Books: The Head of the House of Coombe

F >> Frances Hodgson Burnett >> The Head of the House of Coombe

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"One of the loveliest creatures I ever saw was a Mrs. Gareth-Lawless,"
he had said. "Are you related to her?"

"I am her daughter," Robin had answered and with a slightly startled
sensation he had managed to slip into amiably deft generalities
while he had secretly wondered how much his grandmother knew or
did not know.

An involuntary thought of Feather had crossed his mind once or
twice during the evening. This was the girl who, it was said, had
actually been saved up for old Coombe. Ugly morbid sort of idea
if it was true. How had the Duchess got hold of her and why and
what was Coombe really up to? Could he have some elderly idea
of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did.
Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails.
He was not a desperate character, but he had been very intimate
with Mrs. Alan Stacy and her friends and it had made him careless.
Also Robin had drawn him--drawn him more than he knew.

"Is it still heavenly?" he asked. (How pointed her fingers were
and how soft and crushable her hand looked as it splashed like a
child's.)

"More heavenly every minute," she answered. He laughed outright.

"The heavenly thing is the way you are enjoying it yourself. I
never saw a girl light up a whole room before. You throw out stars
as you dance."

"That's like a skyrocket," Robin laughed back. "And it's because
in all my life I never went to a dance before."

"Never! You mean except to children's parties?"

"There were no children's parties. This is the first--first--first."

"Well, I don't see how that happened, but I am glad it did because
it's been a great thing for me to see you at your first--first--first."

He sat down on the fountain's edge near her.

"I shall not forget it," he said.

"I shall remember it as long as I live," said Robin and she lifted
her unsafe eyes again and smiled into his which made them still
more unsafe.

Perhaps it was because he was extremely young, perhaps it was
because he was immoral, perhaps because he had never held a tight
rein on his fleeting emotions, even the next moment he felt that
it was because he was an idiot--but suddenly he found he had let
himself go and was kissing the warm velvet of the slim little
nape--had kissed it twice.

He had not given himself time to think what would happen as a
result, but what did happen was humiliating and ridiculous. One
furious splash of the curled hand flung water into his face and
eyes and mouth while Robin tore herself free from him and stood
blazing with fury and woe--for it was not only fury he saw.

"You--You--!" she cried and actually would have swooped to the
fountain again if he had not caught her arm.

He was furious himself--at himself and at her.

"You--little fool!" he gasped. "What did you do that for even if
I WAS a jackass? There was nothing in it. You're so pretty----"

"You've spoiled everything!" she flamed, "everything--everything!"

"I've spoiled nothing. I've only been a fool--and it's your own
fault for being so pretty."

"You've spoiled everything in the world! Now--" with a desolate
horrible little sob, "now I can only go back--BACK!"

He had a queer idea that she spoke as if she were Cinderella and
he had made the clock strike twelve. Her voice had such absolute
grief in it that he involuntarily drew near her.

"I say," he was really breathless, "don't speak like that. I beg
pardon. I'll grovel! Don't--Oh! Kathryn--COME here."

This last because at this difficult moment from between the banks
of hot-house bloom and round the big palms his sister Kathryn
suddenly appeared. She immediately stopped short and stared at
them both--looking from one to the other.

"What is the matter?" she asked in a low voice.

"Oh! COME and talk to her," George broke forth. "I feel as if she
might scream in a minute and call everybody in. I've been a lunatic
and she has apparently never been kissed before. Tell her--tell
her you've been kissed yourself."

A queer little look revealed itself in Kathryn's face. A delicate
vein of her grandmother's wisdom made part of her outlook upon a
rapidly moving and exciting world. She had never been hide-bound
or dull and for a slight gauzy white and silver thing she was
astute.

"Don't be impudent," she said to George as she walked up to Robin
and put a cool hand on her arm. "He's only been silly. You'd better
let him off," she said. She turned a glance on George who was
wiping his sleeve with a handkerchief and she broke into a small
laugh, "Did she push you into the fountain?" she asked cheerfully.

"She threw the fountain at me," grumbled George. "I shall have to
dash off home and change."

"I would," replied Kathryn still cheerful. "You can apologize
better when you're dry."

He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood
and gazed at each other. Robin's flame had died down and her face
had settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know
that she herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked
at another girl in the quite different days of her youth.

"I'll tell you something now he's gone," she said. "I HAVE been
kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys like George
don't really matter, though of course it's bad manners. But who
has got good manners? Things rush so that there's scarcely time
for manners at all. When an older man makes a snatch at you it's
sometimes detestable. But to push him into the fountain was a
good idea," and she laughed again.

"I didn't push him in."

"I wish you had," with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, however,
the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. "You
see," she said protestingly, "you are so FRIGHTFULLY pretty."

"I'd rather be a leper," Robin shot forth.

But Kathryn did not of course understand.

"What nonsense!" she answered. "What utter rubbish! You know you
wouldn't. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother
was asking for George."

She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she
did so added something.

"By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of
the Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They
like it. Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with
grandmamma. I can see they are quite excited in their quiet way."

As they neared the entrance to the ball room she paused a moment
with a new kind of impish smile.

"Every girl in the room is absolutely shaky with thrills at this
particular moment," she said. "And every man feels himself bristling
a little. The very best looking boy in all England is dancing with
Sara Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and the Duchess
made him stay. He is a kind of miracle of good looks and takingness."

Robin said nothing. She had plainly not been interested in the
Balkan tragedy and she as obviously did not care for the miracle.

"You don't ask who he is?" said Kathryn.

"I don't want to know."

"Oh! Come! You mustn't feel as sulky as that. You'll want to ask
questions the moment you see him. I did. Everyone does. His name
is Donal Muir. He's Lord Coombe's heir. He'll be the Head of the
House of Coombe some day. Here he comes," quite excitedly, "Look!"

It was one of the tricks of Chance--or Fate--or whatever you will.
The dance brought him within a few feet of them at that very moment
and the slow walking steps he was taking held him--they were some
of the queer stealthy almost stationary steps of the Argentine
Tango. He was finely and smoothly fitted as the other youngsters
were, his blond glossed head was set high on a heroic column of
neck, he was broad of shoulder, but not too broad, slim of waist,
but not too slim, long and strong of leg, but light and supple
and firm. He had a fair open brow and a curved mouth laughing to
show white teeth. Robin felt he ought to wear a kilt and plaid and
that an eagle's feather ought to be standing up from a chieftain's
bonnet on the fair hair which would have waved if it had been
allowed length enough. He was scarcely two yards from her now and
suddenly--almost as if he had been called--he turned his eyes away
from Sara Studleigh who was the little thing in Christmas tree
scarlet. They were blue like the clear water in a tarn when the
sun shines on it and they were still laughing as his mouth was.
Straight into hers they laughed--straight into hers.

CHAPTER XXXII

Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not
unthinkable that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one,
there has ruled a Force illimitable, unconquerable and inexplicable
and whichsoever its world and whatsoever the sign denoting or the
name given it, the Force--the Thing has been the same. Upon our
own atom of the universe it is given the generic name of Love and
its existence is that which the boldest need not defy, the most profound
need not attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly
sophistical to argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality,
magnificence, imbecility, loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity
and bestiality neither detract from nor add to its unalterable
power. As the earth revolves upon its axis and reveals night and
day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it reveals this ceaselessly
working Force. Men who were as gods have been uplifted or broken
by it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have sullied it, saints
have worshipped, poets sung and wits derided it. As electricity
is a force death dealing, or illuminating and power bestowing, so
is this Great Impeller, and it is fatuous--howsoever worldly wise
or moderately sardonic one would choose to be--to hint ironically
that its proportions are less than the ages have proved them.
Whether a world formed without a necessity for the presence and
assistance of this psychological factor would have been a better
or a worse one, it is--by good fortune--not here imperative that
one should attempt to decide. What is--exists. None of us created
it. Each one will deal with the Impeller as he himself either
sanely or madly elects. He will also bear the consequences--and so
also may others.

Of this force the Head of the House of Coombe and his old friend
knew much and had often spoken to each other. They had both been
accustomed to recognizing its signs subtle or crude, and watching
their development. They had seen it in the eyes of creatures young
enough to be called boys and girls, they had heard it in musical
laughter and in silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in
tragedy and comedy and watched it end in union or in a nothingness
which melted away like a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing
omnipresent and that no one passed through life untouched by it
in some degree.

Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had
not know that the Power--the Thing--drew them with its greatest
strength because among myriads of atoms they two were created for
oneness. Enraptured and unaware they played together, their souls
and bodies drawn nearer each other every hour.

So it was that--without being portentous--one may say that when
an unusually beautiful and unusually well dressed and perfectly
fitted young man turned involuntarily in the particular London ball
room in which Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' daughter watched the dancers,
and looked unintentionally into the eyes of a girl standing
for a moment near the wide entrance doors, the inexplicable and
unconquerable Force reconnected its currents again.

Donal Muir's eyes only widened a little for a second's time. He
had not known why he had suddenly looked around and he did not
know why he was conscious of something which startled him a little.
You could not actually stare at a girl because your eyes chanced
to get entangled in hers for a second as you danced past her. It
was true she was of a startling prettiness and there was something--.
Yes, there was SOMETHING which drew the eye and--. He did not know
what it was. It had actually given him a sort of electric shock.
He laughed at himself a little and then his open brow looked
puzzled for a moment.

"You saw Miss Lawless," said Sara Studleigh who was at the moment
dancing prettily with him. She was guilty of something which might
have been called a slight giggle, but it was good-natured. "I
know, you saw Miss Lawless--the pretty one near the door."

"There are so many pretty ones near everything. You can't lift your
eyes without seeing one," Donal answered. "What a lot of them!"
(The sense of having received a slight electric shock made you
feel that you must look again and find out what had caused it, he
was thinking.)

"She is the one with the eyelashes."

"I have eyelashes--so have you," looking down at hers with a very
taking expression. Hers were in fact nice ones.

"But ours are not two inches long and they don't make a big soft
circle round our eyes when we look at anyone."

"Please look up and let me see," said Donal. "When I asked you to
dance with me I thought--"

What a "way" he had, Sara Studleigh was thinking. But "perhaps it
WAS the eyelashes" was passing through Donal's mind. Very noticeable
eyelashes were rather arresting.

"I knew you saw her," said Sara Studleigh, "because I have happened
to be near two or three people this evening when they caught their
first sight of her."

"What happens to them?" asked Donal Muir.

"They forget where they are," she laughed, "and don't say anything
for a few seconds."

"I should not want to forget where I am. It wouldn't be possible
either," answered Donal. ("But that was it," he thought. "For a
minute I forgot.")

One should not dance with one girl and talk to her about another.
Wisely he led her to other subjects. The music was swinging through
the air performing its everlasting miracle of swinging young souls
and pulses with it, the warmed flowers breathed more perceptible
scent, sweet chatter and laughter, swaying colour and glowing eyes
concentrated in making magic. This beautiful young man's pulses
only beat with the rest--as one with the pulse of the Universe.
Lady Lothwell acting for the Duchess was very kind to him finding
him another partner as soon as a new dance began--this time her
own daughter, Lady Kathryn.

Even while he had been tangoing with Sara Studleigh he had seen
the girl with the eyelashes, whirling about with someone, and
when he began his dance with Kathryn, he caught a glimpse of her
at the other end of the room. And almost immediately Kathryn spoke
of her.

"I don't know when you will get a dance with Miss Lawless," she
said. "She is obliged to work out mathematical problems on her
programme."

"I have a setter who fixes his eyes on you and waits without
moving until you look at him and then he makes a dart and you're
obliged to pat him," he said. "Perhaps if I go and stand near her
and do that she will take notice of me."

"Take notice of him, the enslaving thing!" thought Kathryn. "She'd
jump--for all her talk about lepers--any girl would. He's TOO nice!
There's something about HIM too."

Robin did not jump. She had no time to do it because one dance
followed another so quickly and some of them were even divided in
two or three pieces. But the thrill of the singing sound of the
violins behind the greenery, the perfume and stately spaces and
thousand candlelights had suddenly been lifted on to another plane
though she had thought they could reach no higher one. Her whole
being was a keen fine awareness. Every moment she was AWARE. After
all the years--from the far away days--he had come back. No one
had dreamed of the queer half abnormal secret she had always kept
to herself as a child--as a little girl--as a bigger one when she
would have died rather than divulge that in her loneliness there
had been something she had remembered--something she had held on
to--a memory which she had actually made a companion of, making
pictures, telling herself stories in the dark, even inventing
conversations which not for one moment had she thought would
or could ever take place. But they had been living things to her
and her one near warm comfort--closer, oh, so weirdly closer than
kind, kind Dowie and dearly beloved Mademoiselle. She had wondered
if the two would have disapproved if they had known--if Mademoiselle
would have been shocked if she had realized that sometimes when
they walked together there walked with them a growing, laughing
boy in a swinging kilt and plaid and that he had a voice and eyes
that drew the heart out of your breast for joy. At first he had
only been a child like herself, but as she had grown he had grown
with her--but always taller, grander, marvellously masculine and
beyond compare. Yet never once had she dared to believe or hope
that he could take form before her eyes--a living thing. He had
only been the shadow she had loved and which could not be taken
away from her because he was her secret and no one could ever know.

The music went swinging and singing with notes which were almost a
pain. And he was in the very room with her! Donal! Donal! He had
not known and did not know. He had laughed into her eyes without
knowing--but he had come back. A young man now like all the rest,
but more beautiful. What a laugh, what wonderful shoulders, what
wonderful dancing, how long and strongly smooth and supple he was
in the line fabric of his clothes! Though her mind did not form
these things in words for her, it was only that her eyes saw all
the charm of him from head to foot, and told her that he was only
more than ever what he had been in the miraculous first days.

"Perhaps he will not find out at all," she thought, dancing all
the while and trying to talk as well as think. "I was too little
for him to remember. I only remembered because I had nothing else.
Oh, if he should not find out!" She could not go and tell him.
Even if a girl could do such a thing, perhaps he could not recall
a childish incident of so long ago--such a small, small thing. It
had only been immense to her and so much water had flowed under
his bridge bearing so many flotillas. She had only stood and
looked down at a thin trickling stream which carried no ships at
all. It was very difficult to keep her eyes from stealing--even
darting--about in search of him. His high fair head with the
clipped wave in its hair could be followed if one dared be alert.
He danced with an auburn haired girl, he spun down the room with
a brown one, he paused for a moment to show the trick of a new step
to a tall one with black coils. He was at the end of the room, he
was tangoing towards her and she felt her heart beat and beat.
He passed close by and his eyes turned upon her and after he had
passed a queer little inner trembling would not cease. Oh! if he
had looked a little longer--if her partner would only carry her
past him! And how dreadful she was to let herself feel so excited
when he could not be EXPECTED to remember such a little thing--just
a baby playing with him in a garden. Oh!--her heart giving a leap--if
he would look--if he would LOOK!

When did she first awaken to a realization--after what seemed years
and years of waiting and not being able to conquer the inwardly
trembling feeling--that he was BEGINNING to look--that somehow he
had become aware of her presence and that it drew his eyes though
there was no special recognition in them? Down the full length
of the room they met hers first, and again as he passed with yet
another partner. Then when he was resting between danced and being
very gay indeed--though somehow he always seemed gay. He had been
gay when they played in the Gardens. Yes, his eyes cane and found
her. She thought he spoke of her to someone near him. Of course
Robin looked away and tried not to look again too soon. But when
in spite of intention and even determination, something forced her
glance and made it a creeping, following glance--there were his
eyes again. She was frightened each time it happened, but he was
not. She began to know with new beatings of the pulse that he no
longer looked by chance, but because he wanted to see her--and
wished her to see him, as if he had begun to call to her with a
gay Donal challenge. It was like that, though his demeanour was
faultlessly correct.

The incident of their meeting was faultlessly correct, also, when
after one of those endless lapses of time Lady Lothwell appeared
and presented him as if the brief ceremony were one of the most
ordinary in existence. The conventional grace of his bow said no
more than George's had said to those looking on, but when he put
his arm round her and they began to sway together in the dance,
Robin wondered in terror if he could not feel the beating of her
heart under his hand. If he could it would be horrible--but it
would not stop. To be so near--to try to believe it--to try to
make herself remember that she could mean nothing to him and that
it was only she who was shaking--for nothing! But she could not
help it. This was the disjointed kind of thing that flew past her
mental vision. She was not a shy girl, but she could not speak.
Curiously enough he also was quite silent for several moments.
They danced for a space without a word and they did not notice
that people began to watch them because they were an attracting
pair to watch. And the truth was that neither of the two knew in
the least what the other thought.

"That--is a beautiful waltz," he said at last. He said it in a
low meaning voice as if it were a sort of emotional confidence.
He had not actually meant to speak in such a tone, but when he
realized what its sound had been he did not care in the least.
What was the matter with him?

"Yes," Robin answered. (Only "Yes.")

He had not known when he glanced at her first, he was saying
mentally. He could not, of course, swear to her now. But what an
extraordinary thing that--! She was like a swallow--she was like
any swift flying thing on a man's arm. One could go on to the end
of time. Once round the great ball room, twice, and as the third
round began he gave a little laugh and spoke again.

"I am going to ask you a question. May I?"

"Yes."

"Is your name Robin?"

"Yes," she could scarcely breathe it.

"I thought it was," in the voice in which he had spoken of the
music. "I hoped it was--after I first began to suspect. I HOPED
it was."

"It is--it is."

"Did we--" he had not indeed meant that his arm should hold her
a shade closer, but--in spite of himself--it did because he was
after all so little more than a boy, "--did we play together in
a garden?"

"Yes--yes," breathed Robin. "We did." Surely she heard a sound
as if he had caught a quick breath. But after it there were a few
more steps and another brief space of silence.

"I knew," he said next, very low. "I KNEW that we played together
in a garden."

"You did not know when you first looked at me tonight." Innocently
revealing that even his first glance had been no casual thing to
her.

But his answer revealed something too.

"You were near the door--just coming into the room. I didn't know
why you startled me. I kept looking for you afterwards in the
crowd."

"I didn't see you look," said Robin softly, revealing still more
in her utter inexperience.

"No, because you wouldn't look at me--you were too much engaged.
Do you like this step?"

"I like them all."

"Do you always dance like this? Do you always make your partner
feel as if he had danced with you all his life?"

"It is--because we played together in the garden," said Robin
and then was quite terrified at herself. Because after all--after
all they were only two conventional young people meeting for the
first time at a dance, not knowing each other in the least. It
was really the first time. The meeting of two children could not
count. But the beating and strange elated inward tremor would not
stop.

As for him he felt abnormal also and he was usually a very normal
creature. It was abnormal to be so excited that he found himself,
as it were, upon another plane, because he had recognized and was
dancing with a girl he had not seen since she was five or six.
It was not normal that he should be possessed by a desire to keep
near to her, overwhelmed by an impelling wish to talk to her--to
ask her questions. About what--about herself--themselves--the years
between--about the garden.

"It began to come back bit by bit after I had two fair looks. You
passed me several times though you didn't know." (Oh! had she not
known!) "I had been promised some dances by other people. But I
went to Lady Lothwell. She's very kind."

Back swept the years and it had all begun again, the wonderful
happiness--just as the anguish had swept back on the night her
mother had come to talk to her. As he had brought it into her
dreary little world then, he brought it now. He had the power.
She was so happy that she seemed to be only waiting to hear what
he would say--as if that were enough. There are phases like this--rare
ones--and it was her fate that through such a phase she was passing.

It was indeed true that much more water had passed under his
bridge than under hers, but now--! Memory reproduced for him with
an acuteness like actual pain, a childish torment he thought he had
forgotten. And it was as if it had been endured only yesterday--and
as if the urge to speak and explain was as intense as it had been
on the first day.

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