Wanderfoot (The Dream Ship)
"For every grain of wit a grain of folly."
All the same, Val and Harry were beginning to say to each other, "What
next?"
It was a great relief that the Lorrain boys, most correctly dressed and
apparently laced in their best corsets, came very ceremoniously to call
that afternoon. They were accompanied by two ladies. One was
Mademoiselle Celine Lorrain, the other the Comtesse de Vervanne, who had
come to spend part of the summer with them. Upon being introduced to
the latter, Val and Mrs. Kesteven, who knew what they knew about a
_chic_ lighthouse and a lady's ankle, exchanged a fleet glance that was
not without humour.
Celine Lorrain, the sister of Sacha, was a girl of twenty-five, with
eyes of Mediterranean blue in a rather broad sweet face. The boys had
monopolised all the beauty of the family, but she had a singularly pure
expression, and with her gallant bearing would have made an ideal Joan
of Arc. The countess, of a very different type, was, it transpired, the
bosom friend of another and married Lorrain sister. She was little and
piquant and plump, and made-up as for the stage. Pearl powder lay thick
as white velvet on her nose, and her dark-green eyes were artistically
outlined with spode-blue shadows. A little mole on her chin had been
carefully blackened--and in her cheeks was a wild-rose flush out of a
box. A few gilt streaks in the little dark plaits she wore coiled over
her ears _jeune fille_ fashion told that at some past period her hair
had been magically changed to gold, but was now returning to its
original colour. No doubt she was extremely picturesque, and her manners
were charming. But Val, who always looked at eyes, noticed that hers,
in spite of their enshrouding blue shadows, were as cold as some still
mountain lake, though, at the same time, full of the swift brightness of
the Parisienne who misses nothing there is to see. She included the two
women, the girls, and the room in one rapid enveloping glance, much as a
painter might take a snapshot of something he meant to examine more
carefully later on, and thereafter took upon herself the "expense of the
conversation," as the French phrase runs. Unfortunately, her English
was not so excellent as she believed it to be--though a good deal more
amusing. In answer to Val's polite "How do you do?" she responded
affably:
"Vary much." And later she related, with a pretty little high laugh:
"It is the costume in France for strange womens to visit first, but we
have taken the beef by the horns and come to see you in case you have
not the spirit of the adventuress."
Mrs. Kesteven, fearing that Kitty and Haidee might disgrace themselves
if they listened to much of this style of thing, gradually wriggled the
conversation back into French, at which they were all fairly fluent,
except Val who, however, understood everything. With a general
intention to be amiable, time hung on no one's hands. Every one took
tea, and the young men made themselves useful, twisting with ease in the
tiny room to hand cups and bread and butter.
"We must all be friends and go walks and swims together," said the
Comtesse. "I hear your girls swim beautifully, Madame Valdana. I want
them to teach me."
"And would you let them go sailing with us in our little sailing boat?"
a voice beguiled in Val's ear, and she found the misty blue eyes which
she had maliciously described as "drunken" looking at her.
"Oh, I don't know about that," she said in her faltering French.
"You spik in English and I spik in French and we will understand us," he
said, smiling charmingly at her. He reminded her intensely of Bran, and
for this reason she felt a great leaning to him. Besides, no one could
have helped liking him. His fresh clear skin was made fresher by the
blueness of his eyes and the blackness of his hair. Added to his boyish
beauty was a sort of good honest look that warmed the heart.
"We are very all right sailors," he continued, still politely expressing
himself in English. "My cousin and I have sailed our boat here every
year since we had ten years of age. You need not have fear of
accidents."
"My sister often goes with us," chimed in Sacha, "but she's getting
lazy. Mademoiselle your daughter and Mees Kesteven both say they adore
to go on the sea."
Val let them remain under the impression that Haidee was her daughter,
feeling that it gave her more authority to shake her head at the idea of
the girls going sailing. But the chorus of beguilements continued and
the two girls kept saying:
"Oh, do, Val ... _do_, mother ... _do_ ... _do_...."
Bran made a diversion by bursting in, bright of eye, his fair hair wild,
a strong scent of puppy dog about him, for he had been amusing himself
with a litter of terriers bred by _pere_ Duval.
He was introduced to the company, but his news would hardly keep until
the ceremony was over.
"Mammie! At last I 've found out the difference between boy puppies and
girl puppies. The boys----"
"Go and wash your hands for tea, darling."
"But, Mammie, the boys--
"Yes, I know, Bran, go now and wash your----"
"The boys have blue eyes and the girls have brown ones," he shouted
indignantly as, hurt and astonished at his mother's strange lack of
interest in his latest discovery, he was being pushed from the room by
Haidee. Val suddenly ran after him and hugged him, and every one
exploded into laughter.
Val and Harriott found themselves almost mesmerised into giving
half-promises to let the girls go sailing, but after the visitors were
gone and the last echo of the Comtesse's little gay sky-high laugh had
died away, they gazed at each other doubtfully. The mesmerism was
wearing off.
"I don't think we ought to let them go," Mrs. Kesteven said.
"I 'm sure we ought not," declared Val, wondering what Westenra would
say if Haidee were drowned. There was a chorus of howls. Kitty put on
her _Spring Song_ face. Haidee's expression resembled that of a rhino
about to charge.
"Mother, you _promised_...!"
"Oh, Val, you mean pig...!"
They burst from the room, scowling and muttering. Later even sobs were
heard upstairs.
"Perhaps, after all...?" Harriott wavered.
"They are, I 'm sure, nice boys..." said Val, "and evidently good
sailors. Shall we ask _pere_ Duval?"
They found the latter, as usual, hoeing his garden, Bran assisting him.
Bran loved _pere_ Duval, who, he said, "smelt like a bar of iron that
had been lying at the bottom of the sea for a few weeks ... all green
and rusty, but yet nice."
"Of those two boys," the old man peered at them with his bleary eyes,
"you need have no fear, mesdames. There are no better sailors on this
coast. And round here it is very safe too--no bad winds--safe as
heaven."
Less uneasy, they went upstairs to throw the oil of consent upon the
stormy waters of rebellion. Immediately the two began to get out their
sweaters and warm skirts as if to start at once, though the sail had
been fixed for next morning. Harriott and Val stood smiling grimly,
throwing little darts.
"I hope you 'll take your tubs before you go--even though you may get an
unpremeditated dip," gibed Harriott.
"Yes; brush your teeth, dears, and your hair," supplemented the other
tormentor. "Don't go out looking like a pair of rabbits plucked out of
a dust barrel."
"Rabbits! Dust barrels!" snorted the girls, shaking their hair, each
strong in the consciousness of annihilating beauty. Afterwards Haidee
said with a superior smile to Kitty:
"Poor things! It must be awful to be old."
"Yes," said Kitty, who was sniffing a good deal. "They 're mad with
jealousy. That's why I don't take any notice of all Mother's blither."
She added thoughtfully: "I hope she doesn't find out I 've got a cold,
before to-morrow morning. She 's such a fuss pot."
"Let's go to bed early, then she won't," suggested Haidee. And they
went, and rose early too. Usually it was the work of two persons to
pick them out of their blankets, but they were up at five, pinking and
preening before the mirror, with many a glance from the window to see
why the river was n't filling. The tide, it seemed, was unaccountably
delayed that morning!
Val, who always rose at seven to make tea on her spirit lamp, took the
usual cup to Harriott's bedside, and found Kitty there by special
command. She was vehemently denying that she had a cold.
"I hawed god wud, buther, I ted you."
"Kitty, how can you say so? You can't speak properly. All traffic in
your nose is absolutely suspended."
"It tiddent, buther!"
"You are snorting and snuffling like the bull of Bashan."
"I 'b _dot_, buther."
"I 'm sure it's no good for her to go out in that state," sighed
Harriott afterwards. "But what would you? She 'd have broken a blood
vessel if I 'd stopped her."
Val looked out of the window and reported gleefully:
"They are prowling up and down the _digue_ like two hungry tigers. If
they could only pull the tide in with ropes they would set to work at
once."
At last there was water enough to float a boat, and the Lorrains' little
craft was seen winging down the river from the _petit port_. The girls
came racing back to get their warm coats. A moment later Bran's voice
was heard from the front steps:
"I want to go too--I want to go too!" He had smelt what was in the
wind, and hastily shuffling on his little garments was following the
girls. With the cold brutality of an elder sister Haidee rebuffed him.
"No; you can't come. We don't want any kids."
"Besides, you can't swim," said Kitty more kindly.
"I can swim--I can swim!" averred Bran, and ran after them wailing
passionately. "I can swim--I _can_ swim!"
Val had to fly out and bring him home weeping on her shoulder.
"You shall have a beautiful boat all your own some day, my Wing, and we
'll sail away in it together."
She comforted him, drying his tears on her blue veil.
"Oh, jeer buck!" sniffled Bran, trying to cheer up, "and will daddy come
too?"
Val thought of a lost ship in which she had thought to sail with all she
loved to the islands of the blest, and her breath caught in her throat.
"Yes, darling, let us pray so," she said, though she had no hope.
----
From that day forward the Shai-pooites and the Duvalites were constantly
together. The two parties joined forces and were as one man in all
things that pertained to amusements and making the sunny days fly by.
There was always the daily excursion to the beach. Kitty and Haidee
were as much at home in the water as two seals, and Val too was a good
swimmer. Harriott always turned blue when she had been in two or three
minutes, so her lot in life was to stay on the beach and rub Bran down
when he came from floundering like a little scarlet tadpole in the surf.
The Insanes wore red twill costumes, and resembled nothing so much as a
band of Indians on the warpath when they came prancing from the cabins
across the flat beach, with the Shai-pooites in dark blue _maillots_ at
their heels. A strange note of colour was a scarf of deep orange, which
Val wore round her head, dock fashion. She never let her cropped head
be seen by any one, though it was well covered now with little sprouting
fluffy curls. Only Bran was allowed to see it in the nights, and loved
to nestle against it, as a bird nestles against the downy breast of its
mother. From the rest of the world she kept her distance, even in the
sea, for she hated any one to see the curiousness of her face without
its frame of hair.
The Comtesse was learning to "make the plank"--otherwise float, and on
calm days incessant laughter came streaming over the smooth, silky
waves, as her plump little person was held up by a ring of instructors.