Читать книгу Supernatural Mysteries - Ultimate Collection - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 44

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When the young man woke it was well past noon on a perfect summer day and the room full of a dull brownish light which filtered through the joints in the shutters, in each of which blazed a small mock sun through the round aperture in the wood.

Sir William looked at his strange bed, his pillow of rolled tapestries, his mattress of grey serges and holland covers, and sat up, pulled aside the sage-green curtains and stared about him. He could not, for a while, remember where he was, but he remembered perfectly where he had come from—the masquerade, the brawl, the murder, the flight into the night, the advice given by the friend who had clung to his bridle even as he was starting.

‘Why don’t you go to Holcot Grange? Nobody will look for you there! You will be your own master. It will blow over in a week or so.’

Yes, he could remember that, and the ride, and the change of horses at the post-house…they had been very glad to take the beautiful but exhausted horse from the young gentleman in his carnival dress who was riding, he said, for a wager, and to give him in exchange the post hack which had brought him to Holcot Grange…

Holcot Grange! That, then, was where he was now…

He sat up and put his aching head into his hands, and remembered the woman who had roused him in the middle of the night. She, surely, was a dream, but he recalled the name she had given him—Julia Roseingrave—an extraordinary name. Surely he had heard it before? She had been unlike any other woman he had ever seen, and his fine taste in gallantry dwelt on her with zest. So cool and self-possessed she was, so dark of hair and eye, and yet so pale of skin, very erect, neat figured and small boned, with hands that were very delicate and yet strong enough to rouse him by shaking his shoulder. He could recall her dress laced so tightly round the waist…little sprigs of roses all over it. There had been something not altogether pleasant in the steady look of her drowsy black eyes. She had been readier with her speech than he cared for in a woman. What had the woman been like for whom that sudden blood had flown at the masquerade? He could scarcely remember.

He rose and looked down with disgust at the painted mask lying on the bed, and then at his own ragged and tattered scarlet suit, the fantastic boots of painted leather; he did not believe that he would ever wear a masquerade dress again. Never in his life before had he been without a body servant. He stood helpless, without clothes, without service, and then impatiently pulled off the tawdry scarlet finery, the gaudy dusty boots and stood in shirt, breeches and stockings.

He opened the shutters and the strong sweetness of the day overpowered him.

‘Am I master of this place? I never saw anything so alien.’

He found a bell rope and pulled it, and when Mrs Barlow, at once suspicious and deferential, overawed and incredulous, came, he desired her to send someone at once to Griffinshaws, to fetch the steward, Mr Morley he believed the name was—indeed, he had almost forgotten that…