Once Aboard the Lugger Part 8

"We had better follow."

She corrected his number. "Yes, I had better. Thank you so much for your help." She took a step; faltered upon it with a little exclamation of pain; put a white tooth on her lip.

"You have hurt your foot?" George said.

"My ankle, I think. Oh dear!" and then again she laughed.

It came even then to George that certainly she would have made her fortune were she to set up a gloom-exorcising bureau--waiting at the end of a telephone wire ready to rush with that laugh to banish the imps of melancholy. Never had he heard so infectious a note of mirth.

"Oh, what must you think of me?" she ended. "I simply cannot help laughing, you know--and yet, oh dear!"

She put the tips of the fingers of a hand against her lower lip, gazed very anxiously up the road, and then again she gave that clear pipe of laughter.

"I can't help it," she told him imploringly. "I simply cannot help laughing. It is funny, you know. She was scolding me--"

"_Scolding_!" George exclaimed.

That beauty should be scolded!

"Scolding--yes. Oh, I'm only a--well, scolding me, and I was wis.h.i.+ng, _wis.h.i.+ng_ I could escape. And then suddenly out I shot. And then I look around and she's--" A wave of her hand expressed a disappearance that was by magic agency.

"But, _scolding_?" George said. "Need you trouble? She will be all right."

"Oh, I must. I live with her."

"Will she trouble about you?"

"I think she will return for me. Please, _please_ go--would you mind?-- to the corner, and see if there has been an accident."

From that direction a bicyclist approached. George hailed. "Is there a cab accident round the corner?"

The youth stared; called "Rats!"; pa.s.sed.

George interpreted: "It means No. Do you think if you were to take my arm you could walk to the turning?"

Quite naturally she slipped a white glove around his elbow. The contact thrilled him. "No nice girl, you know, would do this," she said, "with a perfect stranger."

George bent his arm a little, the better to feel the pressure of those white fingers. "I am not really perfect," he told her.

She took his mood. "Nor I really nice," she joined. "In fact, I'm horrible--they tell me. But I think it is wise to follow, don't you?"

"Profoundly wise. Who says you are horrible?"

She gave no answer. Glancing, he saw trouble shade her eyes, tremble her lips.

That beauty should know distress!

Very slightly he raised his forearm so that the lock of his elbow felt her hand. He had no fine words. This George was no hero with exquisite ways. He was a most average young man, and nothing could he find but most painfully average words.

"I say, what's up?" he asked.

She spoke defiantly; but some stupid something that she hated yet could not repress trembled her lips, robbed her tone of its banter.

"What's up?" she said. "Why, _you_ would say something was up if you'd just been shot plump out of a cab, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, but you were laughing a minute ago." He looked down at her, but she turned her face. "Now, now, I believe--" He did not name his thought.

She looked up. Her pretty face was red. He saw little flutters of eyelids, flutters round the eyes, flutters at the mouth. "Oh," she said, "oh, yes, and I don't know why. I'm--I believe--" She tried to laugh, but the little flutterings clouded the smile like soft, dark wings flickering upon a sunbeam.

"I believe--it's ridiculous to a perfect--imperfect--stranger--I believe I'm nearly--crying."

And this inept George could only return: "I say--oh, I say, can I help you?"

She stopped; from his arm withdrew her hand. "Please--I think you had better go. Please go. Oh, I shall hate myself for behaving like this."

So unhappy she was that George immediately planned her a backdoor of excuse. "But you have no occasion to blame yourself," he told her.

"You've had an adventure--naturally you're shaken a bit."

She was relieved to think he had misunderstood her agitation. "Yes, an adventure," she said, "that's it. And I haven't had an adventure for years, so naturally--But, please, I think you had better go. If my-- my friend saw me with you like this she would be angry--oh, very angry."

"But why? She saw you fall. She saw me save you."

"You don't understand. She is not exactly my friend; she is my--my employer. I'm a mother's-help."

The mirth that never lay deep beneath those blue eyes of hers was sparkling up now; the soft, dark wings were fluttering no longer.

She continued: "A mother's-help. Doesn't that sound wretched? I'm terribly slow at learning the mother's-help rules, but I'm positive of this rule--mothers' helps may not shoot out of cabs and leave the mother; it's such little help--you must see that?"

"But you will be less help still if you stay here for ever with your hurt ankle--you must see that? I must stay with you or see you to your home."

When she answered, it was upon another change of mood. The soft, dark wings were fluttering again; and it was the banter of George's tone that had recalled them. For this was an adventure--and she had not known adventure for years; for these were flippant exchanges arising out of gay young hearts, and they recalled memories of days when such harmless bantering was of her normal life; for there had been sympathy in George's stammering inquiries, and it recalled the time when she lived amidst sympathy and amidst love.

The soft, dark wings fluttered again: "I am very grateful to you for helping me," she told him. "You must not think me ungrateful; only, I think you had better go. In my position I am not free to--to do as I like, talk where I will. You understand?" Her voice trembled a little, and she repeated: "You understand?"

George said, "I understand."

II.

And that was all that pa.s.sed upon this meeting. A cab swung round the opposite corner; pulled up with a rattle; turned towards them; was alongside. Within, a brow of thunder sat.

The cabman called, "I knowed you was all right, miss," raised the trap, and cheerfully repeated the information to his fare: "I knowed she was all right, mum."

The mum addressed gave no congratulation to his prescience. He shut the lid; winked at George; behind his hand communicated, "Not 'arf angry, she ain't."

The girl ran forward; agitation bound up her hurt ankle. "Oh!" she cried, "I am so glad you are safe!"

The thunder-figure addressed said: "Please get in. I have had a severe shock."