Robin.

by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

THE YEARS BEFORE

Outline Arranged by Hamilton Williamson

from

_THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE_

In the years when Victorian standards and ideals began to dance an increasingly rapid jig before amazed lookers-on, who presently found themselves dancing as madly as the rest--in these years, there lived in Mayfair, in a slice of a house, Robert Gareth-Lawless and his lovely young wife. So light and airy was she to earthly vision and so diaphanous the texture of her mentality that she was known as "Feather."

The slice of a house between two comparatively stately mansions in the "right street" was a rash venture of the honeymoon.

Robert--well born, irresponsible, without resources--evolved a carefully detailed method of living upon nothing whatever, of keeping out of the way of duns, and telling lies with aptness and outward gaiety. But a year of giving smart little dinners and going to smart big dinners ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself on the edge of a sword.

Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity, of course. That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light weight when Robin was exhibited in the form of a bundle of lace.

It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked:

"What will you do with her?"

"Do?" Feather repeated. "What is it people 'do' with babies? I don't know. I wouldn't touch her for the world. She frightens me."

Coombe said:

"She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze." He stared back unwaveringly also, but with a sort of cold interest.

"The Head of the House of Coombe" was not a t.i.tle to be found in Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head's own. The peerage recorded him as a marquis and added several lesser attendant t.i.tles.

To be born the Head of the House is a weighty and awe-inspiring thing--one is called upon to be an example.

"I am not sure what I am an example of--or to," he said, on one occasion, in his light, rather cold and detached way, "which is why I at times regard myself in that capacity with a slightly ribald lightness."

A reckless young woman once asked him:

"Are you as wicked as people say you are?"

"I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered.

"Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may have painful limitations or I may not."

He had reached the age when it was safe to apply to him that vague term "elderly," and marriage might have been regarded as imperative. But he had remained unmarried and seemed to consider his abstinence entirely his own affair.

Courts and capitals knew him, and his opportunities were such as gave him all ease as an onlooker. He saw closely those who sat with knit brows and cautiously hovering hand at the great chess-board which is formed by the map of Europe.

As a statesman or a diplomat he would have gone far, but he had been too much occupied with Life as an entertainment, too self-indulgent for work of any order. Having, however, been born with a certain type of brain, it observed and recorded in spite of him, thereby adding flavour and interest to existence. But that was all.

Texture and colour gave him almost abnormal pleasure. For this reason, perhaps, he was the most perfectly dressed man in London.

It was at a garden-party that he first saw Feather. When his eyes fell upon her, he was talking to a group of people and he stopped speaking.

Some one standing quite near him said afterwards that he had, for a second or so, became pale--almost as if he saw something which frightened him. He was still rather pale when Feather lifted her eyes to him. But he had not talked to her for fifteen minutes before he knew that there was no real reason why he should ever again lose his colour at the sight of her. He had thought, at first, there was.

This was the beginning of an acquaintance which gave rise to much argument over tea-cups regarding the degree of Coombe's interest in her.

Remained, however, the fact that he managed to see a great deal of her.

Feather was guilelessly doubtless concerning him. She was quite sure that he was in love with her, and very practically aware that the more men of the cla.s.s of the Head of the House of Coombe who came in and out of the slice of a house, the more likely the dwellers in it were to get good invitations and continued credit.

The realisation of these benefits was cut short. Robert, amazingly and unnaturally, failed her by dying. He was sent away in a hea.r.s.e and the tiny house ceased to represent hilarious little parties.

Bills were piled high everywhere. The rent was long overdue and must be paid. She had no money to pay it, none to pay the servants' wages.

"It's awful--it's awful--it's awful!" broke out between her sobs.

From her bedroom window--at evening--she watched "Cook," the smart footman, the nurse, the maids, climb into four-wheelers and be driven away.

"They're gone--all of them!" she gasped. "There's no one left in the house. It's empty!"

Then was Feather seized with a panic. She had something like hysterics, falling face downward upon the carpet and clutching her hair until it fell down. She was not a person to be judged--she was one of the unexplained incidents of existence.

The night drew in more closely. A prolonged wailing shriek tore through the utter soundlessness of the house. It came from the night-nursery. It was Robin who had wakened and was screaming.

"I--I _won't_!" Feather protested, with chattering teeth. "I won't! I _won't_!"

She had never done anything for the child since its birth. To reach her now, she would be obliged to go out into the dark--past Robert's bedroom--_the_ room.

"I--I couldn't--even if I wanted to!" she quaked. "I daren't! I daren't! I wouldn't do it--for a _million pounds_!"

The screams took on a more determined note. She flung herself on her bed, burrowing her head under the coverings and pillows she dragged over her ears to shut out the sounds.

Feather herself had not known, nor in fact had any other human being known why Lord Coombe drifted into seeming rather to follow her about.

But there existed a reason, and this it was, and this alone, which caused him to appear--the apotheosis of exquisite fitness in form--at her door.

He listened while she poured it all forth, sobbing. Her pretty hair loosened itself and fell about her in wild but enchanting disorder.

"I would do anything--_any one_ asked me, if they would take care of me."

A shuddering knowledge that it was quite true that she would do anything for any man who would take care of her produced an effect on him nothing else would have produced.

"Do I understand," he said, "that you are willing that _I_ should arrange this for you?"

"Do you mean--really?" she faltered. "Will you--will you--?"

Her uplifted eyes were like a young angel's br.i.m.m.i.n.g with crystal drops which slipped--as a child's tears slip--down her cheeks.