Leonie of the Jungle Part 12

Although the corporeal part of the old vulgarian grated on her susceptibilities, she was quite willing to believe that if one chose to dig deep enough it would prove to be only the rough earth covering a positive mine of rare temperamental gems; and in her blindness whistled cheerily as she thought of the joy her aunt would feel at not having to drop her t.i.tle when she changed her name, and at being able to retain the same initials for her monogram.

CHAPTER XV

"To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose."--_Shakespeare_.

"Now I want you to listen to me, Leonie!"

"I am, Auntie!"

"I mean _seriously_! I want to talk about myself for one thing, and our very straitened means, which do not permit us to go on living even like this; and oh! lots of other things."

"Right, darling!" said her niece, moving across the room to sit on a broad stool at her relation's feet, but twisting her head to one side with a quick movement when her aunt laid her hand dramatically upon the tawny hair.

"Please, Auntie, don't! I can't bear to have my head touched!"

"Just what I want to talk about!" vaguely said Susan Hetth as she tried to disentangle an old-fas.h.i.+oned ring which had unfortunately caught a few s.h.i.+ning hairs in its loose setting.

"Please don't touch my _head_, Auntie!" repeated Leonie as she sat back. "Let my hair _go_, please!"

"I'm not touching your hair, child," impatiently replied the elder woman. "It's got caught in one of my rings!"

Leonie's eyes were almost closed in a strange kind of psychological agony; then just as though she acted unconsciously she seized her aunt's hands and pulled them quickly from her head, tearing out the hair entangled in the ring by the roots.

"I can't stand it, Auntie. I have never been able to bear anyone touching my head," she said very quietly.

"I think you're insane at times, Leonie, _really_ I do!"

The terrible words were out, and for one long moment the two women stared into each other's eyes.

"You think I am insane at times," whispered Leonie. "_You_--Auntie, _you_ think I am _insane_!"

And the elder woman, floundering in dismay at the awful effect of her unconsidered words, sank to her neck in a bog of explanation.

"No! Leonie--no, of course not--I wasn't thinking--of _course_ you're not mad--insane I mean. What an idea! only I am worried about you, you know that, don't you, dear! _Do_ be sensible, dear. Of course your brain is not _quite_ normal. It can't be with all that sleep-walking, can it, and all your abnormally brilliant exams!"

Susan Hetth's disjointed remarks sounded like the clatter of a pair of runaway mules, while Leonie clasped her hands tight as she sat crouched on her stool.

"Of course people _will_ talk, you know, dear! They did when you were quite a baby and began walking in your sleep. And they did, you know, at school after that unfortunate child nearly got strangled by her sheets--I always do think that school fare is _most_ indigestible--and _so_ likely to cause blemishes on the skin!"

Leonie bowed her head.

"Most unfortunate that you should have snubbed young Mr--what's-his-name--so severely--and that his sister should have been at school with you. Out of revenge _she_ has been talking about you and your sleep-walking. People are most unkind and _most_ unjust--and you are _far_ too pretty to receive any consideration from your _own_ s.e.x, how_ever_ much attention you may receive from the opposition--I mean s.e.x--opposite s.e.x, I mean----"

Leonie sat absolutely still.

"Anyway, my child, we need not worry--there is a way out of our little difficulties."

Sensing that something was coming Leonie sat back with the light of the oil lamp full on her face as she stared at the clutter on the mantelpiece.

"I _do_ so want you to do something for me, darling."

The tone of Susan Hetth's voice and the touch of her hand on the girl's arm were as wheedling as if she were about to ask her to tramp into Ilfracombe on some trifling midnight errand.

Leonie answered quite mechanically.

"What is it, dear!" she said. "Say the word and I'll do it!"

"Is that a promise?"

"Ra-ther! Anything to please you, Auntiekins!"

Susan Hetth took her fence in a rus.h.!.+

"I want you to get married," she said abruptly out of pure fright, and wrenched at her bead chain when Leonie leapt to her feet.

The girl stood quite still, outlined in her simple low-cut, short-sleeved dress by the wall, her hands pressed back against it.

There was no sound except the soft gurgle and murmur of the water until she spoke, quietly, but with a world of horror in her low-pitched voice.

"You want me to marry--_you_--when a moment ago you said that you thought I was mad--you want me to marry some honest, unsuspecting man, and bear him children!"

Susan Hetth, shocked to the limit of her Pecksniffian soul, made a nerveless fluttering gesture of protest with her hands.

"Don't speak," said Leonie quickly, "please don't speak until I have done. Marriage! I will tell you what I have thought about it while I have been waiting for my mate."

"Oh!" exploded Susan Hetth vehemently. "_My dear_! Surely you have not been corresponding with anyone!"

Leonie hesitated.

How was she to make her aunt, this shallow, unbalanced being, understand the joyous expectancy with which she had awaited the moment when she should meet the man born for her?

How was she to take the exquisite longings, the veiled desires, the beautiful virgin thoughts, from her heart and lay them before this woman who had taught her nothing but the twenty-third Psalm without its real interpretation, plus the correct Sunday collect and daily prayers.

How explain that to her the little golden ring would not represent a key opening the door to the so-called freedom from which fifty per cent of women descend, via the shallow flight of steps marked a good time, to the plain of discontent; or that to her the word love was sufficient, in that for her it included those of honour and obey, without any separate declaration in public.

When she spoke she spoke hurriedly, flus.h.i.+ng from chin to brow.

"Auntie--I correspond with no man--but my--my mate is waiting for me somewhere--calling me all the time ever since--oh! ever since I can remember--and--and I should have married him when I had met him if--if----"

In anger at this fresh complication, piled upon her appalling want of tact of a few moments ago, Susan Hetth struck her hands on the arms of her chair.

"I think you absolutely _indecent_, Leonie, to go on like this about someone you have never even seen. Now listen to me, and don't be so theatrical. I have had an offer of marriage for you by someone who knows all about you, and who, after my a.s.surance that there is nothing hereditary in your family on either side to account for the strangeness of your actions at times, is perfectly willing, even anxious, to marry you."

"To take the risk, you mean," broke in Leonie. "Oh!--well, go on."