Читать книгу Lovers' Knots - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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Miss Eulalie found herself on the outskirts of her brother's land and the boundary of Montjoy Park.

She knew the rusty iron gate very well; she had often peeped through and marked the wildness of the foliage in the deserted spaces beyond. The Marquess of Montjoy had gone to the Americas and the devil long before she could remember; his house was shut up, his property going to waste.

Miss Eulalie had always found an interest in the closed-in park and empty house. It boasted a romantic awe, a suggestiveness of fairy-tale possibilities that the neat grounds of her brother and his neighbours totally lacked.

And now she observed that the gate stood a little open, that the nettles and sorrels growing round the postern were crushed and displaced. With a thrill of excitement she stepped nearer. Who had forced an entry?

There was no sign or sound of a human being in the thick, dark shades of Montjoy Park; the wide, overgrown drive was bare and empty until it became lost in the green shadow of the overhanging trees.

Miss Eulalie gathered up her skirt, furled her parasol, and, slipping through the open gate, entered the sombre desertion of the park.

A pleasant awe quickened her breath, her fearlessness was charmed by the suggestion of gloom and terror; some wood-doves cooed overhead, disturbing the delightful loneliness.

Buttercups, growing tall and strong, the thick-stemmed parsley and flowering grasses bordered the path and now covered it from end to end.

The wild briar had overgrown the low branches of the yew, and brambles trailed and clung to the young trees.

The leaves rustling together made an exquisite whispering; the patches of sky that showed between them glimmered like little blue stars. Miss Eulalie put the encumbering flowers aside with the end of her parasol and advanced leisurely with a delicate step.

The walk curved suddenly, and ended in a low stone wall that was crowned with snapdragon and grown with the ruddy gold of gilliflowers; a long-mouldered door hung on rusty hinges and crumbled under the weight of vivid stonecrop. Miss Eulalie, glowing with a gentle excitement, softly pushed aside the wealth of flowers and crept through the aperture.

She found herself in a rose garden.

All paths or trace of them had been obscured. As far as she could see was a wilderness of roses, buds, full blown, drooping, all colours, from a dead, heavy white to a dark crimson; the air was lovely with the perfume of them, the ground dangerous by reason of their trailing stems and thorns.

As the July breeze swept over them, their slumbering heads nodded, and the various-hued petals flew abroad like dying butterflies, fluttering to the ground.

Miss Eulalie gathered her skirt up for fear of the thorns, and, mindful of her complexion, opened the pink parasol against the unshaded brilliance of the sun.

Recklessly thrusting aside the roses, she came by the moss-grown wall, like a fair rose herself, through the garden and the clinging embraces of green leaves and sharp red thorns, to the door on the further side.

Then she paused, a little breathless with her adventure, and looked down a flight of stone steps into tangled green, and a turreted castle rising behind huge trees.

Surely, if ever promise was fulfilled, some delectable mystery was enshrouded here!

A veritable palace of a fairy tale; the very sunlight seemed to take on a more wonderful tinge of gold. Miss Eulalie descended into the long grass and turned in the direction of the Castle.

She had not gone many paces before she came to a fountain, long dried up; the wide basin was almost covered with the high, wild flowers, but haughtily above the ruin rose the central figure of a rampant griffin holding a shield and gazing defiantly up at the blazing sun. Miss Eulalie drew closer.

Across the shield was an inscription, so deeply cut that even now it was legible. She read with curious eyes:

"Pryde is ye lorde of alle

But we are ye lordes of Pryde."

The motto of the Montjoys. Miss Eulalie, glancing round their desolate domain, sighed as a tribute to a boast miserably unfulfilled; then she started and almost dropped the parasol.

On the other side of the fountain a man was seated in the grass with his back to her; the shade of a little beech tree was over him; he was eating from a handkerchief on his knees. Miss Eulalie stood rigid, observing him. A recollection of the forger transfixed her. Of course, this was the man—a most likely place for him to have hidden.

The loneliness that had been so enticing became discomposing; she longed for the Hon. Augustus, or even Mr. Champneys.

The stranger was not looking at her; she considered that she might escape if she moved cautiously. She had turned for flight when he suddenly looked round and saw her.

All her patrician dignity came to her aid; she faced him with her head a little high and challenging eyes.

He appeared the more startled of the two. He rose to his feet, still holding a lump of bread and a clasp-knife in his hand, and stared at her. Miss Eulalie's courage was restored slightly by observing that he wore neither a plum-coloured coat nor red stockings; his attire was a ragged great coat, opening on a faded scarlet waistcoat, and much-worn riding breeches and boots.

As they stared at each other, and she noted his ragged appearance, she drew further away through the flowers. She reflected that the forger might have changed his clothes.

The stranger broke the stillness.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. Miss Eulalie flushed at his impudence.

"Indeed, sir," she cried haughtily, "I was about to question your right in these grounds."

"Oh, you was going to question me?" he said, in no friendly tone. He gave her a quick look. "Why?"

He dropped the bread and the knife, and, coming out of the shade, seated himself on the brim of the fountain and stared at her.

Miss Eulalie, too proud to show open fright, retreated a furtive backward step and returned his gaze with defiant eyes. The description of the forger ran in her head. This man was tall, but of a strong, fine build, certainly erect, and, though his eyes were grey, his hair black, he possessed blunt English features, and a nose not by any means to be termed Roman.

She noticed all this in a second, but she was not completely convinced. There might have been some mistakes in the description.

The stranger spoke again.

"Do you come from yonder?" he asked, and waved a ragged sleeve in the direction of Montjoy Castle.

Two things flashed on Miss Eulalie—that he did not know that the Castle was deserted, and that she was a trespasser as himself. She decided not to enlighten him on either point.

"That is the Marquess of Montjoy's house," she said coldly; "and your questions are vastly insolent."

The man smiled.

"The Marquess keeps his grounds in fine repair; it looks as if it had not been touched for a century."

He made a gesture round the wilderness, still with his eyes on her and a smile on his lips. His voice was refined, his face fresh and newly-shaven, the only points, Miss Eulalie thought, in his favour.

"You trespass," she said haughtily; "depart before one of my lord's men finds you."

"How many does my lord keep?" he asked in a galling tone of disbelief.

She disdained to answer. She revolved schemes of dignified retreat as she switched at the ox-eyed daisies with the parasol.

The stranger rose, and, fetching the remains of his meal, deposited them in the basin of the fountain; then, reseating himself on the brim, cut and ate his bread and meat with an easy shamelessness.

"The Marquess neglects his fountain," he remarked, surveying it. "It looks mightily as if it had dried up."

"If you are presuming to address me," she answered in disgust, "I could reply that your comments come vastly ill from a trespasser. These grounds are private."

"Then you do come from the Castle?" he said. "Otherwise you trespass also."

She turned her back on the picture of him, lounging against the griffin and drinking wine from a bottle. Her lip curled. Without looking round, she spoke:

"You had better take care, if you are he I think you are."

He set the bottle down and fell to the food again.

"Who do you think I am?" he asked easily.

"A vagabond!" cried Miss Eulalie, looking over her shoulder.

He nodded.

"Yes, a vagabond."

His composure heightened her annoyance with the situation.

"Then begone, fellow, off my lord's property."

She swung round with her head haughtily high, and a flushed face, rose-pink from head to foot.

"Are you my lady?" demanded the stranger, eyeing her.

She was surprised into a denial.

"No!" Then her flush deepened with vexation. "How dare you question me, fellow?"

He rose with his hands in his pockets.

"How dare you order me off?" he said.

Eulalie noticed that the stranger's clothes were even more ragged than she had thought at first. The red scarf round his throat and his waistcoat positively fluttered with rags, his coat was patched and greasy; he was little better than a beggar.

"Your impudence," she answered, going white, "is vastly impolitic. I dare swear you are he the reward is offered for."

She watched the effect; he dropped the swagger and came a step nearer.

"The reward?" he echoed. As his coat swung back she marked a pistol in his belt; she stood her ground.

"There are handbills posted in the village," she said, "and a reward of a hundred guineas offered for your detection."

He looked up sharply.

"For my detection?" He lifted his dark brows. "Who do you think I am?"

He swung his hat in a puzzled way and looked at her very keenly.

Miss Eulalie grew impatient.

"Some one the law is after, I dare swear, fellow."

His eyes narrowed, but he laughed.

"Whoever is worth a hundred guineas to the law, I am not. Your handbills do not refer to me."

He rose, lazily stretching himself; Miss Eulalie hardened under a demeanour that was easy to insolence; if he would not be warned, if he would give no heed to her, let him meet the fate that he deserved; she was turning away when his laughter made her pause.

"A hundred guineas!" he cried. "To think that some one will be lucky enough to earn honestly a hundred guineas!"

He looked at her quizzically, his hand on his hip.

"What is a hundred guineas?" said Miss Eulalie loftily.

"A prodigious sum when you are in want," he answered.

It occurred to her that a man who would forge would steal; he was in want of money, of course. How could he escape without? He might become desperate; she glanced at her bracelets with a nervous eye, and turned slowly away towards the rose garden.

He frightened her by following and falling into step beside her.

She imagined Sophia's comments on her present situation, and grew furious with herself. Agitation at this stranger's approach slightly ruffled her dignity; she hurried up the steps into the rose garden and was disappearing through the door when there was a sharp rip of silk, and she found herself held by the flounces of her dress that had caught on one of the rusty nails in the doorway.

She gave a cry of vexation; before she could stoop the man behind had bent to disengage her dress, as if he were her equal, and it were the natural thing to do.

Miss Eulalie stiffened and went white with rage. "You dare to touch me!" she cried. Her eyes shone dangerously; she snatched desperately at her skirt and pulled it away, leaving the frill dangling on the wall.

So intense was her gesture and look of repulsion that he seemed taken aback; he stood against the wall, staring at her; she disdained another word and swept through the roses, gathering up her torn dress.

Her sense of the undignified position made her, in her vexation, assume a carriage of frozen haughtiness; heedless of the clinging thorns that impeded her way, she walked rapidly, never looking back till she reached the other end of the rose garden.

Then she paused, out of breath, and leant against the wall with the wealth of gilliflowers and snapdragons.

Over her round white arm a scratch showed red; she stared at it in annoyance, thinking of Sophia; then a step made her draw herself erect as the stranger swung out of the rose garden.

He stopped at sight of her; his face, which was very pale now, awoke some pity in Miss Eulalie. Perhaps he was in great distress, poor wretch, penniless and pursued!

"Our ways lie differently," he said.

His quiet might have been humility. She condescended to be a little sorry for him. Her pretty fingers detached the bag of mauve beads that hung at her side; she recollected that it contained two guineas and the recipe for a complexion wash. This last she drew out and put into her pocket.

He was gazing at her. Decidedly, he was not ill-looking. Miss Eulalie determined on charity; she held out the bead bag elegantly.

"Take it, fellow," she said; "it may preserve you from following your dishonest courses."

"Madam!" he said quietly. He turned on his heel and walked swiftly away down the moss-grown drive.

Miss Eulalie stood stunned, outraged, pale and silent till he was out of sight; then she flung the purse furiously through the buttercups and, turning her face to the wallflowers, cried in such a fury that her sobs burst the laces of the rose-red bodice.