Читать книгу The Veiled Man - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 9

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Lord Cawthorne did not feel inclined to return immediately to the Castle when he left the managing director's office. At the Castle there was no one to talk to but his cousin, and he remembered his morning's interview with the veiled man, with a certain sense of soreness. He decided to take a stroll through the town and see the sights. Skirting the great noisy works he arrived, after five minutes' brisk walking, half-deafened, in Stayton's main street—a long straight road, planted with trees and flanked with shops and cottages. The clangour of the docks pursued him even there, but in gradual if stormy diminuendo, so that he could presently think of other things. He thought forthwith of Sir Felix Greig's pretty typewriter, and so intently that he failed to notice the courteous greetings of the townsfolk whom he encountered.

"An extremely pretty girl," he muttered as he passed the Town Hall. "A marvellously pretty girl," as he neared the Cawthorne Arms Hotel. "Fancy being a typewriter," as he left the town behind.

If the Earl had not been in the brownest of brown studies, he must have remarked Simon Vicars standing at the doorway of the inn, chatting with the burly landlord. Simon saw him. But the Earl was satisfied to see the flagstones and when they terminated, the road. He beheld at last the sea a hundred feet beneath him, and with a nervous start he realised that he had left the path, climbed a hill, and come to the edge of the cliffs. Shading his eyes with his hands, he contemplatively observed a flock of gulls winging in slow flight shorewards from the estuary's mouth. They settled in the water among the shipping; but one alighted upon the summit of a gigantic sheerlegs and began to preen its feathers. Lord Cawthorne thought its bright presence made the crane more disgustingly hideous than ever, and he turned his eyes with a gesture of weariness inland. From a ledge of higher cliffs, three-quarters of a mile from where he stood, rose the walls of a large three-storeyed red brick house. It was surrounded with lawns and carefully trimmed plantations. It looked good and new. Lord Cawthorne admired old houses; new houses he liked. A glance at the town revealed the fact that he must have passed through a little unkempt wood. Trees were about him still, but they grew more sparsely than upon the flat, and were curiously stunted and storm-blown. He looked across the trees and town at Cawthorne Castle, and an involuntary sigh escaped him. He sighed to remember how often during boyhood he had sighed for such a home, and he sighed again to think how much more blessed imagination is than reality. Life can be duller in a castle than a cavern. Then he sighed to reflect that he was an ungrateful fool to sigh at all. Finally he sighed because he could not help sighing. He wanted a keener interest in life than working for work's sake and the sake of humanity, as his cousin wished him to work. He was too young and human to care much for humanity at large, or in sections. Individuals appealed to him more forcibly than crowds; and his heart's desires were clamorous for satisfaction. He desired first, friends, gay, cheerful friends; next, to see constantly the faces of pretty women; to occasionally look into their eyes and touch their hands. Lastly and chiefly, he desired excitement of some sort, of any sort. Lord Cawthorne was of a clay which nature scatters with a lavish hand over the face of the universe, and which circumstance sometimes kneads into heroic figures, soldiers, statesmen, leaders of men; more often, however, into idlers and vagabonds. Souls permeate that clay, but dependent uncreative souls; souls that grumble and dream and crave and long for their own betterment, yet never act upon their own initiative, nor resolutely strive to make the dreams they dream come true until they are awakened by the prick of love or hate or sharp necessity.

"This place will bore me to death," said Lord Cawthorne aloud. He was gazing at the wood as he spoke. At the last word a white-clad figure emerged from the trees, proceeding in the direction of the house upon the cliffs. Lady Dorothy was going home on foot, having sent her pony cart with a message to Dr. Somerton, whom she wished to see that evening. She was extremely fond of walking.

"The pretty typewriter," gasped Lord Cawthorne.

In another moment he had impulsively started out to intercept her, making a bee-line for a small clump of trees which he perceived she must pass. He had very little idea of what he would do or say when the time came, but the memory of the smile she had given him in the managing director's office resolved him, past gainsaying, to accost her.

He waited for her, hat in hand, drinking in her beauty greedily. She appeared as she approached entirely unaware of a man within miles. She was thinking. "Has he found out who I am? The impudence of him, anyway. I'll cut him dead."

"Excuse me, miss," he said in a clear voice. "I am a stranger here, perhaps as you know. Can you tell me who lives in that big house on the cliffs?"

Lady Dorothy, with an affected start, perceived him. Courtesy demanded that she should answer a civil stranger's civil question.

"I beg your pardon," she said in tones of the orthodox frigidity.

He repeated the question, trying vainly to engage her eyes.

"The Marquis of Fane," she replied, and moved on.

Lord Cawthorne fell into step beside her. "You seem to be going there," he remarked with a brazen smile.

Dorothy froze him with a glance. "I am," she said; "good afternoon."

Though frozen Lord Cawthorne was undismayed. "I'll take your message for you if you like. I'm going there, too."

The girl gasped. Such impudent assurance was a new experience; it angered her. She became at once officially unconscious of his existence.

"You needn't be hasty and pretend not to know who I am," said the Earl, in a deeply injured voice. "You smiled at me in your boss's office."

"Your boss's office!" she repeated the words in underbreath, suppressing with difficulty a hysterical desire to giggle.

"You know you did."

Lady Dorothy's love of fun began to assert itself. How nice it would be to lead this young man up to her father's house and there cover him with confusion. He richly deserved it.

"Well, if I did," she answered, turning upon him a face of angel innocence, "ought I to have scowled at you?"

"That's better," said the Earl delightedly. "Now we'll get on famously."

"Oh, shall we?"

"Rather; and look here Miss—er—er——"

"Foulkes," said Dorothy. She pronounced it "Fox" with malice prepense.

"Miss Fox! Well er—you do typewriting, don't you? Well, I can give you lots of work if you like; I'll pay you well, too."

Lady Dorothy stopped and faced him. Her mouth was open.

"Oh, can you?" she gasped.

"Lots and lots."

Her eyes glittered. She was thinking, and Lady Dorothy's brain was an agile one.

"I haven't a typewriter," she observed, "and I couldn't do outside work in the office."

"I'll buy you one!" he cried.

"Why?" the question was like a sword thrust, but her adversary was worthy of her steel.

"To do the work with," he answered promptly; "what else?"

"How should I know?"

Her eyes fell before his ardent gaze. His gaze was in fact so ardent that she felt a little tremor quiver through her heart; but she was not the least afraid.

"Lord, how pretty you are!" he cried, carried for a moment off his feet.

Lady Dorothy loved admiration. She was, moreover, a born actress. Of a sudden she determined to fill the role he had assigned to her.

"You fine gentlemen are all alike," she murmured, with a coquettish sidelong glance. "All you seem to think of is trying to turn the heads of poor girls like me."

"Tit for tat," rejoined the Earl; "and anyway you have the best of the deal. You turn our heads without trying."

"Do we?" archly.

"You have mine, at all events."

"You would think me a silly if I believed that now, wouldn't you?"

"I couldn't think of anything, if I tried, while you are here, except how pretty you are."

Lady Dorothy glanced up and down the road; it was deserted, and her father's house was hidden by the trees. She was enjoying herself immensely.

"What's your front name?" she demanded.

It was the Earl's turn to gasp. "Adam," he stammered.

"Mine's Dolly."

"May I call you Dolly?"

"Certainly not."

"Then why did you tell it to me?"

"Just because—— How many sweethearts have you?"

"None," eagerly.

"Oh, fie! Don't ask me to believe that."

"It's the truth," cried the Earl.

"I've got hundreds," said Lady Dorothy. "I expect you're a bit slow aren't you?"

The Earl looked gloomy. "Hundreds," he repeated.

"Yes. Did you take me for sweet seventeen who never was kissed. I'm twenty-two."

"I dislike flirts," said the Earl severely.

"Do you? Well, I think girls who don't flirt are fools. Time enough for them to settle down after marriage." This was in fact Lady Dorothy's sincere conviction.

"One of these days you'll fall really in love, and then you will be jolly well ashamed of yourself."

Lord Cawthorne cherished rather old fashioned ideas of love and matrimony, as far as women were concerned. He was by no means straight-laced, but he intended when he married to monopolise all the wickedness of his family.

"I dare say," replied the girl, with frank indifference. "In the meanwhile, though, I intend to have as good a time as I can."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Where do you live?" he asked.

"In a house."

"Of course, but where?"

"Over there," her sweeping gesture including all England. "Why do you want to know?"

"I want to know where to send you your typewriter. I'll wire to London for one to-night."

"Oh!" Lady Dorothy looked serious. "I told you a fib," she muttered presently. "I have a typewriter; leastways my father has and I can use it whenever I like."

"Well, where may I send you the manuscript I'll want you to copy."

The girl smiled. "I did not say I would do your work."

"But you will—please. I'll pay you anything you like to ask."

"A shilling a word?"

"Done with you," cried the Earl. "Now where do you live?"

"It wouldn't do to send it home. Oh, here comes some one; I must be going." A pony carriage had issued from the wood and approached them at a slow trot in full view.

"Meet me somewhere to-morrow night," suggested the Earl.

"No thank you—my lord; good-bye!" She moved off.

"Please, ah do!" He followed her.

"Lord Cawthorne, you'll get me into trouble if you follow me. You don't wish that, I'm sure."

"Then tell me where I'll see you again. I can't leave you like this." His voice was desperate.

"Impossible. Please leave me!" her voice was nervous and imperative. She was thinking of servants' gossip. Her groom was driving the pony carriage.

"Don't be cruel, Dolly dear."

She turned upon him a scarlet face and blazing eyes. "How dare you!" she cried out in a passion, then sailed on like a queen.