Читать книгу Mignonette - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 15

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Barbara Lawne, with Sarah Harding in attendance, drove to Southampton, where the cross-channel steamers from Le Havre docked. She felt extremely nervous, tilting a black silk parasol against the sun, sitting erect in the well-built glossy brougham, with the imitation basket-work body, behind the two liveried menservants.

Francis Shermandine was due at Portsmouth in a few days' time and it was hard to think of anything but that. She had been induced to send him verses and drawings—his reports had been tender and encouraging, he was bringing them with him, and they were to discuss them together. No prospect could have been more entrancing to Barbara.

Harding had said that it would not do for a lady to struggle amid the crowds on the landing shed by the quay side, so Barton, the groom, was sent to identify and fetch Mademoiselle Falconet, who had promised to wear a dark green pelisse.

"I think I ought to have gone," murmured Barbara, straining her shortsighted eyes toward the crowd, to her a confused mass of color.

"Barton will do very well," returned Harding. "But I always do say, Miss, it is very awkward when there isn't a gentleman in a family."

How keen she is for me to be married! thought Barbara. Yet she would be shocked if anything was settled before I am out of mourning.

Barton was adroit in shouldering his way through passengers, porters, and welcoming friends, and soon had brought three people to the carriage. As she saw him, Barbara, despite Harding's muttered protests, stepped quickly onto the road. A middle-aged Frenchman wearing English tweeds, and his wife in a handsome shawl and gray bonnet, began introducing themselves, presenting Mademoiselle Falconet, praising the smoothness of the sea voyage, all at once.

Barbara stammered in French, was diffident in English; the luggage became everyone's concern. Nothing else was talked of until this was found, checked, and decisions taken as to how it was to be sent to Portsmouth. Mademoiselle Falconet withdrew from this breathless debate and, at Barbara's shy request, entered the carriage. Her escort refused all invitations, he was taking the London train; all business over, the carriage drove off along the road that bordered Southampton Water.

"You did not think that I should come?" smiled Aimée. "It is strange to you to find me—solid?"

"Yes, a little. It must be strange for you also." Barbara's glance swept Harding. "Your first visit abroad."

Mademoiselle Falconet's glance also gravely considered the correct servant in her substantial mourning.

"I hope I do not impose," she said. "Your mother arranged with mine this visit so long ago."

Barbara wished that her mother need not have been mentioned; she did not feel mistress of the situation, but Aimée Falconet leaned back on the gray velvet cushions and studied the view as they drove along. She was in nothing as Barbara had supposed her to be, so slightly made as to appear tall, hair of a pale umber color, and eyes of a light tawny hue. Her dark green dress and mantle were extremely well made, fine gloves were pulled to her elbows, and she carried a reticule of silver mesh.

Barbara felt pleased and excited. Aimée, though what Harding would have termed "outlandish," was surely pretty. Not that the short nose, wide mouth, and eyebrows dipping until they almost met were what Barbara had been taught to regard as beauty—but, without doubt, attractive.

Yet in Barbara's mind there was a doubt. She would have liked to have had her tentative opinion confirmed. Of the fresh splendor of Aimée's youth there could be no question. She was an elegant, self-possessed child. Barbara felt herself middle-aged, and saw Harding as old, and both of them as dowdy beside Aimée Falconet.

Whatever ruffling the journey had brought to her appearance, she had repaired it—her eyes and hair had a luster, her cheeks a bloom, her figure a rounded outline in the close-fitting green gown.

And she observed, fascinated, that Aimée had a handkerchief, a brooch, a bracelet (and no other ornament whatever) exactly the color of her eyes.

She's well bred, certainly, thought Barbara. She is taking everything as a matter of course. I wish that I could be as easy.