Sir Noel's Heir: A Novel. May Agnes Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ house – you'll see him presently; but you must be very good, little May, and not pull his hair, and scratch his face, and poke your fingers in his eyes, like you used to do with Willie Brandon. Little May must learn to be good."

      Little May put one rosy finger in her mouth, and set her head on one side like a defiant canary. She was one of the prettiest little fairies imaginable, with her pale, flaxen curls, and sparkling light-gray eyes, and apple-blossom complexion; but she was evidently as much spoiled as little Sir Rupert Thetford himself.

      Lady Thetford sat in the long drawing-room, after her solitary dinner, and little Sir Rupert played with his rocking-horse and a pile of picture-books in a remote corner. The young widow lay back in the violet-velvet depths of a carved and gilded fauteuil, very simply dressed in black and crimson, but looking very fair and stately withal. She was watching her boy with a half smile on her face, when a footman entered with Captain Everard's card. Lady Thetford looked up eagerly.

      "Show Captain Everard up at once."

      The footman bowed and disappeared. Five minutes later, and the tall captain and his little daughter stood before her.

      "At last!" said Lady Thetford, rising and holding out her hand to her old lover, with a smile that reminded him of other days – "at last, when I was growing tired waiting. And this is your little girl – my little girl from henceforth? Come here, my pet, and kiss your new mamma."

      She bent over the little one, kissing the pink cheeks and rosy lips.

      "She is fair and tiny – a very fairy; but she resembles you, nevertheless, Capt. Everard."

      "In temper – yes," said the captain. "You will find her spoiled, and willful, and cross, and capricious and no end of trouble. Won't she, May?"

      "She will be the better match for Rupert on that account," Lady Thetford said, smiling, and unfastening little Miss Everard's wraps with her own fair fingers. "Come here, Rupert, and welcome your new sister."

      The young baronet approached, and dutifully kissed little May, who put up her rose-bud mouth right willingly. Sir Rupert Thetford wasn't tall, rather undersized, and delicate for his seven years; but he was head and shoulders over the flaxen-haired fairy, with the bright gray eyes.

      "I want a ride on your rocking-horse," cried little May, fraternizing with him at once; "and oh! what nice picture books and what a lot!"

      The children ran off together to their distant corner, and Captain Everard sat down for the first time.

      "You have not dined?" said Lady Thetford. "Allow me to – " her hand was on the bell, but the captain interposed.

      "Many thanks – nothing. We dined at the village; and I leave again by the seven-fifty train. It is past seven now, so I have but little time to spare. I fear I am putting you to a great deal of trouble; but May's nurse insists on being taken back to London to-night."

      "It will be of no consequence," replied Lady Thetford, "Rupert's nurse will take charge of her. I intend to advertise for a nursery governess in a few days. Rupert's health has always been so extremely delicate, that he has not even began a pretext of learning yet, and it is quite time. He grows stronger, I fancy; but Dr. Gale tells me frankly his constitution is dangerously weak."

      She sighed as she spoke, and looked over to where he stood beside little May, who had mounted the rocking-horse boy-fashion. Sir Rupert was expostulating.

      "You oughtn't to sit that way – ask mamma. You ought to sit side-saddle. Only boys sit like that."

      "I don't care!" retorted Miss Everard, rocking more violently than ever. "I'll sit whatever way I like! Let me alone!"

      Lady Thetford looked at the captain with a smile.

      "Her father's daughter, surely! bent on having her own way. What a fairy it is! and yet such a perfect picture of health."

      "Mabel was never ill an hour in her life, I believe," said her father; "she is not at all too good for this world. I only hope she may not grow up the torment of your life – she is thoroughly spoiled."

      "And I fear if she were not, I should do it. Ah! I expect she will be a great comfort to me, and a world of good to Rupert. He has never had a playmate of his own years, and children need children as much as they need sunshine."

      They sat for ten minutes conversing gravely, chiefly on business matters connected with little May's annuity – not at all as they had conversed three days before by the seaside. Then, as half-past seven drew near, the captain arose.

      "I must go; I will hardly be in time as it is. Come here, little May, and bid papa good-bye."

      "Let papa come to May," responded his daughter, still rocking. "I can't get off."

      Captain Everard laughed, went over, bent down and kissed her.

      "Good-bye, May; don't forget papa, and learn to be a good girl. Good bye, baronet; try and grow strong and tall. Farewell, Lady Thetford, with my best thanks."

      She held his hand, looking up in his sun-burned face with tears in her dark eyes.

      "We may never meet again, Captain Everard," she said hurriedly. "Tell me before we part that you forgive me the past."

      "Truly, Ada, and for the first time. The service you have rendered me fully atones. You should have been my child's mother – be a mother to her now. Good-bye, and God bless you and your boy!"

      He stooped over, touched her cheek with his lips reverentially, and then was gone. Gone forever – never to meet those he left behind this side of eternity.

      Little May bore the loss of papa and nurse with philosophical indifference – her new playmate sufficed for both. The children took to one another with the readiness of childhood – Rupert all the more readily that he had never before had a playmate of his own years. He was naturally a quiet child, caring more for his picture-books and his nurse's stories than for tops, or balls, or marbles. But little May Everard seemed from the first to inspire him with some of her own superabundant vitality and life. The child was never, for a single instant, quiet; she was the most restless, the most impetuous, the most vigorous little creature that can be conceived. Feet and tongue and hands never were still from morning till night; and the life of Sir Rupert's nurse, hitherto one of idle ease, became all at once a misery to her. The little girl was everywhere – everywhere; especially where she had no business to be; and nurse never knew an easy moment for trotting after her, and rescuing her from all sorts of perils. She could climb like a cat, or a goat, and risked her neck about twenty times per diem; she sailed her shoes in the soup when let in as a treat to dinner, and washed her hands in her milk-and-water. She became the intimate friend of the pretty peacocks and the big, good-tempered dogs, with whom, in utter fearlessness, she rolled about in the grass half the day. She broke young Rupert's toys, and tore his picture-books and slapped his face, and pulled his hair, and made herself master of the situation before she had been twenty-four hours in the house. She was thoroughly and completely spoiled. What India nurses had left undone, injudicious petting and flattery on the homeward passage had completed – and her temper was something appalling. Her shrieks of passion at the slightest contradiction of her imperial will rang through the house, and rent the tortured tympanums of all who heard. The little Xantippe would fling herself flat on the carpet, and literally scream herself black in the face, until, in dread of apoplexy and sudden death, her frightened hearers hastened to yield. Of course, one such victory insured all the rest. As for Sir Rupert, before she had been a week at Thetford Towers, he dared not call his soul his own. She had partly scalped him on several occasions, and left the mark of her cat-like nails in СКАЧАТЬ