Читать книгу The Honourable Jim - Baroness Orczy - Страница 13

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Four years had gone by since that day in June when two children, at the bidding of their parents, plighted their troth one to the other. Babs had spent most of her time in the schoolroom since then. Squire Brent, being determined that she should have the highest possible education, and himself being much in London concerned with the King’s affairs, sent her to Mistress Makyn’s school at Putney, where Babs learned Greek and Latin, Science and Logic, and French and Italian and I know not what, for these were the days of high education for girls, and Mistress Barbara had—so we are told—“a keene intellect and rare memorie.”

She did not see much of her youthful husband, which was fortunate, seeing that she had taken a real dislike to him ever since her wedding day. Frankly his reputation in the county did not stand very high; people said that he was indolent and surly, and whilst his two brothers, Nathaniel and John, were already ensigns in the army and took an active part in the turbulent politics of the day in the wake of their pugnacious father, James, the eldest, seemed content to idle his time away with books and scribbling poetry. Now and again he would start off on a Continental tour and not be heard of for months.

Nor had Babs heard much of Tubal of late. During the months immediately following her marriage and before she went to school she had seen him whenever she rode over with the Squire to pay a visit at Broughton Castle. Tubal was as ardent as ever and there had been one or two emotional scenes between them, when they swore eternal and chaste fidelity to one another. Babs had looked down with tear-dimmed eyes on Tubal’s hand—the left one—which bore so distinctly the impress of Dina’s sharp teeth upon the back of it. The hand would be scarred for life. Tubal was proud of it, and Babs, overwhelmed with the romance of it all, kissed the telltale scar which brought back to her mind the adventure of that fateful morning: Jim so rough and cruel despite his prowess, and Tubal so kind, so chivalrous, a veritable squire of dames, without fear and without reproach, thinking only of her feelings and unheeding the hurt that might have cost him his life.

But all that romance was now the past, and slowly Tubal appeared to fade out of Barbara’s life. Squire Brent thought that the friendship with that young underling had lasted quite long enough. He did not encourage Tubal to come to Stoke Lark, and as political differences between himself and Lord Saye and Sele had become so grave ’twas seldom that he or Babs went over to Broughton Castle these days.

But the young married couple met now and again in London, when Babs came to her father’s house in Westminster during the holidays and Jim happened to be in England, or otherwise inclined to visit the capital and his bride. A strange reserve seemed to have crept into the relationship of the two young people towards one another. Babs, who was usually as merry as a cricket, gay and irresponsible as a young fledgling, would—in the presence of her official lord and master—put on the airs and graces of a priggish miss, replying to his good-humoured banter by a curt “Yes” or “No” and airing her knowledge of science and her contempt of the classics and of the poets to the visible aggravation of Jim and the astonishment of her adopted father, who oft declared that there were two Barbaras in existence, one being his own adopted daughter—and a right merry piece of goods—and the other James Fiennes’ wife, a starchy blue-stocking who gave him the megrims.

Small wonder then that the young man’s visits to the house of his father-in-law were both infrequent and brief. Doubtless he felt that he was unwelcome. The struggle between the King and Parliament was growing in earnestness and bitterness. Lord Saye and Sele openly sided with Parliament, and his two sons, Nathaniel and John, had more than once declared that the army would do the same if it came to open conflict. To Squire Brent the very thought of a conflict with the King’s divine Majesty was nothing less than blasphemy and in his heart he felt that all the contumacious members of the House of Commons, those who had resisted the authority of the King, curtailed his powers, impeached his friends, coerced and threatened him, were the accursed children of Belial. To his old friend Saye and Sele he would no longer listen. “If I did,” he once said in his wrath, “I would forbid ye my house.”

After that, many months went by before Jim came again. When he did, his manner had undergone a change. Its former uncouthness had gone, giving place to a kind of detached air of indifference as if the mighty conflict ’twixt King and Parliament which was threatening to convulse his native land to its innermost foundations was a matter that did not concern him in the least. He expressed no opinion, one way or the other, though pressed to do so by old Squire Brent, who, a hot-headed partisan himself, could not understand how any Englishman could remain half-hearted when the storm of Civil War was threatening to break at any moment. In fact, I verily believe that on this occasion Squire Brent would have preferred a good strong argument with Jim (an argument wherein of course his own views would prevail) rather than this apathy which was vastly unbecoming in a healthy young English gentleman.

Mistress Barbara openly showed her contempt of her phlegmatic lord.

“While all the manhood of England,” she said with a taunting glance at her young husband, “will be taking up arms in defence of ideals and the justice of a cause, you, I imagine, sir, will go on a Continental tour or write sonnets in praise of the moonlight on the moat at Broughton.”

Jim smiled good-humouredly.

“Now you come to mention it, m’dear,” he said lightly, “I did once write a very fair sonnet in praise of the moonlight over the moat. An you will permit me, I could repeat you one or two of the best stanzas; one, for instance, which begins thus—”

An angry exclamation from Barbara however arrested the young man’s flow of eloquence.

With head tossed and shoulders raised in unmeasured scorn, his child-wife had flounced out of the room. He turned with a lazy, puzzled expression to seek an explanation from the Squire.

“Marry, sir,” the old man exclaimed with a contemptuous laugh. “My daughter is more a man than you. She is a loyal subject of His Majesty, it is true, but methinks she would sooner see you hotly enthusiastic on your father’s side than a malleable piece of putty with no convictions of your own.”

Whereat Jim gave a good-humoured smile and a nod of the head; then, seeing that his presence was in very truth distasteful to every one in the house, he calmly took his leave.