The Happy Adventurers by Lydia Miller Middleton (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

to law about. The only diamond I possess,” she went on, “is a green diamond in a ring that someone gave me long, long ago. Long ago,” she repeated with a sigh, letting her work drop into her lap and gazing at something that Mollie could not see, for it was the distant past.

Mollie gave a violent start. A green diamond! In a ring! Long, long ago. How very extraordinary! She dared not ask any questions, but she examined her aunt with new and critical interest, from the shining coils of smooth brown hair to the slim ankles and neat buckled shoes. No, she decided, that hair could never have been red and ringletty; besides, Grizzel’s eyes were blue and round like a kitten’s, while Aunt Mary’s were dark brown and long-shaped. Very pretty eyes, Mollie suddenly discovered. Also, Aunt Mary was too young. Forty years ago Grizzel was eight or nine years old, which would make her nearly fifty now. Mollie paused for a moment to picture to herself a fifty-year-old Grizzel, but, failing utterly in the attempt, she continued her meditations on her aunt. Aunt Mary was certainly a considerable distance from that venerable age. Mollie wondered again why she had never married, and who had given her that ring. She sighed impatiently. She wished that she was not bound down by that promise; but she was, hard and fast. It would be better not to think about the green diamond just now. When she got back to forty years ago she would keep her eyes open; it was not at all unlikely, considering all things, that Aunt Mary had had an Australian lover, and it might be possible to do a kind act somehow or other. What the effect would be if 1920 meddled about with the affairs of 1880 Mollie had ceased worrying over. It was altogether too puzzling.

Aunt Mary remained a little absent-minded all the morning, and when the time came for Mollie to go to sleep that afternoon she could hear a new tone in Aunt Mary’s voice when she began to sing:

“O bay of Dublin! my heart you’re troublin’, Your beauty haunts me like a fevered dream, Like frozen fountains that the sun sets bubblin My heart’s blood warms when I but hear your name; And never till this life pulse ceases, My earliest thought you’ll cease to be; Oh! there’s no one here knows how fair that place is, And no one cares how dear it is to me!”

“If Aunt Mary goes on like this, Prue will certainly find me howling my eyes out,” Mollie said to herself. “Talk of might-have-beens and never-will-bes! Grandpapa should hear his own daughter singing! Why did I go and mention green diamonds to her!” She shut her eyes tight to keep the tears from falling. The plaintive tune went on, and when a small soft hand crept into her own her cheeks were wet. She kept her eyes closed and held tight to the little hand!

 

*

 

She was standing in a wide, brick-floored veranda with a steeply sloping roof. The open sides were wreathed with morning-glories, their deep-blue petals wide-spreading to the early sun. Painted tubs, full of scarlet and purple fuchsias, stood in a row beside the railing; coco-nut matting, rough and brown, lay in strips across the red brick floor, and at either end of the veranda stood a deal table. One was covered with books, toys, and work-baskets. At the other sat Bridget, shelling peas. She was singing:

“How often when at work I’m sittin’, An’ musin’ sadly on the days of yore, I think I see my Katey knittin’, An’ the children playin’ by the cabin door; I think I see the neighbours’ faces All gathered round, their long-lost friend to see, Oh! though no one here knows how fair that place is, Heaven knows how dear my poor home was to me.”

As she sang the last word she lifted the corner of her apron to dry her eyes, and saw Mollie.

“Is it yourself, Miss Mollie, or is it your ghost? May the Lord look sideways on me ould plaid shawl! You gave me a start then, for ‘twas only this minute I looked to see an’ there was no one there at all.”

“It’s me,” said Mollie, swallowing down a few last tears and wondering if she was speaking the truth—perhaps it was her ghost! “Where’s everybody?”

“They’re all dressin’ themselves for the balloonin’, an’ may the Lord preserve Master Hugh an’ keep his bones from breakin’. ‘Tis a temptin’ o’ Providence an’ his mother sailin’ on the salt seas, poor soul. The way the death-watch has been tickin’ on me this wake past is something cruel.”

“What’s the ballooning?” Mollie began, but before Bridget could answer Prudence appeared at the house door, dressed in festive pink muslin and a white hat wreathed with rosebuds.

“Come along, Mollie,” she said, “and don’t listen to Bridget croaking. If I died every time she hears my death-watch tick, or sees my shroud in a candle, there would be a whole cemetery full of my graves by this time. There’s a yellow muslin frock for you.”

They had reached the girls’ bedroom, which Mollie recognized as the first of the rooms she had slept in. They were back in the house with Hugh’s tree and the yellow-carpeted garden. She looked admiringly at the pretty muslin frock on the bed. It was white, powdered over with tiny dots of pale yellow, and made with filmy flounces reaching to the waist; a frilled fichu, or “cross-over” as Prue called it, came over the front of the little bodice, falling slightly below the waist and tied behind with pale-yellow ribbons. A wide white hat was wreathed with primroses and green leaves. It was indeed a charming frock, and so modern that Mollie thought she might have worn it at home without anyone being surprised at anything except her unusual smartness. Prudence and Grizzel wore dresses fashioned in precisely the same way, but Prue’s muslin was sprigged with pink rosebuds, while Grizzel’s dots were green.

“Come along, my rainbow,” said Papa. “If we are late we won’t get a good place.”

They walked down the cypress-bordered path of Mollie’s first visit, and joined the stream of people going along the road, like themselves, to see the balloon ascent. Mollie felt very gay and festive; everybody feminine wore light frocks, the sun was bright but not too hot, the grass was green, and the whole countryside was frothed with almond-blossom, white and pink. Birds flew briskly about, indifferent to balloons, and horses with shining chestnut coats trotted along the well-kept road, lifting their slim ankles and polished heels in an elegant way very different from the gait of London cab-horses.

A balloon ascent was always a thrilling sight, Prudence explained, but the particular thrill about this one was that Hugh was going up. The aeronaut was a friend of Papa’s, and, Mamma being on her way home to England, it had not been difficult to persuade easygoing Papa to give his consent. Indeed, there was nothing that he would have liked better than to go up himself, but Mr. Ferguson had shaken his head over fifteen stone of useless passenger.

“If we could throw you out a pound at a time you would be most welcome,” he had said; “but you must wait a bit, Professor; the day will come when we shall not have to count every pound.”

When they reached the field they found a deeply interested crowd already collected, and Papa had some difficulty in getting his rainbow into a good position. The huge balloon towered up far above them, its striped smoke-coloured sides gleaming under the netted mesh as it swayed with every breath of wind. The wicker car looked very small and frail.

“It’s not so small as it looks,” Prue said to Mollie. “We were in it yesterday. It is nearly as big as my bedroom, and the sides reach up to Hugh’s shoulder; he couldn’t fall out unless he did it on purpose. There are dear little cubby-holes and all sorts of cute fixings. Its name is the Kangaroo. I do wish I could go up too, but Papa and Mr. Ferguson simply wouldn’t hear of it. Girls are never allowed to do anything.”

“Aren’t you nervous?” Mollie asked. “Suppose it suddenly burst when it was ever so high. How high does it go?”

“Mr. Ferguson has been up five miles, but he is only going up one to-day. They won’t be very long away.”

“You would be just as badly smashed if you fell one mile as if you fell five, I should think,” said Mollie, with a shudder.

“It isn’t falling that they think about,” Prue explained, “When you get very high you can’t breathe, and you have all sorts of horrid feelings. Once Mr. Ferguson fainted, and if the man with him hadn’t pulled the stopper thing out with his teeth they’d both have been killed.”

“Why teeth?” asked Mollie.

“Because his hands were frozen, and he couldn’t use them,” answered Prue. “They’ll be starting soon; they are going on board—look, there’s Hugh!”

Mollie saw a small grey-clad figure climbing into the car. He was followed by two men, one tall and the other rather short. As they climbed over the rails the great balloon swayed and trembled—it looked far more dangerous than a nice substantial aeroplane, Mollie thought; and there was no control, they simply flew up and were blown hither and thither according to the will of the winds. Suppose they were blown against something and got a great rip in the side!

“I don’t know how you can,” she said to Prue. “If it were Dick— where are Dick and Jerry? Haven’t they come?”

“Here we are, old bean, at your elbow. My word, wouldn’t I like to be going up too!”

“Same here. Some chaps have all the luck!” groaned Jerry.

Prudence shook her head. “Mr. Ferguson would never take more than one boy. Two might begin larking, and you simply must not lark in a balloon.”

Dick thought of a joke about larks and balloons, but decided that it was not a really first-class joke and merely shook an accusatory head at boys and their reprehensible ways.

[Illustration: THEY STOOD AND WATCHED THE KANGAROO FOR SOME TIME]

The ring of men who held down the balloon were preparing to let go the ropes; the band began to play, the men in the balloon took off their caps and waved farewell, people cheered—and the Kangaroo was off. She rose swiftly and buoyantly, remaining almost perpendicular until she was caught by a southwest current of air and sailed away towards the hills. As she rose the children could see Hugh at the edge of the car, waving his handkerchief.

It was very exciting. They stood and watched the Kangaroo for some time, but her progress was slow, and Papa remarked that they could see her just as well from the street as from the field, now that she was near the clouds. He looked at his watch:

“There is just time to go and have some lunch before your dinner. What would you say to cocoa and cream-cakes at Bauermann’s?”

This suggestion cheered away the left-behindish feeling that they all experienced as they watched that distant pear-shaped object floating in the sky. As they walked along the road it was impossible to keep their eyes and thoughts from following the balloon, so that conversation was desultory, until Mollie thought she saw a bad wobble and gave a little scream.

“You really need not be so nervous,” Prue said, catching her by the arm. “Mr. Ferguson has been up hundreds of times, he won’t let Hugh down. Bridget read Hugh’s fortune in his tea-cup last night