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

“Is she going to fly?” Dick asked with interest. “I could put up with getting married myself if my wife came in an aeroplane and took me for a jolly good flight. I could chuck her out if I didn’t like her,” he added, with a grin.

“The very first time I ever flew in my life,” Major Campbell said, “was in a balloon, and I played at the game of chucking out, and got a fright which I am convinced caused my hair to turn prematurely grey. Would you like to hear about it?”

“Ra-_ther_!” Dick and Jerry replied together. (Now perhaps the mystery of the blood might be explained.)

So Major Campbell told them the story that they already knew nearly as well as he did himself—in fact, Mollie found herself on the point of correcting him upon one or two points. He told it well, better than he had done on that agitating occasion so many years ago, but—he did not divulge the mystery.

It was almost too tantalizing to be endured. Mollie had to keep repeating to herself “A Guide’s Word is Always to be Trusted,” as she reflected upon that most provoking promise extracted from her by Prue. It was so long ago, surely a question, one question, would not matter now. Unfortunately it was also, as Mollie expressed it to herself “so short ago” that she could remember Prue’s words only too plainly: “You must not ask questions however much you want to.” It is true that she had broken the rule once, but it had been in forgetfulness, not deliberately. Dick and Jerry were perhaps less picturesque in the manner of their vows, but they certainly had no intention of breaking them. It was Aunt Mary who unconsciously came to the rescue:

“And what was the blood that wasn’t blood?”

“Oh, that! That was merely—that was merely–-” Major Campbell stopped and began to laugh.

“Merely what? Be quick,” said dear Aunt Mary, “we are longing to know.”

“I am sorry—I hate to let you down, but it was only dye. Desmond had a notion that he could make a fortune with a native dye factory— vegetable dyes, you know. But it never came to anything. I think it is rather a pity he didn’t persevere; he might have done something with it.”

Dye! Well, of all the prosaic endings to a thrilling tale! And yet, when the children came to think of it, what else could it have been? They were annoyed at themselves for not thinking of such an obvious thing. Major Campbell laughed again when he saw the blank look on three faces.

“It’s a poor end-up, isn’t it?” he said. “Why did you force me into it? But there is still the stone, if you would like to see it. You will find it over there on the writing-table.”

Dick fetched the stone—the identical stone they had last seen in Hugh’s hand forty years ago. After all, the end was not so prosaic!

It looked little the worse for its adventures through Time and Space as it lay in Dick’s hand. An inscription had been scratched in and inked over:

Hugh Campbell } August 4th, 1880. Desmond O’Rourke } Mary Gordon. 1910.

They looked at in silence for a minute.

“It reminds me of a tombstone,” Dick remarked cheerfully, “if you wrote ‘Wife of the Aboves’ under Aunt Mary’s name it would look jolly mysterious.”

“Granddaughter of one of the aboves would be more appropriate,” Major Campbell said ruefully, smoothing the back of his grey head with one hand, while with the other he gave a gentle tug to a stray lock of Aunt Mary’s pretty brown hair.

“Fiddlesticks!” Aunt Mary said briskly. “We’ll get you a wig if you feel so badly about it, or perhaps Desmond would dye you a nice bright red. No—I’ll tell you what would be really interesting—if you could write on your stone the names of all the people whose lives it dropped into that day. There are Desmond and Prue and their children” (Jerry looked up with a startled glance), “and their wonderful grandchild” (Jerry’s eyes were round with dismay. Farewell, Romance!), “and Grizzel and Jack and their children, for Grizzel would never have met Jack if Prue hadn’t married Desmond. And there’s me, for if you hadn’t got tangled up with the O’Rourkes we should probably never have met, even though our greats and grands were such friends. Then we may add Dick’s name to our list, for I mean to have him out in Australia one of these days, and perhaps Jerry too—who knows! And Mollie may go green-diamond hunting among the young O’Rourkes—Brian would do nicely.” Aunt Mary laughed mischievously at Mollie.

“That would be a sermon in stones and no mistake,” Major Cambell said, with a smile. “We should require a regular palimpsest to hold them all. Think of Grizzel and all the pies she loves to have her fingers in—all those people on their fruit farm for instance, mostly people who have been down on their luck one way or another. And the young persons she has helped with what she calls their artistic careers. And Prue with her army of Girl Guides!”

“And all through one little stone,” Aunt Mary said, taking the stone into her own hand and looking at it thoughtfully.

“I expect the green diamond had more to do with it than the stone, really,” Mollie said dreamily, thinking to herself that if Desmond had not found the ring he would not have troubled to seek for the stone-thrower. She would have pursued this interesting line of thought had not someone at that moment trod upon her well foot, and someone else pinched an arm hard. These delicate attentions brought her back to reality and she felt that she had “dropped a brick” pretty badly. Aunt Mary looked puzzled, and Major Campbell’s eyes twinkled—or was it his eyeglasses?

“The diamond may have been a temptation,” he said, “but I hope it wasn’t such a bribe as all that comes to. You have to remember that she might have stuck to the ring and thrown me over any time all these years.”

Mollie breathed a sigh of relief. Her words had evidently been misunderstood—or had he understood and come to her help? She wished he would take off those glasses!

“Catch her!” Dick was saying indignantly, “Aunt Mary is a jolly good old sport! You don’t know her half as well as I do if that is what you think.”

[Illustration: THERE THEY WERE—OH, HOW MOLLIE LONGED TO KEEP THEM!]

“Don’t I?” said Major Campbell, turning to look at Aunt Mary, who was beginning to show signs of embarrassment under so much scrutiny. He took off his eyeglasses, but immediately replaced them by a pair of large round tortoise-shell spectacles through which he gazed at her solemnly.

“What are you doing, Hugh? Take off those absurd things this moment,” Aunt Mary commanded as the children laughed.

“I am looking at you through stronger glasses,” he answered. “I thought perhaps I wasn’t seeing you properly, but the better I see the prettier you look.”

“My hat!” Dick exclaimed, “look at Aunt Mary blushing. She’s the colour of a ripe red currant. I think it’s time we did a bunk. Come on, you kids!”

Late that evening Mollie sat at the open window again, this time to watch for the boys, who had set out for a belated round of golf. The rain had ceased and the air was fresh and sweet, but the lingering twilight was darkened by clouds and the garden was veiled in a ghostly white mist. Mollie had been listening to talk of times old and new, and now Grannie had settled down to her nightly game of patience, Major Campbell was seated in a deep and roomy arm-chair, and Aunt Mary had gone to the piano.

“Play the old tunes you played me to sleep with,” Mollie begged. “I think I like old tunes best of all.”

“So do I, Mollie,” said Major Campbell. “Do you remember Prue’s old musical-box, Mary? It is still in existence. Prue always turns it out on the dear old pater’s birthday and has a sort of memorial service—I’m glad he didn’t live to see the war. He was such a softhearted, confiding old chap, and never could be induced to see the black spots in poor human nature—he was always ready with an excuse for any lapse from virtue. He never could screw himself up to the pitch of giving his children a thorough good rowing, though I am sure we often needed one badly enough.”

Aunt Mary’s fingers wandered vaguely over the piano for a few minutes, and then she began to sing:

“Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me.”

It seemed to Mollie that she could hear the silvery tinkle of Prue’s musical-box again, and see Papa’s kind blue eyes.

As she listened to the music and gazed into the misty garden, she saw, as she thought, the boys standing in the shadow of the black Cedar of Lebanon across the way. She leaned forward, wondering why they lingered there so silently. It was not easy to see in the on-coming darkness—surely there were three figures, and two of them looked like girls. Her heart gave a sudden jump—yes, she could plainly make out two girls and a boy. She slipped through the window and crossed the terraced drive.

*

There they were—dear Prue, with Grizzel clinging to one arm, and Hugh in the background—oh, how Mollie longed to keep them!

“I was thinking of you, Prue,” she said eagerly, “I wanted you so much. If you could only stay!”

Prue shook her head, with a smile. “No, we have only come to say goodbye, Mollie. Your Time-travelling is over for this time, you won’t come to our Time any more. Did you like it?”

“I loved it,” Mollie answered fervently, not pausing to ask herself whether it was the Time or the children that she had loved. “If only it could be now, Prue, so that you could stay!”

But Prue shook her head again: “We’ve got to go. Perhaps some day we will meet again—Time-travellers often do. I think that’s why— that’s why–-” she knit her pretty brows in the effort to express a difficult thought.

“Hush!” Grizzel said suddenly, “she is singing ‘I shot an arrow into the air’; Mamma sings that and I love it. I want to listen; may we go nearer?”

They tip-toed across the gravel, and stood in the shadow of the lamp-lit window.

“I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth I know not where, For who has sight so swift and strong That it can follow the flight of a song?

“Long, long afterwards, in an oak I found the arrow still unbroke. And the song from beginning to end I found again, in the heart of a friend.”

“I love that,” Grizzel whispered. “Papa says you often do find the song long, long afterwards. I think it’s something like casting your bread upon the waters, though I never could understand why they chose bread. I shouldn’t think there would be much of it left after many days in the water. I like a song better.”

Hugh had stepped nearer to the window, and was observing the interior of the room with curious eyes. “Who’s the old buffer with white hair?” he asked.

Mollie began to laugh, but suddenly stopped. She looked from the boy to the man—so there were two Hughs! “He is a Time-traveller,” she answered softly, “but he has travelled the other way, forwards, you know. He has invented a