When the Birds Begin to Sing Part 39

"You are the lady who got scolded," says Tombo gravely. "Why was my mother so angry with you?"

"It is not polite to ask questions," puts in Eleanor hastily.

"But she ought not to be cross," continues Tombo, "because you must be good, you're white, like Mrs. Quinton, and mother never rows her. Who are you?" placing his tiny fingers against her cheek, and stroking it gently.

"I am your granny, dear, and you will never see me again. But you must think of me sometimes, and remember that I loved you."

She strains him to her heart pa.s.sionately.

"You're crying!" says Tombo. "That's naughty. Oh! don't cry," shaking her in a sudden frenzy of fear. "Granny, Granny!"

Children always dread to see their elders give way to any emotion, and the little fellow's terror brings back Mrs. Blum's composure.

"There, darling, see, I am smiling," she says, her faded eyes lighting up through a mist of tears.

"I think it is very nice to have a Granny, and I want to keep her always."

"That is impossible, dearest. You must be a good boy, and not ask mother questions."

Eleanor brings him sweets and cakes, which he readily devours, sharing them with the dog, who jumps up, startling Mrs. Blum, on whose knees young Tombo is seated.

"You must trot home soon," says Eleanor, glancing nervously at the time, and fearing every moment lest Elizabeth should sweep in like a tragedy queen, and s.n.a.t.c.h her offspring from Mrs. Blum's arms.

"Yes, soon," sighs his grandmother, holding him as if she will never let him go. She detaches a small gold locket from her chain, in which is a lock of Elizabeth's hair.

"You may keep this darling," she murmurs, "to remember Granny by."

She looks tenderly at the pale, flaxen lock of hair, which grew on little Beth's baby forehead.

"Don't lose it, Tombo, for it is very precious--one of Granny's dearest treasures. Mother will recognise it and know the hair inside. Tell her you must keep it always, because she played with it as a little girl."

The boy gazes in awe at the locket.

"Didn't it cost a lot of money?" he asks.

Mrs. Blum smiles at the remark.

"You are an odd child," she says, placing him on the ground.

"Have you nothing you can give Granny?" whispers Eleanor in his ear.

Tombo draws a small whistle from his pocket and carries it with an air of triumph to Mrs. Blum.

"This is for you, Granny. It is all my own, so don't be afraid.

Quartey M'Ba gave it to me for a dead 'minah' I found in the jungle."

She takes the little whistle tremblingly.

"Granny will wear it on her chain," she says, "in the place of her locket, she will keep it quite as carefully."

Then she kisses the child, and pushes him from her, covering her face with her hands that she may not see him go.

Eleanor leads Tombo away, and watches him run down the hill--he is clasping the gold locket safely in both hands.

Mrs. Blum has departed blessing Eleanor, and pouring such overwhelming grat.i.tude into her ears that solitude is a welcome relief.

"Poor soul," she thinks. "Shall I ever come to _that_?"

A step is heard on the verandah, the rustle of a dress, and Elizabeth Kachin stands before her.

She is paler than of yore, her eyes a trifle softer. The hard lips part in greeting, she takes Eleanor by both hands.

"You are a good woman," she says, with an admiring glance. "I cannot tell you how high your great charity has placed you in my esteem and regard. To think you actually laid aside all your natural feelings of repulsion and harboured such a woman out of charity."

"Merely an act of plain humanity," replies Eleanor.

"Nevertheless, I could not do it, even to my own mother. To be in contact with what is sinful is abhorrent to me. Still, I am not blind to your great kindness and self-sacrifice. Tombo and I both wish to thank you."

Eleanor's heart swells at the words--to be thought good, n.o.ble, charitable. What a blessed thing it is! She realises how deeply she still values public opinion, which she has cast to the winds in her reckless love for Carol. Elizabeth, by her words of praise, endears herself to Eleanor, in spite of her late behaviour to the poor outcast.

It is well to be looked up to and to be believed in. Then the galling thought creeps into her elated brain:

"You have no right to this approbation. Elizabeth is a just woman, clothed in that pitiless virtue which tramples down the weak. You are deceiving her and accepting what is not your due. You may be foolish, wild, mistaken, Eleanor; you may have ruined your husband and yourself; but you are _not_ a hypocrite."

She realises in a moment all it will cost her to lose her friend's respect, to see the look of scorn in Elizabeth's eye, and watch her turn away as from one polluted.

For the moment it seems too hard, but Eleanor pulls herself together and sets her teeth.

She walks across to the door with a steady step, her slim young figure drawn up to its full height, her head tossed back, her cheeks aflame.

Elizabeth watches in mute surprise. Then Eleanor breaks the silence, flings open the door, and cries with outstretched hand pointing to the hill:

"_Go_! I, too, am a wicked woman!"

CHAPTER XIX.

THE IDEAL! DIM VANITIES OF DREAMS BY NIGHT.

From the moment those fatal words were uttered: "Go! I, too, am a wicked woman!" the scales fall from Elizabeth's eyes.

How natural it seems to her now, the so-called Mrs. Quinton's act of sympathy.

But what she does not know, nor can ever guess, is the supreme effort that confession costs Eleanor. It is wrung from her lips through sheer force of will, and as Mrs. Kachin obeys the command, and with head held proudly aloft, pa.s.ses out into the blinding sunlight, Eleanor receives her first slight since leaving England.