Читать книгу Lovers' Knots - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 6

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When Miss Eulalie made her slightly-defiant entry into the drawing-room at Montacute House she found Mr. Champneys drinking tea with Sophia.

She seated herself demurely in a corner and watched the two. Sophia's whale-boned gown sat too tightly to her spare figure; her elbows were pointed, her neck lean, but her pale face was handsome in a cold, hard manner.

Mr. Champneys was aggressively fair; there was no escape from the smooth pink of his round face or the dazzling hue of his yellow hair; the fastidious considered his slightly protruding eyes with their fringe of straw-coloured lashes an offence, and the captious likened his figure to the soft lines of a sawdust-stuffed dummy to be burnt on the Fifth of November.

His merits were youth, good humour, and clothes from a London tailor; Sophia considered him eminently desirable.

He gave Eulalie an embarrassed glance; she, gathering her torn frill out of Sophia's sight, encouraged him with a friendly smile; she disdained to be angry with Mr. Champneys.

"Was you out with Mr. Tollemache?" questioned Sophia.

"I saw Augustus this afternoon," answered Eulalie, fencing.

"Why didn't he come home with you?" Eulalie gazed steadily at the tea-urn.

"I protest, Sophia, he was in an ill mood. I sent him home."

To her intense surprise, Sophia made no comment on this, but addressed to Mr. Champneys a random remark about the shortening days. Eulalie stared.

"Where is Beverly?" she asked, gaining confidence.

"I don't know—in the village," said Sophia. Hastily she smoothed out the stiff folds of her large-patterned skirt, and her lips twitched.

"La!" cried Eulalie. "What is Beverly doing in the village?"

"Have you heard of the forger?" asked Mr. Champneys, with a sudden effort, as if speech were a fence that must be taken at a leap; then he grew slowly red, fearful of a fall.

Eulalie smiled, however.

"Yes, sir. Augustus told me. I hope that they will get him; I should rejoice to see him in the stocks." Her eyes shone wickedly. "An odious vagabond—pray, sir, do you not consider him so?"

"A menace to the country," said Mr. Champneys, encouraged—"a scoundrel."

Eulalie untied the velvet bow under her chin.

"Sophia," she said, as she flung off her hat, "I beg you to replenish Mr. Champneys' cup."

Sophia started from absorption in herself. She went red, and when the gentleman had handed the cup of blue and white she continued to pour into it long after it was full and the tea streaming over the saucer and the fine lacquered tray.

"La!" cried Eulalie, with raised eyebrow. "Pray regard what you are doing."

Sophia stared and set the cup down; her colour deepened and she bit her lip; clearly something was amiss with Sophia.

Mr. Champneys eyed the steaming tray and dragged out his lace handkerchief with some idea of something to be done. "Let it be, sir," said Eulalie, not ill pleased at Sophia's discomfiture. "You would never be so impolite as to point a disaster?"

She laughed and he stared guiltily at his handkerchief with a poor pretence of having brought it out to flick a fly from his sleeve. Sophia made an effort to rally herself.

"I have a touch of the vapours," she said. It was a new thing for Sophia.

"Oh!" remarked Eulalie, surveying the tips of her pink shoes.

Mr. Champneys brought the conversation to the subject that had been so successful previously.

"The entire village," he stated, "has turned out in the hunt for the forger."

"It has nothing to do with us, sir," said Sophia. Her voice was rather strained.

"It might have," remarked Eulalie. "He might be discovered on our very grounds—the wretch!"

Sophia gave a little start.

"Monstrous!" she said hastily. "He has probably long since left the neighbourhood." Eulalie smiled bitterly.

"I imagine he has not, Sophia."

"There is great likelihood," said Mr. Champneys, "that he is lurking in the woods."

"Mr. Champneys"—Eulalie gave him a dazzling glance—"it would be vastly diverting if you could find him."

"Eulalie!" Sophia cried angrily. "It is a very unbecoming subject and a foolish request." She paused abruptly, her lips quivered; something was certainly amiss with her.

Eulalie lifted her shoulders lazily.

"Mr. Champneys," she asked, "what do they do to a forger when they catch him?"

"Hang him," he answered, with a kind of virtuous gusto, as if it was pleasant to reflect that people did occasionally meet with their deserts.

Sophia drew her breath quickly.

"Horrible!" she said in a trembling voice. "I desire, Eulalie, that you will discover another topic of converse."

Mr. Champneys' light lashes flickered in a mild amazement at the sharpness of the rebuff; Eulalie's quicker perceptions discovered more agitation than anger in Sophia's thin tones; she looked at her sister-in-law curiously.

An uncomfortable pause was broken by the entrance of Beverly.

As he advanced down the light room he exchanged a quick glance with his wife that Eulalie did not fail to notice, nor did it escape her that he was paler than usual.

Beverly was like his sister, eminently handsome, but the gravity that robbed his face of charm was to-day heightened to sourness.

He gave the briefest greeting to Mr. Champneys, a nod to his sister, and the whole of his attention to his wife.

With a broken excuse very unlike her usual correct behaviour, Sophia rose and followed Beverly out of the room.

Eulalie glanced at the deserted Mr. Champneys; she thought it must be apparent even to him that something was wrong, but his fatuous expression undeceived her. She decided that Sophia was right in ignoring him; he was certainly free from the surmises and curiosity with which she was perplexing herself.

Mr. Champneys shifted his position in an embarrassed manner; Eulalie looked indifferently round the room; Mr. Champneys coughed; her gaze fell to the tea-table; she twisted the strings of her hat round her fingers.

"What was the matter with Sophia?"

"Mrs. Montacute?"

Mr. Champneys, red in the face, was speaking. She gave him a tolerant attention, a glance not unmingled with compassion.

"Madam, I am distressed." His eyes started in his nervousness. "I am disconsolate."

"Yes?" said Eulalie gently.

"I say, madam, that—that it gives me the greatest pain that you are unable to accept my proposals."

"It was a great honour to me, sir," she smiled graciously. "I pray that you will believe that my refusal was merely owing to a dislike on my part to enter yet the estate of matrimony."

Mr. Champneys visibly brightened.

"I may be permitted to infer, madam, that if ever you should be induced to alter your mind, I should stand some chance?" he said.

Eulalie glanced wickedly at the pink shoes.

"La, sir—who knows?" she answered.

He looked rather baffled, appeared to strive after words in which to express his feelings.

"It was a heavy disappointment to me," he said slowly, "and to my aunt, Miss Fanshawe."

Then he grew uncomfortable under her sparkling eyes, and strove still further to explain himself.

"She finds the Manor difficult to—to—"

"The housekeeping taxes her abilities?" said Miss Eulalie gravely. "I swear I am grieved to have caused Miss Fanshawe any inconvenience. Pray, sir, convey to her the expressions of my esteem."

Mr. Champneys rose with an impulse to retreat; she encouraged him to take his departure, and when, after elaborate leave-takings, he had gone, she sighed and yawned with relief.

Then, finding herself alone, she carried out what had been her longing ever since her return, namely, went over to the mirror on the mantel-shelf and surveyed herself.

She fancied that she could still see traces of tears; her hair was untidy, her fichu torn. Sophia was certainly absorbed, unusually absorbed, not to have noticed this dishevelment.

Eulalie thought she would rearrange herself before Sophia's eyes had another chance of studying her. She went softly from the room and upstairs with her mouth set bitterly at the thought of the vagabond in Montjoy Park; the remembrance that he had gone off with the last word, and that an insult, made her tingle to her finger-tips; she felt that she could have seen him whipped or set in the stocks with pleasure; she longed to see him again that she might look through him with a perfect haughtiness.

She had reached her room at the top of the house—only the disused garrets higher, when a slight sound made her glance from her door up the stairs that led to them.

She was in time to see the flash of a purple skirt disappearing above.

Sophia! What was Sophia doing ascending to the attics? Eulalie hesitated a second, but a second only; she slipped off her shoes and ran softly up the garret stairs, heedless of the possibilities of dust to her pink stockings.

Trepidation made her catch her breath guiltily; the spirit of adventure and the joy of the unknown urged her on. She saw Sophia enter the door of the attic at the stair-head, and following a-tip-toe, found it left ajar. In a flash she saw a strange scene.

Beverly was there—Beverly still in his riding-coat, looking stern and worried, staring at his feet with frowning blue eyes. On a broken chair beside him sat Sophia, with the absurd red flower dangling from her hair, and an expression of miserable distress on her sharp face. She was looking at the third occupant of the room, a man who leant against the wall, with folded arms, and a sneer on his face.

He was marvellously like Sophia, and Eulalie trembled with excitement to see that he wore red stockings and a plum-coloured coat...

She waited for no more—in a sudden terror of detection, she turned, fled noiselessly, and gained her chamber with a heart beating high. The discovery was agitating, to a degree overwhelming; Eulalie slipped into the wide window seat, and stared through the muslin blinds at the purple sunset that glowed behind the Park trees.

A relation of Sophia! She reflected that she knew marvellously little of Sophia's relatives, and the likeness was unmistakable; a cousin—possibly—a brother!

Suddenly she recollected the man in Mont-joy Park; her surmise, there, then, had been a hideous mistake; the blood flew to her face as she recalled some of her remarks.

The fellow might be honest; she considered the offer of her purse, and her cheeks burnt. She hastily dismissed the subject from her thoughts. A heavy step past her door told her that Beverly had descended.

Eulalie slipped on her shoes and followed him downstairs into the drawing-room; she was desirous of observing Beverly's manner under this misfortune.

He appeared displeased at her entry; he was standing by the long window with his hands clasped behind him under his buff overcoat; he still wore his spurs, and now and then viciously thrust them against the white wainscoting.

Eulalie, oblivious of her torn dress, flung herself into one of the satin chairs and opened the attack:

"I protest, Beverly, that I am vastly interested in the news Augustus told me—pray, when you was in the village, did you observe anything of the forger?"

The spurs ground against the wall; Beverly's blue eyes shone cold and angry.

"Hold your tongue, Miss," he retorted. Eulalie enjoyed his expression.

"La!" she cried, "I did not know that you was cross, Beverly. What is the matter?"

He gave her a sharp look.

"There is this the matter, Miss: you was a fool to refuse Francis Champneys."

At the quick change of subject, she tossed her head pettishly.

"Mr. Champneys is insufferable," she declared. "Absolutely."

"And you are a spoilt little minx," said Beverly impatiently. "What do you think is to become of you? Do you intend to live here for ever?"

Her great eyes flashed.

"I imagine, Beverly, that I have a right to reside in my father's house."

"And I have a right to command your obedience," he answered harshly. "You must either marry or behave yourself more befittingly—Sophia—"

"Oh! I entreat, do not quote Sophia," interrupted Eulalie scornfully. "Sophia! You, Beverly, may be afraid of her, but I dare assure you that I am not."

Beverly strode towards the door; his face was dark with vexation; with his hand on the door knob, he paused to face her:

"I'll not be troubled with you much longer, Miss."

Eulalie smiled.