Leonie of the Jungle
Joan Conquest
Produced by Al Haines
LEONIE OF THE JUNGLE
BY
JOAN CONQUEST
Author of "Desert Love"
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
Copyright, 1921, by
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
TO
THE SPLENDID NATIVE OF INDIA,
THE LIVING
MADHU KRISHNAGHAR
[Transcriber's Note: The name "Madhu" appears throughout this book.The "u" in it can be correctly rendered only in Unicode, asu-macron--uppercase U+016A, lowercase U+016B.]
CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE WEST
BOOK II
THE EAST
"And never the twain shall meet."
BOOK I
THE WEST
LEONIE OF THE JUNGLE
CHAPTER I
"To deliver thee from the strange woman!"--_The Bible_.
"Who found the kitten?"
"Me," quavered the childish voice.
Lady Susan Hetth tchcked with her tongue against her rather prominentteeth at the lamentable lapse in grammar, and looked crossly at Leonie,who immediately lifted up the quavering voice and wept.
Sobs too big for such a little girl shook the slender body, whilstgreat tears dripped from the long lashes to the tip of the upturnednose, down the chin and on the knee of the famous specialist, againstwhich she rested.
"Stand up, Leonie, and push your hair out of your eyes!"
The thin little body tautened like an overstrung violin string, and ashock of russet hair was pushed hastily back from a pair of indefinableeyes, in which shone the light of an intense grief strange in one soyoung.
"Leave her to me, Lady Hetth!"
The surgeon's voice was exceedingly suave but with the substratum ofsteel which had served to bend other wills to his with an even greaterfacility than the thumb of the potter moulds clay to his fancy.
"Leonie is going to tell me everything, and then she is going to theshop to buy a big doll and _forget_ all about it!"
"Please may I have a book instead of----"
"Leonie, that is very rude."
"Please, Lady Hetth. Go on, darling---what kind of book."
"'Bout tigers an' snakes, oh! an' elephants. Weal animals. Dolls, youknow"--she smiled as she confided the great secret--"aren't weal_babies_, they're just full of sawdust."
He lifted the child on to his knee, frowning at the weight, andsmoothed the tangled mass of curls away from the low forehead with atouch which caused her to make a sound 'twixt sob and sigh, and to lieback against the broad shoulder.
It was a long and disjointed story, told in the inconsequent fashion ofa child of seven unused to converse with her elders; and continuallyinterrupted by the aunt, who, fretful and dying for her tea, jingledher distracting bracelets and chains, fidgeted with the Anglo-Indianodds-and-ends of her raiment, and disconcerted the child by the futileverbal proddings; which are as bad for the infant mind as the criminalattempts to force a baby to use its legs are to the infant body.
"So! and you found the dear little kitten lying quite still in thenursery this morning?"
"Yes! Stwangled!"
"Do pronounce your _r_'s, Leonie."
The child shivered in the man's arms.
"Who told you it was strangled?"
"Auntie!"
The man's hand closed for a moment on a heavy paper-weight as he lookedacross the room at the woman who was waggling her foot and knitting herscanty brows at the sound of the rending sobs.
"Auntie was mistaken, darling. Kitty was asleep, tired out withplaying or running away from the dog next door."
Leonie shook her head. "Kitty's dead," she wailed, "lying all blackand quiet, like--like my dweams!"
There was a moment's pregnant silence, during which Leonie turned roundand snuffled into the great man's collar, and he frowned above therusset head as he drew a block of paper and pencil towards him.
"What dreams, darling?"
"Don' know--dweams I dweam!"
The specialist sat still for a second and then laughed, the great kindlaugh of a man with a big heart who adores children.
"Let's play a game, Leonie! You tell me about the dreams, and I'lltell you about my new motor-car, and the one who tells best will get abig sweet!"
With a child's sudden change of mood Leonie sat up, swinging her blacksilk legs to and fro, her eyes dancing, her lips parted over the evenlittle teeth.
"I _love_ sweets!" said she. "You begin!"
"My car's grey!" said Sir Jonathan Cuxson. "What colour are yourdreams?"
"_Black_!" was the unexpectedly decisive reply. "Black with lots ofwed--wet wed--and gween eyes--lots and lots of eyes--and--and softthings I can't see, and--noises like kit--kit--kitty makes when shepurrs!"
"Yes?"
"Yes! and people with soft feet like the--the slippers Nannie wears atnight so that I can't hear them. And--and that's all!"
She laughed like the child she ought to have been as she bit the endoff a big pink fondant which had materialised out of one of a dozenlittle drawers in the desk, then holding up the other end to the manlaughed again spontaneously and delightfully as he pushed the sweetinto her mouth.
Then he put her on her feet, tilted the little white face back till thestrong light shone into the opalescent, gold-flecked eyes, kissed thecurly head and told her to run round the room, open the cabinet doorsand look at the hidden treasures.
"May I touch them?"
"Of course, sweetheart!"
"I'm vewy sowwy _you_ didn't win," she said in her old-fashioned way,"because you are vewy, vewy nice. And"--she continued, suddenlyharking hack as a child will to a previous remark--"and it is all vewy,vewy black, with a teeny, weeny light like the night-light Nannielights, and----!"
She stopped dead and buried her head in the middle of Sir Jonathan'swaistcoat, fumbling his coat sleeves with her nervous little hands.
"Yes, darling!" said the man, without a trace of expression in hisvoice as he held up a finger warningly to the woman who had rustled inher chair.
"And--and sometimes there's a black woman. And I'm--I'm fwightened ofher 'cause she calls me, and--and--pulls me out of bed by my head."
"How do you mean, darling? Does she catch hold of your hair? It musthurt you dreadfully!"
Leonie suddenly stood up, nervously pulling at the man's top waistcoatbutton as she furtively glanced first over one shoulder and then overthe other.
"No! she doesn't touch me," she faltered, "and I--I don't always seeher. But--but"--she laid her open palm against her forehead in acurious little gesture suggestive of the East--"but she pulls methrough my forehead, and when she pulls I've--I've _got_ to go! May I_hold_ that elephant?"
The brain specialist looked straight into the strange eyes which smiledconfidingly back into his.
"Just a moment, sweetheart," said he. "What do your little friends,and Nannie, and Auntie say when you tell them about the dreams?"
Leonie leant listlessly against the arm of the chair, and sighed as sheflashed a lightning glance at her aunt who was turning over aperiodical on a table by her side.
"I don't tell Nannie because I think she wouldn't weally understand,and--and----"
Silence.
"Well, darling?"
"Auntie," she spoke in the merest whisper, "got awful cwoss the firsttime I did tell her. She was going out to a dance, and I was tellingher whilst she was dwessing--it was a lovely dwess all sparkles andlittle wosebuds--and I upset a bottle of scent over her gloves. Thescent too was like my dweams, just like--like--oh! I don't know, and Ihaven't any!"
Once more the man intuitively bridged the
gulf.
"No little friends? How's that?"
"Bimba died," she announced casually. "She liked books, too. It'svewy silly thinking dolls are babies, isn't it; that's why I loveweading, it--it seems weal!"
Lady Hetth broke in hurriedly.
"We simply can't keep her away from books when she's in town. Ofcourse when we are in the country she simply lives out of doors. It isvery difficult to keep her amused. She sulks when she goes to a partyand always wants to go home!"
"I don't sulk weally, Auntie, I jus'--jus' don' seem to know how toplay!"
She smiled a wan little smile at the woman who had no children of herown, and moved away slowly with a backward doggy look at the man.
"Good God!" he muttered. "Will you come here, Lady Hetth!"
