Читать книгу The Shield of Love - B. L. Farjeon - Страница 5

Charlotte sat at the window, darning stockings; Mr. Fox-Cordery sat at the table killing flies.

There are more ways than one of killing flies, and there is something to be said about the pastime on the score of taste. The method adopted by Mr. Fox-Cordery was peculiar and original. He had before him a tumbler and a bottle, and he was smoking a cigar. The tumbler was inverted, and into it the operator had inveigled a large number of flies, which he stupefied with smoke. The cigar he was smoking was a particularly fragrant one, and the flies could not therefore complain that they were being shabbily treated. When they were rendered completely helpless he transferred them to the bottle, taking the greatest possible care to keep it corked after each fresh importation, in order that the prisoners should not have the opportunity of escaping in any chance moment of restored animation. By this means Mr. Fox-Cordery had collected some hundreds of flies, whose dazed flutterings and twitchings he watched with languorous interest, his air being that of a man whose thoughts were running upon other matters almost, if not quite, as important as this. He continued at his occupation until the tumbler was empty and the bottle nearly full; and then he threw the stump of his cigar out of window, and, with a smart wrench at the cork, put the bottle on the mantelshelf. He rose, and stood beside his sister.

"Did Mr. Dixon give you no inkling of what he wanted to see me about?" he asked, in his low, languid voice.

"None whatever," replied Charlotte, drawing the stocking she was darning from her left hand, and stretching it this way and that, to assure herself that the work was well done. They were her own stockings she was mending, and Heaven knows how many times they had gone through the process.

"And you did not inquire?"

"I did not inquire."

Some note in her voice struck Mr. Fox-Cordery as new and strange, and he regarded her more attentively.

"The old affair, I suppose," he said maliciously.

"If you mean that Mr. Dixon has any intention of reopening the subject with you," said Charlotte, laying aside the sorely-darned stocking and taking up its fellow, "you are mistaken."

Perhaps the act of stooping had brought the blood to her face, for there was a flush upon it when she lifted her head.

"It is not often that I am."

"Yet it may happen."

The flush in her face had died away, and she was now gravely attending to her work.

Mr. Fox-Cordery pulled down the ends of his little silky mustache. "Be careful how you address me, Charlotte. It is a long time since you and Mr. Dixon met."

"No; we have seen each other several times this past year."

"You made no mention to me of these meetings."

"There was no reason why I should, Fox."

"Did you inform mother?"

"That is an unnecessary question. Had I informed her you would not have remained in ignorance. Mother keeps nothing from you."

"You have grown into a particularly intelligent young woman," he said, and added spitefully, "Well, not exactly a young woman----" pausing to note the effect of the shot.

"I am twenty-eight," said Charlotte, in her usual tone, "and you, Fox, will be forty soon."

Her shot told better than his. "We will not continue the conversation," he said shortly.

"As you please, Fox."

He stepped to the fireplace, gave the bottle of flies a violent shake, looked at Charlotte as if he would have liked to serve her the same, and then resumed his place by the window, and drummed upon a pane.

"Mr. Dixon's visit here was a presumption. How dare he intrude himself into this house?"

"Settle it when he calls again," said Charlotte. "He came to see you upon some business or other."

"Which you insist upon concealing from me."

"Indeed I do not. I cannot tell you what I do not know."

"At three o'clock, you say?"

"Yes, at three o'clock."

"I will consider whether he shall be admitted. Don't move, Charlotte."

There was a fly on her hair, which he caught with a lightning sweep of his hand. As he thrust his unfortunate prisoner into the bottle he chuckled at the expression of disgust on Charlotte's face. The fly disposed of, he said:

"Mother shall judge whether you are right or wrong."

"Don't put yourself to unnecessary trouble," said Charlotte. "I can tell you beforehand how she will decide."

The entrance of Mrs. Fox-Cordery did not cause her to raise her head; she proceeded with her darning, and awaited the attack of the combined forces. A singular resemblance existed between mother and son. Her face, like his, was of the hue of pallid wax, her eyes were blue, her hair sandy, and she spoke in a low and languid voice. She held an open letter in her hand.

"Here is a house that will suit you, my love," she said, holding out the letter to him. "It faces the river; there is a nice piece of meadow-land, and a lawn, and a garden with flowers and fruit trees. It stands alone in its own grounds, and there is a little arm of the river you may almost call your own, with a rustic bridge stretching to the opposite bank. The terms are rather high, twelve guineas a week for not less than three months, paid in advance, but I think we must go and see it. I should say it is exactly the place to suit your purpose."

Charlotte listened in wonder. This contemplated removal to a house near the river was new to her--and what scheme was Fox engaged upon that would be furthered by a proceeding so entirely novel? Mr. Fox-Cordery put the letter in his pocket without reading it, and said in a displeased tone:

"We will speak of it by and by."

Mrs. Fox-Cordery glanced sharply from her son to her daughter.

"Charlotte, what have you been doing to annoy Fox?"

"Nothing," replied Charlotte.

"She can prevaricate, you know, mother," observed Mr. Fox-Cordery quietly.

"Of course she can prevaricate. Have we not had innumerable instances of it?"

"I will finish my work in my own room," said Charlotte rising.

"Do not stir," commanded Mrs. Fox-Cordery, "till permission is given you. Fox, my love, what has she done?"

"Mr. Dixon has paid a visit to Charlotte in this house."

"Impossible!"

"Fox has stated what is not correct," said Charlotte, resuming her seat and her work. "Mr. Dixon called to see Fox."

"That is her version," said Mr. Fox-Cordery. "She seeks to excuse herself by throwing it upon me."

"Your conduct is disgraceful," said Mrs. Fox-Cordery to her daughter, "and I am ashamed of you."

"I have done nothing disgraceful," retorted Charlotte, "and I am not ashamed of myself."

Mrs. Fox-Cordery stared at her in astonishment, and Mr. Fox-Cordery nodded his head two or three times, and said:

"You observe a change in Charlotte. There was a time when she would not have dared to put her will in opposition to ours, but I think I shall be found equal to my duty as master of this house. I do not say I am perfect, but I know of what I am capable. I have had my crosses and disappointments; I have had my sorrows. I have them still. Let us, at least, have harmony in our home."

"Amen!" intoned Mrs. Fox-Cordery, with a reproachful look at Charlotte.

"There is but one way," continued Mr. Fox-Cordery, "to secure this harmony. By obedience to orders. I am the head of this house and family, and I will not be thwarted or slighted."

"I will support you, my love," said his mother, "in all ways."

"I never for a moment doubted you, mother. We will not be uncharitable to Charlotte; we will be, as we have ever been, tender and considerate toward her. She inherits a family characteristic which she turns to a wrong account. Tenacity is an excellent quality, but when it is in alliance with intense selfishness, it is productive of great mischief. I am not a hard man; my nature is tender and susceptible, and I am easily led. Convince me that I am wrong in any impression I have formed, and I yield instantly. I learn from Charlotte, mother, that she has been in the habit of meeting Mr. Dixon during the last year in a clandestine and secret manner."

Before Mrs. Fox-Cordery could express her horror at this revelation, Charlotte interposed:

"Fox is misrepresenting me. What I told him was that Mr. Dixon and I have seen each other several times. We have not met secretly or clandestinely."

"You met without our knowledge or sanction," said Mr. Fox-Cordery, "and it comes to the same thing."

"Quite the same thing," assented his mother.

"_I_ never equivocate," said Mr. Fox-Cordery, in his most amiable tone, "_I_ am never evasive. When Mr. Dixon was on friendly terms with us, he was admitted freely into our family circle, and was made welcome. For reasons which I need not enter into I was compelled to sunder all association with him, and to forbid him the house. You, mother, knowing my character, will know whether I was justified or not."

"Who should know you better than your mother?" said Mrs. Fox-Cordery fondly. "I am not acquainted with your reasons, but I am satisfied that they were just. Have you yet to learn, Charlotte, that your brother is the soul of honor and justice?"

Mr. Fox-Cordery waited for Charlotte's indorsement, but she was obstinately silent, and he proceeded:

"It would have been natural, in the attitude I was compelled to assume toward Mr. Dixon, that every member of my family should have had confidence in me, for I was working in their interest. Unfortunately, it was not so; Charlotte stood aloof, probably because I had discovered that a secret understanding existed between her and Mr. Dixon."

"There was none," said Charlotte indignantly. "What was known to Mr. Dixon and myself was known to you and mother. I see no reason to be ashamed of the avowal that we loved each other."

"The avowal is coarse and indelicate," said Mrs. Fox-Cordery, with a frown.

Mr. Fox-Cordery held out his hands, palms upward, as expressing, "What can one expect of a person so wrong-headed as Charlotte?"

"I trust," said Charlotte, with a bright blush on her face, "that the confession of an honest attachment is not a disgrace. You used to speak in the highest terms of Mr. Dixon."

"We live to be deceived," said Mr. Fox-Cordery, sadly surveying the ceiling, "to find our confidence abused. We create an ideal, and discover, too late, that we have been worshiping a mask, the removal of which sends a shudder through our"--he could not find the word he wanted, so he added--"system."

His mother's eyes were fixed admiringly upon him, but there was no admiration in Charlotte's face as, with her hand to her heart, she said boldly:

"You are fond of using fine phrases, Fox, but I do not think you believe in them."

"I am not to be deterred by insults from doing my duty," he replied. "Mr. Dixon asked permission to pay his addresses to you, and, as your natural guardians and protectors, we refused. That should have put an end to the affair."

"I should be justified in asking you," said Charlotte, "whether you think other persons have feelings as well as yourself. If I were to interfere in your love matters I wonder what you would say."

"The cases are different," said Mr. Fox-Cordery pathetically. "I am a man; you are a woman."

"Yes," said Charlotte, with bitterness, "I am a woman, and am therefore expected to sacrifice myself. Have you finished, Fox?"

"There is only this to say. It is your mother's command, and mine, that the intimacy between you and Mr. Dixon shall cease. We will not allow it to continue."

He gave his mother a prompting glance.

"Your brother has expressed it correctly," she said. "We will not receive Mr. Dixon into our family. He is an utterly objectionable person, and we will have nothing to do with him. If you have a grain of decent feeling in you, you will obey. Now you can go to your room."