The Red Derelict. Mitford Bertram
was so interested in my life! You and your daughter seem to have been everywhere, Mr. Haldane. Boring me!” And with a little, instinctively affectionate impulse she dropped her hand on to that of Yvonne, as though to plead: “Don’t leave me yet.”
“We’ve been having a post-card discussion, father; Miss Calmour has a splendid collection. But she holds that post-cards are no good unless they’ve been through the post. I hold they’re no good if they have, because the picture is all spoilt.”
“Why not cut the knot of the difficulty by collecting both?” suggested Delia.
“Don’t you give her any such pernicious advice, Miss Calmour,” laughed Haldane. “The craze is quite ruinous enough to me as it is. I find myself gently but firmly impelled within a post-card shop every other day or so—sort of metaphorically taken by the ear, don’t you know—on the ground that just one or two are wanted to fill up a vacant space in the corner of a given page. But seldom, if ever, do I quit that shop without becoming liable for one or two dozen.”
Delia laughed at this, but Yvonne merely smiled complacently, as though to convey that her parent might think himself lucky at being let down so easily. The latter went on:
“Now you are inducing her to do that which makes me fairly quake, for if she adopts the course you recommend she’ll buy the cards at a greater rate than before, and ruin me in postage over and above for the purpose of posting them to herself.”
“All safe, father; all safe this time. I wouldn’t have them if they had been through the post.”
“Would you care to bring your collection over and compare notes with Yvonne, Miss Calmour? Let me see, we are going back home on Monday. Why not come over to lunch on Tuesday? You have a bicycle—but I forgot, you can hardly carry a lot of post-card books on a bicycle.”
“Easily. I have a carrier on the back wheel which has often held a far greater weight,” answered the girl, hardly able to conceal her delight.
“Very well, then, that’s settled. But—don’t stop to shoot any more blue wildebeeste on the way.”
“Oh, that wretched creature! Am I never to hear the last of it?” laughed Delia, merrily rueful.
Two considerations had moved Haldane in the issuing of this invitation—the spontaneous and whole-souled admiration evinced by this girl for Yvonne, and the wistful look on the face of the latter at the propinquity of a good post-card collection which she might not see. He prided himself upon his knowledge of character, too, and watching Delia closely was inclined to endorse Wagram’s opinion. The house of Calmour was manifestly and flagrantly impossible; but this seemed a nice sort of girl, entirely different to the others. Moreover, Yvonne seemed to like her, and Yvonne’s instincts were singularly accurate for her age.
“Well, I must be moving,” said Delia, with something like a sinking of the heart. Wagram had disappeared for some time, and the groups on the lawn were thinning out fast. “But I don’t see Mr. Wagram anywhere.”
“He’s probably in the big tent making them a speech or something,” said Haldane. “There, I thought so,” as a sound of lusty cheering arose at no great distance. “He’s sure to be there. Yvonne will pilot you there if you want to find him. It’s an institution I fight rather shy of,” he added, with a laugh.
But a strange repugnance to mingling in a crowd took hold of Delia just then. Would Mr. Haldane kindly make her adieux for her? And then, having taken leave of them, she went round to where she had left her bicycle, and was in the act of mounting when—
“Hallo, Miss Calmour, are you off already? I’ve been rather remiss, I fear, but you’ve no notion how one gets pulled this way and that way on an occasion of this kind. I hope Yvonne took care of you.”
“She did indeed, Mr. Wagram. What a perfectly sweet child she is! Do you know, I am to lunch there next week, and compare post-card collections.”
“That’ll be very jolly.”
“Won’t it? Well now, Mr. Wagram, I don’t know when I have enjoyed myself so much. Oh, but there is one thing I wanted to ask you,” relapsing into shyness. “Might I—er—are people allowed—to attend your chapel here on Sundays? Now and then, I mean.”
“Certainly, if there’s room for them,” he answered, looking rather astonished. “It won’t hold a great many, as you might have seen to-day—oh, and, of course, you won’t see anything like the ceremonial you saw to-day.”
“I know. Still, I should like to attend occasionally. Then—I may?”
“Why, of course. Meanwhile I must look out a pair of thumbscrews that’s likely to fit you. Good-bye.”
In the midst of the mutual laugh evoked by this parting jest Delia mounted her bicycle and glided away. She passed groups in the avenue, some, like herself, awheel. Gaining the high road, there was the white gate opening on to the by-road through the park, the scene of the gnu adventure. Then, as by sudden magic, the spell of serenity and peace which had been upon her was removed. She felt restlessly unhappy, in tumultuous revolt. She thought of home, when she should get there; of Bob’s vulgarity, of Clytie’s soft-toned and brutal cynicisms, of her father, thick-voiced and reeling. Worse still, she would probably find him in an even further advanced stage of intoxication, and more or less foul of speech in consequence, and—this is exactly what she eventually did find.
Chapter Seven.
Concerning a Derelict.
“So that was your heroine of the adventure, Wagram?” said the old Squire as they sat at breakfast the following morning.
“Yes. What did you think of her?”
“Poor girl.”
“Poor girl? Why?” asked Monsignor Culham.
“Spells Calmour.”
There was a laugh at this.
“He is a holy terror, Monsignor,” explained Haldane. “Sort of paints the town red at intervals. The whole lot of them are impossible, yet this girl seems an exception. She’s been away from home a long time, I believe, and, of course, that may account for it.”
“Possibly,” said the prelate. “I noticed her yesterday, and she seemed very devout. Are these people Catholics?”
“Not they. I don’t suppose they’re anything at all,” answered Haldane.
“Old Calmour was very ‘sky blue’ that day I called there,” said Wagram. “He groped right past me, and I was thankful he didn’t know me from Adam. He was certainly ‘talking’ when he couldn’t batter his own gate in.”
“They say the girls have to stop their ears tight when he’s ‘fresh,’ ” said Haldane; “and yet Damages can do a little ‘talking’ off her own from all accounts.”
“You wouldn’t think it to look at her,” said Wagram.
“That’s just it. But I believe it’s a fact, all the same.”
“Well, then, what about this other one?” pursued Wagram mischievously. “She may be just as deceptive, and yet you’ve booked her to lunch at your place next week.”
“I rather pride myself on being a student of character,” said Haldane, “and I don’t, somehow, think this case will prove me wrong.”
“No; I don’t think so either,” assented Wagram.
“I formed a favourable impression of her, too—the mere glimpse I had of her when we met,” said Monsignor Culham. “She certainly is a very pretty girl, and I should