The Rocks of Valpré

by Ethel M. Dell

A ROPE OF SAND

Undoubtedly Mademoiselle Gautier was querulous, and equally without doubt she had good reason to be so; but it made it a little dull for Chris. Accidents would happen, wherever one went, and what was the good of making a fuss?

Of course, every allowance had to be made for poor Mademoiselle in consideration of the fact that she was torn in pieces by the valiant attempt to keep her attention focussed upon three children at once. The effort had not so far been a brilliant success, and Mademoiselle, conscious within herself of her inability to cope adequately with her threefold responsibility, being moreover worn out by her gallant struggle to do so, was inclined to shortness of temper and a severity of judgment that bordered upon injustice.

If Chris would persist in flying about the shore in that wild fashion with her hair loose—that flaming hair which Mademoiselle considered in itself to be almost indecent—what could be expected but that some contretemps must of necessity arrive? It was useless for Chris to protest that it was not her hair that had got her into difficulties, that she had only left it loose to dry it after her bathe, that there had been no one to see—at least, no one that mattered—and that the cut on her foot was solely due to the fact that she had taken off her sand-shoes to climb over the rocks. Mademoiselle only shook her head with pursed lips. Chris était méchante—très méchante, and no amount of arguing would make her change her opinion upon that point.

So Chris abandoned argument while the worried little Frenchwoman bathed and bandaged her foot anew. She would not be able to bathe again for at least a week, and this fact was of itself sufficient to depress her into silence. Yet, after a little, when Mademoiselle was gone, a cheery little tune rose to her lips. It was not her nature to be depressed for long.

Mademoiselle Gautier would have been something less than human if she had not yielded now and then under the perpetual strain in which, for many days past, she had lived. She had come to Valpré in charge of Chris and her two young brothers, both of whom had developed diphtheria within a day or two of their arrival. The children's father was absent in India; his only sister, upon whom the cares of his family were supposed to rest, was entertaining Royalty, and was far too important a personage in the social world to be spared at short notice. And so the whole burden had devolved upon poor Mademoiselle Gautier, who had been near her wits' end with anxiety, but had nobly grappled with her task.

The worst of the business, speaking in a physical sense, was now over. Both her patients—Maxwell, who was Chris's twin, and little Noel, the youngest of the family, aged twelve—had turned the corner and were progressing towards convalescence. Over the latter she still had qualms of uneasiness, but the elder boy was rapidly picking up his strength and giving more trouble than he had ever given before in the process.

By inexorable decree Chris was kept away from the two over whom Mademoiselle, aided by a convent nurse, still watched with unremitting care; and it did seem a little hard in the opinion of the harassed Frenchwoman that her one sound charge could not be trusted to conduct herself with circumspection during her days of enforced solitude. Chris Wyndham, however, had been a tomboy all her life, and she could scarcely be expected to reform at such a juncture. She was not accustomed to solitude, and her restless spirit chafed after distraction.

The conventions had never troubled her. Brought up as she had been with three unruly boys, running wild with them during the whole of her childhood, it was scarcely to be wondered at if her outlook on life was more that of a boy than a girl. She had been in Mademoiselle Gautier's charge during the past three years, but somehow that had not sobered her very materially. She was spoilt by all except her aunt, who was wont to remark with some acidity that if she didn't come to grief one way or another, this would probably continue to be the case for the term of her natural life. But it was quite plain that Aunt Philippa expected her to come to grief. Girls like Chris, unless they married out of the schoolroom, usually played with fire until they burnt their fingers. The fact of the matter was Chris was far too attractive, and though as yet sublimely unconscious of the fact, Aunt Philippa knew that sooner or later it was bound to dawn upon her. She did not relish the prospect of steering this giddy little barque through the shoals and quicksands of society, being shrewdly suspicious that the task might well prove too much for her. For with all her sweetness, Chris was undeniably wilful, a princess who expected to have her own way; and Aunt Philippa had a daughter of her own, Chris's senior by three years, as well as a son in the Guards, to consider.

No, she did not approve of Chris, or indeed of any of the family, including her own brother, who was its head. She had not approved of his gay young wife, Irish and volatile, who had died at the birth of little Noel. She doubted the stability of each one of them in turn, and plainly told her brother that he must attend to the launching of his children for himself. She was willing to do her best for them as children, but as grown-ups she declined the responsibility.