Читать книгу Inspector Furnival's Cases - Annie Haynes - Страница 14

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"I thought Anthony would be pleased," Peggy said wistfully.

She and Stephen Crasster were standing on a wide grassy path that ran down the centre of the rosery at Heron's Carew. All round them was a wealth of roses, great climbing gloire de Dijons, crimson ramblers, pink and crimson ramblers, golden glowing William Allan Richardson. Peggy, in her white gown, with her big dewy eyes, her exquisite pink and white skin, her soft red lips, looked the fairest rose of them all, the man thought, gazing at her with a very human longing in his kind eyes.

"Up in London everybody was so kind about it. And now—now I have come home it is all different. Anthony is quite unkind; he says Lorrimer is too old, and that he doesn't like him for other reasons. And Judith—well, Judith doesn't say much, but she looks white and—and disapproving. It is all very miserable."

Crasster took the girl's hand in his. "Anthony is naturally very anxious for his little sister's happiness."

Peggy's soft fingers clung to his; her pretty lips quivered. "Tell me, you are glad, aren't you, Stephen?"

Glad! For one moment the man caught his breath. A red mist rose before his eyes. He thought of what had been, of what he had hoped would be, then with a supreme effort he recovered his self-control.

"Of course I am glad, Peggy," he said softly. "If you are happy, that is all I ask. Are you, Peggy?"

"Very—very happy!" the girl whispered, her cheeks flushing hotly.

"Then I am very, very glad, Peggy." With all his might the man was battling down the mad temptation that bade him take the girl in his arms, tell her that the love that had never failed in all her bright youth was hers now; would be hers for ever.

Peggy looked up at him with grateful, humid eyes. "Oh, you never disappoint me, Stephen. One is always sure of your sympathy."

Crasster smiled a little sadly. "You will not need my sympathy much longer, Peggy. You will have Lord Chesterham's." His voice changing in spite of his efforts, as he spoke his successful rival's name.

"Oh, but I shall—I shall always need every bit of your sympathy." Peggy had dropped his hand now; she tucked her arm within his in the old playful confiding fashion, and drew him on with her. "I don't think that being happy," with a deepening of colour, "ought to make one forgetful of other people."

Stephen could not forbear a grim smile.

"Oh, what a child you are still, Peggy," he said involuntarily.

The girl pouted. "You are not to say that. Please to remember that I was eighteen last month; Lorrimer is always forgetting, and you are almost as bad. But come, they are taking tea out, and I am simply dying for some. What is wrong with"—lowering her voice—"Stephen Anthony and Judith?"

"Wrong with Anthony and Lady Carew!" Stephen brought back his thoughts with a start. "What would be wrong with them? Lady Carew does not look well; probably it is the heat."

"It was much hotter than this last year, and she was quite well," Peggy remarked wisely. "Anthony is altered too. He walks about by himself and broods over things. Heigh-ho! The only one that seems unchanged at Heron's Carew is Paul, and he isn't really unchanged, because he gets sweeter and sweeter every day."

As she spoke she sprang forward and pounced upon her small nephew, who was just then passing the rosery gate in his nurse's arms.

"Come to Auntie Peggy, and we will go and have cakes with Mummy." She carried him off in triumph, seated on her shoulder, clutching at her hair with fat dimpled hands.

Stephen followed, smiling at them both, though his heart felt heavy as lead.

Tea was served under the big beech as usual; Judith came across the lawn as they made their appearance. She was wearing a cool-looking gown of pale blue foulard. Against the blue of the gown her face looked transparently white; there were hollows in the cheeks, shadows under the eyes. Crasster was struck anew by her air of fragility as she shook hands with him.

Peggy subsided on to the rug with Paul, gurgles and shrieks of laughter testifying to his pleasure in Auntie Peggy's society; Stephen, his hat pulled down over his eyes, watched them as he talked to Lady Carew. Suddenly he looked up.

"Why, there is some one coming across the park from Home Wood. Surely, it is not Anthony?"

"No, Anthony was going the other way," Judith said easily. "And I am afraid he will not be back just yet. Who can this be?"

She leaned forward wrinkling her brow.

Peggy sat up, holding the chuckling Paul on his feet. "There, soon you will be able to run races with Auntie Peggy, darling!" Then she caught sight of the tall figure now rapidly advancing towards them. "Who is this?" she paused, her colour rose in a wave, flooding cheeks, neck, temples, as she sprang to her feet. "Lorrimer, oh!" She sped across the grass to meet him.

Judith gave one swift glance at Stephen; she saw that his face was strained and tense. She looked away. Peggy had reached the advancing figure now, they were coming back together. Peggy hanging on the man's arm, as she used to hang on Stephen's. But, as she watched the two advancing figures, it seemed to Judith that there was something oddly, fatally, familiar about the carriage of the tall form that was bent over Peggy in so lover-like a fashion.

A black mist rose before Lady Carew's eyes, blotting out Stephen's tortured face, the advancing lovers; she sat very still, one hand grasping the arm of her chair. Paul, clutching at her skirts, whimpering a little in his astonishment at Peggy's desertion of him, found himself for once unnoticed.

"Judith! Stephen!" It was Peggy's voice, eager, appealing. "It is Lorrimer! He got his business in town over sooner than he expected. He came over from Chesterham to the Dower House this afternoon, expecting to surprise me, and Mother sent him on here."

The mist before Judith's eyes was dispersing: she was pulling herself together, her eyes strained themselves with pitiful intensity on the bronzed face, the tall broad-shouldered figure by Peggy's side. Then a sudden icy cold gripped her, the touch of a deadly fear; so it was true then, Peggy's lover, Lord Chesterham, was the one man whose coming must spell calamity and ruin to Judith, the man she had hoped and prayed she might never meet again.

Stephen, standing up, moving forward to meet the man who had taken Peggy from him, saw that Lady Carew's face had changed, that an odd sickly pallor had overspread her cheeks. The horror in her eyes, their dumb agonized appeal, reminded him of some wild trapped thing. Moved by some sudden impulse he put himself before her.

But Judith rose. She leant heavily on the back of her wicker-chair; for one moment Stephen thought that she was going to faint, he turned quickly to her. She waved him imperatively back, her strange changeful eyes looked black as they strained themselves on the two who were very near now.

"Judith, Judith, don't you see, don't you understand—this is Lorrimer!" Peggy's excited voice rang out again.

Stephen, standing aside, as the man came forward with his ready smile, his outstretched hand, noted how over Peggy's unconscious head Judith Carew's eyes met those of the new-comer; noted how the beautiful face had assumed a look of mask-like rigidity, in which nothing seemed alive but the great burning eyes. He saw too, in the moment, before the heavy lids drooped, the look of triumph that flashed across from Lord Chesterham.

"I hope that Lady Carew will give me a welcome to Heron's Carew, for Peggy's sake," Lord Chesterham was saying as he bent over Judith's hand.

Lady Carew's lips moved, but there was no audible answer.

"Of course she will!" Peggy said joyously. "Only she hasn't been well lately, and you have rather taken us by storm, you know, Lorrimer. I think we have startled her. Sit down, Judith, dear, you are paler than ever."

But Judith put her aside. "I am quite well, Peggy. You are forgetting Mr. Crasster."

"Oh, no, I wasn't," Peggy said with her light laugh. "I never forget Stephen. This is Stephen, Lorrimer, who is to be your very greatest friend. I have told you all about him, haven't I?"

Lord Chesterham laughed as he held out his hand. "You have indeed! I hope the friendship Miss Carew proposes meets with your approval, Mr. Crasster."

Glancing into his rival's smiling eyes, Stephen knew that his secret was his own no longer. "I hope that Peggy's friends will: always be mine," he said slowly.

"Why, of course they will be," Peggy cried.

Judith had not moved, she stood a little behind. What was it that her eyes held—repulsion, entreaty, fear? Stephen, watching her, could not make up his mind.

He looked again at Peggy's lover. Lord Chesterham was apparently at his ease. Many people would have called him handsome, but Stephen's keen gaze, accustomed to read the faces of all sorts and conditions of men, saw that the light smiling eyes were set a trifle too closely together, that there was a thickening of the lower part of the face, as well as certain lines round the mouth that spoke of an evil temper.

But he was all amiability to-day as he watched his young fiancée playing with Paul, and presently, when Judith had turned back to her tea-table, addressed a few casual remarks to Stephen.

At last Peggy got up. "I am going to take Paul back to the house."

"No! You are not to come with me, sir," with a mischievous glance at Chesterham, who had sprung forward. "I want you, Stephen, because I wish most particularly to know what you think of Lorrimer."