Hetty Dorval Read Online Free PDF Page B

me like this!” Neglect her!
    I glowed with pleasure and I believed her words and the tone of her voice and her gentle welcoming smile; and it wasn’t till afterwards that I thought that a woman as clever as Mrs. Dorval, who could read French, play the piano all up anddown the keys and sing, and ride too, would surely know that she herself had put me, by virtue of my promise, into a difficult position that prevented my coming to see her with any ease or frankness, and that she had put me in a very deceiving position with my elders too. With my parents, for instance. The reason was that nobody existed for her as an individual who had ties or responsibilities and a life of his or her own. People only existed when they came within her vision. Beyond that she had neither care nor interest. She took me by my hands. “You’re
cold!”
she said compassionately, and drew me to the fire. She went to the kitchen door, and I admired the way her long blue gown swept the floor, and the way that the long open sleeves fell loose from her arms and hands. She called, “Mouse, here’s Frankie Burnaby freezing to death. Make us some cocoa, will you?”
    When she came back to the fireplace she curled up on the couch and looked at me so kindly that I wondered why I had not somehow broken through and come before and settled down again to this warm pleasure. However, I had come prepared to ask a question which had been puzzling me, and this I did at once while I remembered.
    “Mrs. Dorval,” I said, “is Mrs. Broom your aunty?”
    “My aunty?” said Hetty, her eyebrows pointing up in surprise. “No, she’s no relation at all. What makes you think so? But she’s all the parents I’ve ever had. My father and mother died in China. I don’t remember them, but Mouse was my Nanny and she’s stayed with me always. She doesn’t approve of me but she spoils me and I couldn’t do without her. And I don’t believe Mouse could do without me, either. When I was at the Convent, Mouse was always near and looked after me in the holidays. My parents had arranged that,” she said vaguely.
    How romantic! China. An orphan. The Convent. Andhere we were sitting by the fire in Lytton and Mouse bringing in the cocoa; and after the cocoa Hetty played and sang again. It was the most wonderful evening I had ever spent in my life. She did not press me to stay, and I had a feeling when I left that it was a matter of indifference to her whether I stayed or went, for of course the presence of an admiring child could not have been much of a diversion for her. I’m sure I had begun to bore her. But I would go again.
    I spent two or three evenings like that. I longed to tell Father and Mother, and yet I was so far embarked and involved that I feared to do it, and trusted to luck that somehow it would be all right. So I kept quiet. And then one day in spring Ernestine said to me, “Did you know that Mr. Dorval came today?”
    I said stupidly,
“Mr
. Dorval?” By this time I had forgotten that probably Hester Dorval was not living entirely in a vacuum and that there must be some reason for her existence in Lytton, and things that I did not know. “Have you seen him?” I asked.
    “No,” said Ernestine, “but Billy Miles was down at the train when he came in, and he had lovely suitcases and he went right away up to the bungalow. He’s tall.”
    “Is he nice?” I asked anxiously.
    “I don’t know whether he’s nice or not,” said Ernestine.
    Talk had begun again in the town about Mrs. Dorval and about her husband. Everyone happened to mention that he had come, but no one knew anything. Even my parents said casually they had heard that a Mr. Dorval had come to town. Had I seen him? I said, “No,” which was true.
    But a few days later, Ernestine, standing beside me on the Bridge and looking down at the rushing water, said, “What do you say, Frankie, if we go up to the bungalow some nightand look in at the window? He’s got the big black horse up