But to release her skirt and give her a hand he must trust himself on the jagged bough, hoping it would bear the double weight. It looked rather a dead one, and its sharp end was sticking through a hole in Tara's frock. He set foot on it cautiously and proffered a hand.
"Now—catch hold!" he said.
Agile as he, she swung herself up somehow and clutched at him with both hands. The half-dead bough, resenting these gymnastics, cracked ominously. There was a gasp, a scuffle. Roy hung on valiantly, dragging her nearer for a firmer foothold.
And suddenly down below Prince began to bark—a deep, booming note of welcome.
"Hullo, Roy!" It was his father's voice. "Are you murdering Tara up there? Come out of it!"
Roy, having lost his footing, was in no position to look down—or to disobey: and they proceeded to come out of it, with rather more haste than dignity.
Roy, swinging from a high branch for his final jump—a bit of pure bravado because he felt nervous inside—discovered, with mingled terror and joy, that his vagrant foot had narrowly shaved Aunt Jane's neat hard summer hat: Aunt Jane—of all people—at such a moment, when you couldn't properly explain. He half wished he had kicked the fierce little feather and broken its back——
He was on the ground now, shaking hands with her, his sensitive clean-cut face a mask of mere politeness: and Tara was standing by him—a jagged hole in her blue frock, a scratch across her cheek, and her hair ribbon gone—looking suspiciously as if he had been trying to murder her instead of doing her a knightly service.
She couldn't help it, of course. But still—it was a distinct score for Aunt Jane, who, as usual, went straight to the point.
"You nearly kicked my head just now. A little gentleman would apologise."
He did apologise—not with the best grace.
"My turn next," his father struck in. "What the dickens were you up to—tearing slices out of my finest tree!" His twinkly eyes were almost grave and his voice was almost stern. ("Just because of Aunt Jane!" thought Roy.)
Aloud he said: "I'm awfully sorry, Daddy. It was only … Tara got in a muddle. I had to help her."
The twinkle came back to his father's eyes.
"The woman tempted me!" was all he said; and Roy, hopelessly mystified, wondered how he could possibly know. It was very clever of him. But Aunt Jane seemed shocked.
"Nevil, be quiet!" she commanded in a crisp undertone; and Roy, simply hating her, pulled out his watch.
"We've got to hurry, Daddy. Mother said 'not later than half-past.' And it is later."
"Scoot, then. She'll be anxious because of the storm."
But though Roy, grasping Tara's hand, faithfully hurried ahead because of mother, he managed to keep just within earshot; and he listened shamelessly, because of Aunt Jane. You couldn't trust her. She didn't play fair. She would bite you behind your back. That's the kind of woman she was.
And this is what he heard.
"Nevil, it's perfectly disgraceful. Letting them run wild like that; damaging the trees and scaring the birds."
She meant the pheasants of course. No other winged beings were sacred in her eyes.
"Sorry, old girl. But they appear to survive it." (The cool good-humour of his father's tone was balm to Roy's heart.) "And frankly, with us, if it's a case of the children or the birds, the children win, hands down."
Aunt Jane snorted. You could call it nothing else. It was a sound peculiarly her own, and it implied unutterable things. Roy would have gloried had he known what a score for his father was that delicately implied identity with his wife.
But the snort was no admission of defeat.
"In my opinion—if it counts for anything," she persisted, "this harum-scarum state of things is quite as bad for the children as for the birds. I suppose you have a glimmering concern for the boy's future, as heir to the old place?"
Nevil Sinclair chuckled.
"By Jove! That's quite a bright idea. Really, Jane, you've a positive flair for the obvious."
(Roy hugely wanted to know what a "flair for the obvious" might be. His eager brain pounced on new words as a dog pounces on a bone.)
"I wish I could say the same for you," Lady Roscoe retorted unabashed. "The obvious, in this case—though you can't or won't see it—is that the boy is thoroughly spoilt, and in September he ought to go to school. You couldn't do better than Coombe Friars."
His father said something quickly in a low tone and he couldn't catch Aunt Jane's next remark. Evidently he was to hear no more. What he had heard was bad enough.
"I don't care. I jolly well won't," he said between his teeth—which looked as if Aunt Jane was not quite wrong about the spoiling.
"No, don't," said Tara, who had also listened without shame. And they hurried on in earnest.
"Tara," Roy whispered, suddenly recalling his quest. "I found the Golden Tusks. I'll tell it you after."
"Oh, Roy, you are a wonder!" She gave his hand a convulsive squeeze and they broke into a run.
The "bits of blue" had spread half over the sky. The thunder still grumbled to itself at intervals and a sharp little shower whipped out of a passing cloud. Then the sun flashed through it and the shadows crept round the great twin beeches on the lawn—and the day was as lovely as ever again.
And yet—for Roy, it was not the same loveliness. Aunt Jane's repeated threat of school brooded over his sensitive spirit, like the thundercloud in the wood that was the colour of spilled ink. And the Boy-of-ten—a potential enemy—was coming to tea. …
Yet this morning he had felt so beautifully sure that nothing could go wrong on a day like this! It was his first lesson, and not by any means his last, that Fate—unmoved by 'light of smiles or tears'—is no respecter of profound convictions or of beautiful days.
CHAPTER III.
| "Man am I grown; a man's work I must do." |
| —Tennyson. |
Tara was right. The Boy-of-ten (Roy persistently ignored the half) was rather a large boy: also rather lumpy. He had little eyes and freckles and what Christine called a "turnip nose." He wore a very new school blazer and real cricket trousers, with a flannel shirt and school tie that gave Roy's tussore shirt and soft brown bow almost a girlish air. Something in his manner and the way he aired his school slang, made Roy—who never shone with strangers—feel "miles younger," which did not help to put him at ease.
His name was Joe Bradley. He had been in India till he was nearly eight; and he talked about India, as he talked about school, in a rather important voice, as befitted the only person present who knew anything of either.
Roy was quite convinced he knew nothing at all about Rajputana or Chitor or Prithvi Raj or the sacred peacocks of Jaipur. But somehow he could not make himself talk about these things simply for "show off," because a strange boy, with bad manners, was putting on airs.
Besides, he never much wanted to talk when he was eating, though he could not have explained why. So he devoted his attention chiefly to a plate of chocolate cakes, leaving the Boy-of-ten conversationally in command of the field.
He was full of a recent cricket match, and his talk bristled with such unknown