Mrs. Delane set patiently to work, trying this, and testing that; and at the end of the first week, she and Cynthia were sitting on the floor beside the boy, who had a heap of bricks before him. For more than an hour Mrs. Delane had been guiding his thin fingers in making a tower of bricks one upon another, and then knocking them down. Then, at one moment, it began to seem to her that each time his hand enclosed in hers knocked the bricks down, there was a certain faint flash in the blue eyes, as though the sudden movement of the bricks gave the child a thrill of pleasure. But to fall they must be built up. And his absorbed teacher laboured vainly, through sitting after sitting, to communicate to the child some sense of the connection between the two sets of movements.
Time after time the small waxen hand lay inert in hers as she put a brick between its listless fingers, and guided it towards the brick waiting for it. Gradually the column of bricks mounted—built by her action, her fingers enclosing his passive ones—and, finally, came the expected crash, followed by the strange slight thrill in the child's features. But for long there was no sign of spontaneous action of any kind on his part. The ingenuity of his teacher attempted all the modes of approach to the obstructed brain that were known to her, through the two senses left him—sight and touch. But for many days in vain.
At last, one evening towards the end of June, when his mother had been dead little more than a fortnight, Cynthia, Mrs. Delane's indefatigable pupil, was all at once conscious of a certain spring in the child's hand, as though it became—faintly—self-moved, a living thing. She cried out. Buntingford was there looking on; and all three hung over the child. Cynthia again placed the brick in his hand, and withdrew her own. Slowly the child moved it forward—dropped it—then, with help, raised it again—and, finally, with only the very slight guidance from Cynthia, put it on top of the other. Another followed, and another, his hand growing steadier with each attempt. Then breathing deeply,—flushed, and with a puckered forehead—the boy looked up at his father. Tears of indescribable joy had rushed to Buntingford's eyes. Cynthia's were hidden in her handkerchief.
The child's nurse peremptorily intervened and carried him off to bed. Mrs. Delane first arranged with Buntingford for the engagement of a special teacher, taught originally by herself, and then asked for something to take her to the station. She had set things in train, and had no time to lose. There were too many who wanted her.
Buntingford and Cynthia walked across the park to Beechmark. From the extreme despondency they were lifted to an extreme of hope. Buntingford had felt, as it were, the spirit of his son strain towards his own; the hidden soul had looked out. And in his deep emotion, he was very naturally conscious of a new rush of affection and gratitude towards his old playfellow and friend. The thought of her would be for ever connected in his mind with the efforts and discoveries of the agitating days through which—with such intensity—they had both been living. When he remembered that wonder-look in his son's, eyes, he would always see Cynthia bending over the child, no longer the mere agreeable and well-dressed woman of the world, but, to him, the embodiment of a heavenly pity, "making all things new."
Cynthia's spirits danced as she walked beside him. There was in her a joyous, if still wavering certainty that through the child, her hold upon Philip, whether he spoke sooner or later, was now secure. But she was still jealous of Helena. It had needed the moral and practical upheaval caused by the reappearance and death of Anna, to drive Helena from Philip and Beechmark; and if Helena—enchanting and incalculable as ever, even in her tamer mood—were presently to resume her life in Philip's house, no one could expect the Fates to intervene again so kindly. Georgina might be certain that in Buntingford's case the woman of forty had nothing to fear from the girl of nineteen. Cynthia was by no means so certain; and she shivered at the risks to come.
For it was soon evident that the question of his ward's immediate future was now much on Philip's mind. He complained that Helena wrote so little, and that he had not yet heard from Geoffrey since the week-end he was to spend in Wales. Mrs. Friend reported indeed in good spirits. But obviously, whatever the quarters might be, Helena could not stay there indefinitely.
"Of course I suggested the London house to her at once—with Mrs. Friend for chaperon. But she didn't take to it. This week I must go back to my Admiralty work. But we can't take the boy to London, and I intended to come back here every night. We mustn't put upon you much longer, my dear Cynthia!"
The colour rushed to Cynthia's face.
"You are going to take him away?" she said, with a look of consternation.