When at last we did go out to walk and see the wonderful timbered houses and the blown-up bridges, what I had expected to happen did happen: Julian O"Farrell contrived to separate me from the others.
"Haven"t I been clever?" he asked, with his smile of a naughty child.
"So far as I know of you," I answered, "you are always clever."
"That"s the first compliment you"ve ever paid me! Thanks all the same, though I"d be the opposite of clever if I thought you wanted me to be flattered. You"re clever, too, so of course you know what I mean as well as I know myself. Perhaps you thought I was being clever on the sly. But I"m above that. Haven"t I always showed you my cards, trumps and joker and all?"
"You"ve shown me how the knave can take a trick!"
He laughed. "History repeating itself! The Queen of Hearts, you remember--and the Knave of--Spades, wasn"t it? I wish it were diamonds instead: but maybe his spade will dig up a few sparklers in the end.
I"ve got a splendid plan brewing. But that isn"t what I want to talk about just now. In fact, I _don"t_ want to talk about it--yet! You"re not going to admit that you see the results of my cleverness, or that you"d understand them if you did see. So I"ll just wave them under your darling nose."
It would have been absurd to say: "How dare you call my nose a darling?"
so I said nothing at all.
"You saw it was a plot, getting Brian to go to Paris with us," he went on. "I saw that you saw it. But I wasn"t sure and I"m not sure now, if you realized its design, as the villain of the piece would remark."
"_You_ ought to know what he"d remark."
"I do, dear villainess! I was going to say, "_Sister_ Villainess," but I wouldn"t have you for a sister at any price. I"ve cast you for a different part. You may have imagined that Dare and I were just grabbing your brother to spite you, and show what we could do with him."
"I did imagine that!"
"Wrong! Guess again. Or no--you needn"t. We may be interrupted any minute. To save time I"ll explain my bag of tricks. Dare wasn"t in on that hand of mine."
"Indeed?"
"You don"t believe me? That shows you"re no judge of character. Dare adores her Jule, and what he wants her to do she does; but I told you she was no actress. She can"t act much better off the stage than on. I wouldn"t trust her to create the part of the White Cat, let alone that of Wily Vivien. She gets along all right if she can just keep still and sulk and act the Stormy Petrel. I should have pulled her through on those lines if she"d been obliged to play Jim Beckett"s broken-hearted fiancee. But to do the siren with your brother--no, she wouldn"t be equal to that, even to please me: couldn"t get it across the footlights.
I had to win her to Brian as well as win Brian to me. I hope you don"t mind my calling him by his Christian name? He says I may."
"Why did you want to win Miss O"Farrell to my brother?"
"You don"t know? You"ll have to go down a place lower in this cla.s.s! She couldn"t make Brian really like her, unless she liked him. At first--though I knew better--she stuck it out that Brian was only a kind of decoy duck for you with the Becketts----"
"Oh!"
"Please don"t look at me as if you were biting a lemon. _I_ didn"t think so. And Dare doesn"t now."
"How sweet of her!"
"She"s turning sweet. That"s partly what I was after. I wormed myself into your brother"s affections, to entice him to Paris. I wanted Dare to learn that her _instinct_ about him was right; her instinct was always defending him against what she thought was her reason and common sense.
Now, she sees that he"s genuine, and she"s secretly letting herself go--admiring him and wondering at him to make up for her injustice."
"Are you telling all this to disarm me?"
"Not exactly. I"m telling you because I was sure you"d find out soon what"s going on, and because I thought an open policy best. As it is, you can"t say I haven"t played fair from the word go."
"I wish," I cried out, "that the word _was_ "go"!"
"You"re not very kind, my dear."
"Why should I be kind?"
"Because I"m the stick of your rocket. You can"t soar without me. And because I love you such a lot."
"You!"
"Yes, I, me, Julian O"Farrell: Giulio di Napoli. Haven"t I sacrificed my prospects and my sister"s prospects rather than throw you to the lions?
Didn"t I waste those perfectly good snapshots? Didn"t I sit tight, protecting you silently, letting you have all I"d expected to have for myself and Dare?"
I gasped. To speak was beyond my powers just then.
"I know what you"d like to say," Julian explained me to myself. "You"d love to say: "The d--d cheek of the man! It"s _rich_!" Well, it is rich.
And _I_ mean to be rich to match. That"s in my plan. And so are you in it. Practically you _are_ the plan. To carry it out calmly, without ructions and feathers flying, I put your brother and my sister in the way of falling in love. Dare didn"t want to join the Beckett party and didn"t want to stay with it. Now, she does want to stay. Brian distrusted me and was intrigued by Dare. Now, he gives me the benefit of the doubt. And he has _no_ doubts of her---- That"s a beautiful timbered house, isn"t it, Mr. Beckett? Yes, I was just telling Miss O"Malley that this place seems to me the best one we"ve visited yet. I shall never forget it, or the circ.u.mstances of seeing it, shall you, Miss O"Malley?
Don"t you think, sir, she might let me call her "Mary," now we all know each other so well? I"m "Julian" to her brother and he"s "Brian" to me."
"I certainly do think she might," said Father Beckett, with that slow, pleasant smile which Jim inherited from him.
CHAPTER XXI
It"s late at night again--no, early to-morrow morning, just about the hour when to-morrow"s war-bread is being baked by to-night"s war-bakers.
But it"s good to burn the midnight electricity, because my body and brain are feeling electric.
We have had the most astonishing day!
Of course, I expected that, because we were going to Noyon, and I evacuated all unneeded thoughts and impressions (for instance, those concerning the O"Farrells) to make room for a crowd of new ones, as we did at the Hopital des epidemies with convalescents, for an incoming batch of patients. But I didn"t count on private, personal emotions--unless we blundered into an air raid somewhere!
You remember those authors we met once, who write together--the Sandersons--and how they said if they ever dared put a real incident in a book, people picked out that one as impossible? Well, this evening just past reminded me of the Sandersons. We spent it at the War Correspondents" Chateau, not far out of Compiegne: that is, we spent it there if it was _real_, and not a dream.
I am the only one in Mother Beckett"s confidence--I mean, about her health. Even her husband doesn"t know how this trip strains her endurance, physical and mental. Indeed, he"s the very one who _mustn"t_ know. It"s agreed between us that, if she feels hopelessly unfit for any excursion, _I_ shall put on invalid airs and she will stop at home to keep me company. Thus will be avoided all danger of Father Beckett suspecting the weakness she hides. But you can imagine, Padre, knowing me as you do, how frightened I was to-day--our morning for Noyon--lest she should give the signal. I felt I simply couldn"t _bear_ to miss Noyon. No use telling myself I shall feel exactly the same about Soissons to-morrow, and Roye and Ham and Chauny and various others the day after. My reason couldn"t detach itself at that instant from Noyon.
Our daily programme as now arranged is: Me to knock at Mother Beckett"s door half an hour before starting-time. If she"s fearing a collapse, she is to exclaim: "My child, how pale you are!" or some other criticism of my complexion. Then I"m to play up, replying: "I do feel under the weather." Whereupon it"s easy for her to say: "You must stop in the hotel and rest. I"ll stay with you."
To my joy, the greeting this morning was: "My dear, you look fresh as a rose!"
I didn"t feel it; for you know I wrote late to you. And at last in bed, I disobeyed your advice about never worrying: I worried quite a lot over Brian and Dierdre O"Farrell; my having led him into a trap, when above all things I wanted his happiness and health. I could well have pa.s.sed as pale: but I was so pleased with the secret signal that I braced up and bloomed again.
We had to start early, because there was a good deal to do in the day; and we were supposed to return early, too, for a rest, as there"s the great adventure of Soissons before us to-morrow. The Correspondents"
Chateau wasn"t on our list: that was an accident, though now it seems as if the whole trip would have been worth while if only to lead up to that "accident!"
There were several ways we could have taken to Noyon, but we took the way by Dives and La.s.signy. We shall have chances for other roads, because, to see various places we mean to visit, we shall go through Noyon again.