me to hold her. I should like never to give her up again!”
Margaret smiled.
“Very well, Nurse, since Miss Brandt is so kind, you can go!”
As the servant disappeared, she said to Harriet, “Mind! you give her to me directly she makes your arm ache! I am more used to the little torment than you are.”
“How can you call her by such a name, even in fun? What would I not give to have a baby of my very own to do what I liked with? I would never part with it, night nor day. I would teach it to love me so much that it should never be happy out of my sight!”
“But that would be cruel, my dear! Your baby might have to part with you, as you have had to part with your mother!”
At the mention of her mother something came into Miss Brandt’s eyes which Margaret could not define. It was not anger, nor sorrow, nor remorse. It was a kind of sullen contempt. It was some thing that made Mrs. Pullen resolve not to allude to the subject again. The incident made her examine Harriet’s eyes more closely than she had done before. They were beautiful in shape and colour, but they did not look like the eyes of a young girl. They were deeply, impenetrably black—with large pellucid pupils, but there was no sparkle nor brightness in them, though they were underlaid by smouldering fires which might burst forth into flame at any moment, and which seemed to stir and kindle and then go out again when she spoke of anything that interested her. There was an attraction about the girl which Mrs. Pullen acknowledged without wishing to give in to. She could not keep her eyes off her! She seemed to hypnotise her as the snake is said to hypnotise the bird, but it was an unpleasant feeling, as if the next moment the smouldering fire would burst forth into flame and overwhelm her. But watching her play with, and hearing her talk to her baby, Margaret put the idea away from her and only thought how kindly natured she must be to take so much trouble for another woman’s child. It was not long before Miss Leyton found her way back to them and as her glance fell upon Harriet Brandt and the baby she elevated her eyebrows.
“Where is the nurse?” she demanded, curtly.
“She has gone to the shops to see if she can get some darning wool and Miss Brandt was kind enough to offer to keep baby for her till she returns. And O! Elinor, look what beautiful toys Miss Brandt has bought her! Isn’t she too kind?”
“Altogether too kind!” responded Elinor. “By the way, Margaret, I found our friend and transacted the little business we spoke of! But he says his Mamma has ordered him to remain here till she comes down to see him bathe, and dry him I suppose with her own hands! And do I not descry her fairy feet indenting the sands at this very moment and bearing down in our direction?”
“You could hardly mistake her for anybody else!” replied Mrs. Pullen.
In another minute the Baroness was upon them.
“Hullo,” she called out, “you’re just in time to see Gustave bathe! He looks lovely in his bathing costume! His legs are as white as your baby’s, Mrs. Pullen, and twice as well worth looking at!”
“M
ein tear! mein tear!” remonstrated the Baron.
“Don’t be a fool, Gustave! You know it’s the truth! And the loveliest feet, Miss Leyton! Smaller than yours I bet. Where’s that devil, Bobby? I’m going to give ’im a dousing for his villainy this morning I can tell you! Once I get ’is ’ead under water it won’t come up again in a hurry! I expect ’e’s pretty ’ungry by this time! But ’e don’t get a centime out of me for cakes to-day. I’ll teach ’im not to stuff ’imself like a pig again. Come, Gustave! ’ere’s a machine for you! Get me a chair that I may sit outside it! Now we’ll ’ave some fun,” she added, with a wink at Mrs. Pullen.
“Let us move on to the breakwater!” said Margaret to Elinor Leyton, and the whole party got up and walked some little distance off.
“Ah! you don’t hoodwink me!” screamed the Baroness after them.
“You’ve got glasses with you, and you’re going to ’ave a good squint at Gustave’s legs through ’em, I know! You’d better ’ave stayed ’ere, like honest women, and said you enjoyed the sight!”
“O! Margaret!” said Miss Leyton, with a look of horror. “If it had not been for the Bataille des Fleurs and . . . . the other thing. . . . I should have said, for goodness’ sake, let us move on to Ostende or Blankenburghe with the least possible delay. That woman will be the death of me yet! I’m sure she will!”
Notwithstanding which, they could not help laughing in concert a little later on to see the unwilling Bobby dragged down by William to bathe, and as he emerged from his machine, helpless and half naked, to watch his elephantine mother chase him with her stout stick in hand, and failing to catch him in time, slip on the wet sand and flounder in the waves herself, from which plight it looked very much as though her servant instead of rescuing her did his best to push her further in before he dragged her, drenched and disordered, on dry land again.
The Blood of the Vampire Page 8