Back to Billabong Part 10

Cecilia had made her preparations secretly. She had not much to do--Aunt Margaret had always kept her well dressed, and the simple and pretty things she had worn two years before, and which had never been unpacked since she put on mourning for her aunt, still fitted her, and were perfectly good. It had never seemed worth while to leave off wearing mourning in Lancaster Gate--only when Bob had come home had she unpacked some of her old wardrobe. Much was packed still, and in store under Mr.

M'Clinton's direction, together with many of Aunt Margaret's personal possessions. It was as well that it was so, since Mrs. Rainham had managed to annex a proportion of Cecilia's things for Avice. To Lancaster Gate she had only taken a couple of trunks, not dreaming of staying there more than a short time. So packing and flitting would be easy, given ordinary luck and the certain co-operation of Eliza. Her few necessary purchases had been made on one of her hurried excursions with Bob; she had not dared to have the things sent home, and they had been consigned in a tin uniform case to Bob's care.

She pondered over his note now, knitting her brows. It would be easy enough to act defiantly and go at once; but if this meant that the final flight were near at hand she did not wish to excite anew her stepmother's anger and suspicion. Then, as she hesitated, she heard a heavy step on the stairs, and she crushed the note hurriedly into her pocket.

Mrs. Rainham came into the room without the formality of knocking--a formality she had never observed where Cecilia was concerned. The afternoon post had just come, and she carried some letters in her hand.

"Cecilia, I want you to put on your things and go to Balding's for me,"

she said, her voice more civil than it had been for a month. "I'm asked up to Liverpool for a few days; my sister there is giving a big At Home--an awfully big thing, with the Lady Mayoress and all the Best People at it--and she wants me to go up. I suppose she'll want me to sing."

"That is nice," said Cecilia, speaking with more truth than Mrs. Rainham guessed. "What will you wear?"

"That's just it," said her stepmother eagerly. "My new evening dress isn't quite finished--we ran short of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. I can't go out, because the Simons are coming in to afternoon tea; so you just hurry and go over to Balding's to match it. I got it there, and they had plenty. Here's a bit." She held out a fragment of gaudy sequin tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. "I think you could finish the dress without me getting in the dressmaker again--she's that run after she makes a regular favour of coming."

"Very well," said Cecilia--who would, at the moment, have agreed to sew anything or everything that might hasten her stepmother's journey. "When do you go?"

"The day after to-morrow. I'll stay there a few days, I suppose; not worth going so far for only one evening. Mind, Cecilia, you're not to have Bob here while I'm away. When I come back, if I'm satisfied with you, I'll see about asking him again."

"That is very good of you," said the girl slowly.

"Well, that's all right--you hurry and get ready; there's always a chance they may have sold out, because it was a bargain line, and if they have you'll have to try other places. I don't know what on earth I'll do if you can't match it." She turned to go, and then hesitated. "I was thinking you might take Avice with you--but you'll get about quicker alone, and she isn't ready. The tubes and buses are that crowded it's no catch to take a child about with you." In moments of excitement Mrs. Rainham's English was apt to slip from her. At other times she cultivated it carefully, a.s.sisted by a dramatic cla.s.s, which an enthusiastic maiden lady, with leanings towards the stage, conducted each winter among neighbouring kindred souls.

Cecilia had caught her breath in alarm, but she breathed a sigh of relief as the stout, over-dressed figure went down the narrow stairs, with a final injunction to hurry. There was, indeed, no need to give Cecilia that particular command. She scribbled one word, "Coming," on Bob's note, thrust it into an envelope and addressed it hastily, and then tapped on the wall between the servants' room and her own.

Eliza appeared with the swiftness of a Jack-in-the-box, full of suppressed excitement.

"Lor! I fought she was never goin'," she breathed. "Got it ready, Miss?

The boy'll fink I've gorn an' eloped wiv it." She took the envelope and pattered swiftly downstairs.

A very few moments saw Cecilia flying in her wake--to Balding's first, as quickly as tube and motor-bus could combine to take her, since she dared not breathe freely until Mrs. Rainham's commission had been settled. Balding's had never seemed so huge and so complicated, and when she at length made her way to the right department the suave a.s.sistant regretted that the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g was sold out. It was Cecilia's face of blank dismay that made him suddenly remember that there was possibly an odd length somewhere, and a search revealed it, put away in a box of odds and ends. Cecilia's thanks were so heartfelt that the a.s.sistant was mildly surprised.

"For she don't seem the sort to wear ghastly stuff like that," he pondered, glancing after the pretty figure in the well-cut coat and skirt.

Outside the great shop Cecilia glanced up and caught the eye of a taxi-driver who had just set down a fare.

"I'll be extravagant for once," she thought. She beckoned to the man, and in a moment was whirring through the streets in the peculiar comfort a motor gives to anyone in a hurry in London--since it can take direct routes instead of following the roundabout methods of buses and underground railways. She leaned back, closing her eyes. If this summons to Bob indeed meant that their sailing orders had come, she would need all her wits and her coolness. For the first time she realized what her stepmother's absence from home might mean--a thousandfold less plotting and planning, and no risk of a horrible scene at the end. Cecilia loathed scenes; they had not existed in Aunt Margaret's scheme of existence. Since Bob's plans had become at all definite, she had looked forward with dread to a final collision with Mrs. Rainham--it was untold relief to know that it might not come.

She hurried up the steps of Mr. M'Clinton's office. The alert office boy--who had been Bob's messenger to Lancaster Gate--met her.

"You're to go straight in, miss. The Captain's there."

Bob was in the inner sanctum with Mr. M'Clinton. They rose to meet her.

"Well--are you ready, young lady?" the old man asked.

"Is it--are we to sail soon?"

"Next Sat.u.r.day--and this is Monday. Can you manage it, Tommy?" Bob's eyes were dancing with excitement.

"Oh, Bobby--truly?" She caught at his coat sleeve. "When did you hear?"

"I had a wire from General Harran this morning. A jolly good s.h.i.+p, too, Tommy; one of the big Australian liners--the Nauru. You're all ready, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes. And there's the most tremendous piece of luck, Bobby--Mrs.

Rainham's going away on Wednesday!"

"Going away! How more than tactful!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bob. "Where is she going?"

"To Liverpool."

"Liverpool? Oh, by Jove!" Bob ended on a low whistle, while his face a.s.sumed a comical expression of dismay. He turned to the lawyer. "Did you ever hear of anything so queer?"

"Queer? Why?" demanded Cecilia.

"Well, it looks as if she wanted to see the last of you, that's all. The Nauru sails from Liverpool."

"Bobby!" Cecilia's face fell. "I thought we went from Gravesend or Tilbury, or somewhere."

"So did I. But the General's wire says Liverpool, so it seems we don't,"

said Bob. "And that she-dragon is going there too!"

"I don't think you need really worry," Mr. M'Clinton said drily.

"Liverpool is not exactly a village. The chances are that if you went there, trying to meet some one, you would hunt for him for a week in vain. And you'll probably go straight from the train to the docks, so that you won't be in the least likely to encounter Mrs. Rainham."

"Why, of course, we'd never run into her in a huge place like Liverpool," Bob said, laughing. "Don't be afraid, Tommy--you'll have seen the last of her when you say good-bye on Wednesday."

"It seems too good to be true," said Cecilia solemnly. "I remember how I felt once before, when she went away to visit her sister in Liverpool; the beautiful relief when one woke, to think that not all through the day would one even have to look at her. It's really very terrible to look at her often; her white face and hard eyes seem to fascinate one.

Oh, I don't suppose I ought to talk like that, especially here." She looked shamefacedly at Mr. M'Clinton, and blushed scarlet.

Both men laughed.

"The good lady had something of the same effect on me," Mr. M'Clinton admitted. "I found her a very terrible person. Cheer up, Miss Tommy, you've nearly finished with her. And, now, what about getting you away?"

Cecilia turned to her brother.

"What am I to do, Bob?"

"We'll have to go to Liverpool on Friday," Bob replied promptly. "I can't find out the Nauru's sailing time, and it isn't safe to leave it until Sat.u.r.day. There's a train somewhere about two o'clock that gets up somewhere about seven or eight that evening. Mr. M'Clinton and I don't want to leave it to the last moment to get your luggage away from Lancaster Gate. Can you have it ready the night before?"

"It would really be safer to take it in the afternoon," Cecilia said after a moment's thought. "Mrs. Rainham's absence will make that quite easy, for I know I can depend upon Eliza and Cook. I can get my trunks ready, leave them in my room, and tell Eliza you will be there to call for them, say, at four o'clock. Then I take the three children out for a walk, and when we return everything is gone. Will that do?"

"Perfectly," said Bob, laughing. "And four o'clock suits me all right.

Then you'll saunter out on Friday morning with an inoffensive brown paper parcel containing the rest of your worldly effects, and meet me for lunch at the Euston Hotel. Is that clear?"

"Quite. I suppose I had better put no address on my trunks?"

"Not a line--I'll see to that. And don't even mention the word 'Australia' this week, just in case your eye dances unconsciously, and sets people thinking! I think you'd better cultivate a downtrodden look, at any rate until Mrs Rainham is out of the house; at present you look far too cheerful to be natural--doesn't she, sir?"

"You have to see to it that she does not look downtrodden again, after this week," said Mr. M'Clinton. "Remember that, Captain--she's going a long way, and she'll have no one but you."