"I mean," Mollie explained nervously, "I mean--" looking at the boys for help, but in vain, "I--you--so young to be a friend of Grannie"s" she ended feebly.
"You"re a goose, Moll," d.i.c.k broke in. "We once knew a Hugh Campbell, but it was years and _years_ ago, and he was ever so much younger than you--he was my age--and there must be thousands of Hugh Campbells."
"Years and years ago! Your age! And she says I look too young!"
repeated Major Campbell in pardonable bewilderment. "How old do I look--five perhaps?"
Mollie blushed, and the boys giggled. "Look here," said d.i.c.k, "if we stand here till midnight discussing Major Campbell"s age we won"t get home to tea, and then Aunt Mary will send out a search party, and we"ll look pretty asinine. Long John"s getting baity, he"ll bolt in a minute. Take the reins, Mollie. Don"t eat all the strawberries, and tell Aunt Mary that cherry jam is my fancy. Come on, Young Outram."
Major Campbell saw the boys start before taking the reins from Mollie. Long John gave his head an impatient toss, and set off with the determination that he would not stop again for anybody till he was in sight of his stable.
A hundred thoughts chased each other through Mollie"s mind. Of course this could not possibly be _that_ Hugh Campbell. It would be altogether _too_ queer. And yet--after all, nothing could be much queerer than the experience they had already had. Putting one thing and another together it did seem to be more than a coincidence that a Hugh Campbell should be on his way to see someone who had a green diamond set in a ring given to her "long, long ago". She stole a look at her companion as he sat opposite her, his eyes fixed on the road ahead and his thoughts obviously elsewhere. Hugh the inventor had not pa.s.sed even thirteen years without gathering various little mementoes of his inventions in the shape of scars here and there, and these had not escaped the sharp observation of Mollie, the Girl Guide. There had been a tiny gap in his left eyebrow, the result of inventing a new pattern of firework--a crooked little finger on his left hand--a funny star-shaped mark on his right jaw. Some of these and other remembered marks might have been obliterated by time, but if even one remained she would recognize it. He had removed his hat and disclosed a head of closely cropped grey hair, which made him look older. Yes--there was the gap in his eyebrow _and_ the crooked finger. Mollie felt certain that this was indeed the inventor.
"Have you ever been in Dublin?" she asked abruptly, forgetting for the moment that asking questions was forbidden.
"In Dublin?" echoed Major Campbell, bringing his eyes and his thoughts from the winding road and concentrating both upon Mollie.
"Are you a thought-reader, Miss Mollie? For I was thinking of Dublin at that very moment. Yes, I have been there. Indeed, it was there that I first met Miss Gordon, at a ball at Dublin Castle. I was visiting some people she knew, and later on she joined us. My sisters were over here at that time too. Has Miss Gordon ever mentioned the O"Rourkes to you?"
"Yes," said Mollie, feeling absolutely giddy with excitement, "that is, no--not exactly----" she felt very confused--"I mean--was there a Desmond O"Rourke?"
"That"s right," said Major Campbell, nodding his grey head, and apparently too wrapped up in his own memories to notice Mollie"s confused answer. "Good old Desmond! Of course he was home then too.
Dublin was a very different place in those days, and we had what you youngsters would call the time of our lives. It was a long time ago--long, long ago." He sighed, and his thoughts evidently wandered away again from his agitated little companion, which Mollie felt was a good thing, as, if he had been observing her closely, he would certainly have thought that the poor child was "not _quite_ on the spot".
She was now quite convinced that this was really Hugh, the brother of Prudence and Grizzel. He showed no signs of remembering her, but, of course, she said to herself, what was only yesterday to her was forty years ago to this elderly man--and, besides, perhaps the Time- travelling was all hers and Prue"s and he was never really in it at all. "Like Alice in the Red King"s dream," she thought vaguely. She felt sure, too, that it was he who had given Aunt Mary the green diamond long ago, though why he had never married her was past Mollie"s power of understanding. Grown-up people did--and left undone--the most incomprehensible things. In the meantime she felt that she would like to give her aunt some sort of warning of the surprise in store, otherwise Aunt Mary might be _too much_ surprised. Mollie herself hated with all her might and main showing her feelings before people--but _how_ to prepare Aunt Mary! That was the difficulty. She put all her Guiding wits to work, but nothing feasible suggested itself. There was no boy to send ahead with a message, and, of course, she could not send Major Campbell himself.
How on earth could she get even the slightest warning conveyed.
The had begun to climb the hill which led to Chauncery gate; Long John"s enthusiasm cooled a little, and he dropped into a jogging zigzag walk. Major Campbell was looking about him with interest, "Just the way I did," Mollie thought--and then the idea came.
"I"m going to signal to Aunt Mary that we are nearly home," she warned her companion, "so that she"ll have tea ready," and, putting her hands to her mouth, she gave a long, shrill "cooo-eeeee!" "Now,"
she said to herself, "that should remind her of Australia and Desmond O"Rourke and green diamonds."
But Mollie"s brilliant idea had not exactly the effect she expected.
When the sound of that shrill cooo-eeeee penetrated to the morning- room, Aunt Mary did indeed think of Australia, but she also thought, naturally enough, that the children were in difficulties and needed her help. So, a few minutes later, Mollie and Major Campbell saw a slim figure, clad in a short skirt and jumper, running down the hill as fast as a pair of active feet could carry it.
"Oh, _dear_!" Mollie exclaimed, "Aunt Mary thinks something is wrong, and when she sees no boys and you here instead she will think it is wronger."
"_That_ can"t be Mary Gordon!" exclaimed Major Campbell. "She doesn"t look much older than you!"
"It is, though," Mollie replied hurriedly, more flashes of genius scintillating through her brain. "Jump out and meet her, Major Campbell, and tell her we are all right."
This suggestion evidently met with entire approval, for Major Campbell, adopting d.i.c.k"s tactics, was over the side of the cart and striding (with a slight limp) up the hill "Before you could say Jack Robinson," Mollie quoted, as she took the reins and tactfully directed Long John"s attention to an extra juicy patch of gra.s.s.
Between his greed and her excitement they nearly overturned into the ditch, but a kindly boulder saved them in the nick of time.
"I must say," Mollie soliloquized, "he is fairly old for Aunt Mary, though he doesn"t look it even with that white hair. What _will_ the boys say? I believe Aunt Mary has forgotten all about us--there they go! Up the hill without ever once looking at me. I suppose I may follow now. Gee-up, Long John. Don"t you ever think of _anything_ but eating?" (which was a little unfair of Mollie under the circ.u.mstances).
But if Aunt Mary had forgotten her family she very soon remembered it again, for she and Major Campbell were waiting at the gate when Mollie came up, and they all arrived at the front door together.
When d.i.c.k and Jerry came within sight of the house, the first thing to catch their eyes was Mollie at an upstairs window, and a pair of signalling flags going hard. The boys stopped short.
"It--is--Hugh. It--is--Hugh. It--is--Hugh," the flags repeated emphatically. "Look--out. With--Aunt--in drawing--room. Beware.
Hurry--up."
"My aunt!" d.i.c.k exclaimed appropriately. "What the d.i.c.kens does she mean? Aunt Mary and that old chap! Get out! His hair is whiter than Father"s. Aunt Mary has got the hardest overhand serve in Suss.e.x.
_She_ doesn"t want to get married, I"ll bet my boots. Rot!"
"I don"t know that," said Jerry. "I rather twigged that when he asked for her. I believe that old Johnny _is_ Hugh. I think he is a jolly decent-looking chap, and white hair means nothing nowadays.
And after you"re forty I don"t see that it matters what age you are." Jerry was encouraging a romantic tenderness for Prue and her brown curls, consequently he felt slightly superior to d.i.c.k.
The boys left the tell-tale scrunching gravel and trod gently on the velvety border of gra.s.s that edged the drive. They stole round the house like thieves, and found their way up to Mollie"s bedroom. That young lady hopped round on one foot waving her flags triumphantly.
"I guessed it ages ago," she said, forgetting in her excitement that "ages ago" was only yesterday morning--it was really very difficult to keep pace with a Time that behaved so erratically--"Something Aunt Mary told me about having a green diamond made me wonder.
That"s why I knew him before you did. Now Hugh will be our uncle. My goodness!"
The tale of the Desmond O"Rourke conversation convinced even the unwilling d.i.c.k that Major Campbell was Hugh the inventor, but he still refused to share Mollie"s conviction that there was a romance connecting him with Aunt Mary. "You girls are so jolly sentimental,"
he said impatiently. "Why _should_ Aunt Mary want to go and get engaged to a chap old enough to be her father, or at any rate her uncle, just as I have arrived. I bet I play a better game of golf than he does, and even Bemister says my tennis has improved a lot this term."
"_I_ agree with Mollie," said Jerry, trying to look romantic, "I thought so first go-off, as soon as he said "Miss Gordon"; there"s a look--"
"If it"s the look you think you"ve got on just now it"s a fairly imbecile one," d.i.c.k interrupted scornfully. "Perhaps you are in love with Mollie!"
Mollie, who was rather tired, was leaning back against her pillows, her bandaged foot lying on the bed and the other foot swinging over the side. Her short, blue-serge skirt was at its shortest and made no pretence at hiding her serviceable blue knickers, from which emerged a pair of useful girl-guidish legs, suitably clad in black merino stockings and lace-up shoes. Her bobbed hair was for the moment rough and tumbled, and she still held her flags spread out on either side of her. No one could have looked less romantic, and they all three had to laugh at d.i.c.k"s suggestion. He cheered up slightly.
"Anyhow--now perhaps we can find out a few things--what the blood was, and how rich the diamond-mine made them."
"And if Grizzel made her fortune in jam," Mollie added, "and if Hugh ever invented an aeroplane."
"He"s in the R.A.F.," Jerry remarked, "we saw it on the card he gave us."
This reminder cheered d.i.c.k up still more. If his favourite aunt had the bad taste to throw over a promising football nephew for anything so wishy-washy as a lover, it was consoling to know that the wisher- washer might include an aeroplane. "Perhaps he"ll take us up one of these days if we behave nicely about Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle," he said hopefully; "that is, if there really is anything in Mollie"s tosh. He looks an aged old party to be turning somersaults in the air, I must say."
The welcome sound of the tea-bell put an end to their discussion, and soon d.i.c.k was drowning his sorrows in strawberries and cream. It was rather a bad--or good--sign that Aunt Mary and the mysterious Major Campbell were absent, but on the whole it was a relief. Only a somewhat preoccupied Grannie was there to attend to their wants. No one spoke very much. There was a slightly depressing atmosphere about that tea, so carefully prepared by the missing aunt. The place where she usually sat looked extraordinarily empty, much emptier, Mollie thought, than it did when her aunt merely happened to be out.
As soon as tea was over the boys went off to visit the puppies again; Grannie, still inclined to be silent and absent-minded, sat down to her knitting; and Mollie, feeling somehow more lonely than she had done before the boys came, wandered into the deserted morning-room. She picked up a book she had been interested in yesterday, but it had lost its flavour and she soon laid it down and went over to the window, where she stood looking out at the wet garden. It was raining in earnest now, not heavily but steadily; little pools were collecting in the gravel, rose-petals were dropping in showers, and the flowers in the herbaceous borders were beginning to look as if they had had enough rain for the present and would welcome now a chance to dry themselves. Mollie opened the window wide and seated herself sideways on the sill, heedless of the raindrops that blew against her face and blouse. For a long time she stared out into the rain, seeing not the well-kept garden before her, but the cypress-bordered path in that other garden.
The sound of the clock striking made her turn her head and look indoors. The room looked dark and dull. Aunt Mary"s work-basket stood open on the table, with her work lying where she had flung it down when she ran out to meet Mollie. The jig-saw puzzle was tidied away, and the sofa cushions sat in a prim row on the sofa, with nothing about them to show how often a kind hand had tucked them in behind a young invalid"s back. The volume of Shakespeare still lay on a side-table, and reminded Mollie freshly of Prue"s first visit.
"I am being sorry for myself," she thought, "and of all the useless things--! I will go upstairs and change my frock and tidy my hair, and then write to Mother. And when the boys come in we must find something to do. It is simply horrid of me to be moping round because dear Aunt Mary is happy, especially as it is the very thing I was keen on yesterday. I feel as if I lived in the middle of one of Hugh"s shadow-clocks," she sighed as she went slowly upstairs, "with Yesterday and To-morrow going round me all the time, and my own shadow falling on them both." This poetic fancy rather pleased her, and she decided to put on her best evening frock and fasten her hair with a rose velvet bandeau.
She was clasping a pale coral necklace round her throat when there came a tap at the door, followed by "May I come in?" and then Aunt Mary herself appeared. And such a radiant and smiling Aunt Mary that all Mollie"s depression vanished in the twinkling of an eye. She hurried across the room and gave Mollie a hug.
"Why--how pretty you have made yourself, Mollie darling. That is sweet of you, for I want you to look your very best this evening. I have a most astonishing piece of news for you--why do you laugh, you naughty girl? I don"t see how you can possibly have guessed, and I am sure Grannie didn"t tell you."
Mollie laughed again as she returned her aunt"s hug: "It was not so frightfully difficult to guess, after what you said about the green diamond ring yesterday--why, you have got it on! It _is_ lovely, isn"t it? I think it is _just_ as beautiful--" Mollie stopped in some confusion, "I mean it is the loveliest ring I ever saw. If I ever get engaged I should like one exactly the same."
"I hope it will bring you a little more luck than it brought us to begin with," Aunt Mary said, with a sigh, looking down at the hand which lay in Mollie"s. "It is ten years since I got it, and if you had asked me yesterday I should have said it would perhaps be another ten before I could wear it like this, but all sorts of wonderful things happened all of a sudden and here we are! But I cannot understand why you guessed anything yesterday, you funny child. I am sure I said very little."
"It wasn"t what you _said_, it was how you _looked_. And you didn"t hear yourself sighing, Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle. We were doing _As You Like It_ at school before I got measles, and we learnt something about people in love, I can tell you!" Mollie nodded her head wisely. "I am not romantic myself like the girl who was doing Rosalind, but I"m not _quite_ so blind as a bat is, and I came up with Major Campbell this afternoon."
"Dear me!" Aunt Mary exclaimed with a laugh, "you are getting dreadfully grown-up, Mollie. I hope you don"t--that you don"t think my dear old Hugh is really old, because he happens to have rather white hair. It is the heart that counts, and his blessed old heart is as young as yours. Now I must run and dress. Call the boys and tell them to come in and be nice to their new uncle. You have simply _got_ to be friends."
Half an hour later three exceedingly tidy and rather prim young people were formally introduced to "Uncle Hugh", who surveyed them gravely through a pair of gold-rimmed eyegla.s.ses. Mollie was not sure whether a twinkle she thought she saw belonged to the eyes or to the gla.s.ses. "I could almost believe that he remembers the Time- travellers," she said to herself. But if he did he gave no further sign of it, nor could the children see much trace of the boy Hugh in this keen-eyed, white-haired, brown-skinned stranger.