Читать книгу Nell, of Shorne Mills; or, One Heart's Burden - Charles Garvice - Страница 3

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"Dick, how many are twenty-seven and eight?"

The girl looked up, with narrow eyes and puckered brow, from the butcher's book, which she was laboriously "checking," at the boy who leaned back on the window seat picking out a tune on a banjo.

"Thirty-nine," he replied lazily but promptly, without ceasing to peck, peck at the strings.

She nodded her thanks, and traveled slowly up the column, counting with the end of her pencil and jotting down the result with a perplexed face.

They were brother and sister, Nell and Dick Lorton, and they made an extremely pretty picture in the sunny room. The boy was fair with the fairness of the pure Saxon; the girl was dark—dark hair with the sheen of silk in it, dark, straight brows that looked all the darker for the clear gray of the eyes which shone like stars beneath them. But the eyes were almost violet at this moment with the intensity of her mental effort, and presently, as she raised them, they flashed with a mixture of irritation and sweet indignation.

"Dick, if you don't put that banjo down I'll come over and make you. It's bad enough at most times; but the 'Old Folks at Home' on one string, while I'm trying to check this wretched book, is intolerable, and not to be endured. Put it down, Dick, or I'll come over and smash both of you!"

He struck a chord, an exasperating chord, and then resumed the more exasperating peck, peck.

"'Twas ever thus," he said, addressing the ceiling with sad reproach. "Women are born ungrateful, and continue so. Here am I, wasting this delightful afternoon in attempting to soothe a sister's savage breast by sweet strains of heavenly music, and she——"

With a laugh, she sprang from her seat and went for him. There was a short and fierce struggle, during which the banjo was whirled hither and thither; then he got her down on the floor, sat upon her, and deliberately resumed pecking out the "Old Folks at Home."

"Let me get up, Dick! Let me get up this instant!" she cried indignantly and breathlessly. "The man's waiting for the book. Dick, do you hear? I'll pinch you—I'll crumple your collar! I'll burn that beast of a banjo directly you've gone out. Dick, I'm sure you're hurting me seriously. Di-ck! I've got a pain! Oh, you wait until you've gone out! I'll light the fire with that thing! Get up!"

Without a change of countenance, as if he were deaf to her entreaties and threats, he tuned up the banjo, and played a breakdown.

"Comfortable, Nell? That's right. Always strive for contentment, whatever your lot may be. At present your lot is to provide me with a nice, springy seat, and it will so continue to be until you promise—on your honor, mind—that you will not lay a destructive hand on this sweetest of instruments."

"Oh, let me get up, Dick!"

"Until I receive that promise, and an abject apology, it is a case of j'y suis, j'y reste, my child," he responded blandly.

She panted and struggled for a moment or two, then she gasped:

"I—I promise!"

"On your word of honor?"

"Yes, yes! Dick, you are breaking my ribs or something."

"Corset, perhaps," he suggested. "And the apology? A verbal one will suffice on this occasion, accompanied by the sum of one shilling for the purchase of cigarettes."

"I shan't! You never said a word about a shilling!"

"I did not—I hadn't time; but I shall now have time to make it two."

The door opened, and a servant with a moon-shaped face and prominent eyes looked in. She did not seem at all surprised at the state of affairs—did not even smile.

"The butcher's man says shall he wait any longer, miss?"

"Yes, tell him to wait, Molly," said the boy. "Miss Nell is tired, and is lying down for a little while; resting, you know."

"I—I promise! I apologize! You—you shall have the shilling!" gasped the girl, half angrily, half haughtily.

He rose in a leisurely fashion, got back to his window seat, and held out his long, shapely hand.

She shook herself, put up one hand to her hair, and took a shilling from her pocket with the other.

"Tiresome boy!" she exclaimed. "If I live to be a hundred, I shall never know why boys were invented."

"There are lots of other things, simpler things, that you will never know, though you live to be a Methuselah, my dear Nell," he said; "one of them being that twenty-seven and eight do not make thirty-nine."

"Thirty-nine? Why, of course not; thirty-five!" she retorted. "That's where I was wrong. Dick, you are a beast. There's the book, Molly, and there's the money——Oh, give me back that shilling, Dick; I want it! I've only just got enough. Give it me back at once; you shall have it again, I swear—I mean, I promise."

"Simple child!" he murmured sweetly. "So young, so simple! She really thinks I shall give it to her! Such innocence is indeed touching! Excuse these tears. It will soon pass!"

He mopped his eyes with his handkerchief, as if overcome by emotion, and the exasperated Nell looked at him as if she meant another fight; but she resisted the temptation, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, pushed the book and money toward the patient and unmoved Molly.

"There you are, Molly, all but the shilling. Tell him to add that to the next account."

"Yes, miss. And the missis' chocklut; it's just the time?"

Nell glanced at the clock.

"So it is! There'll be a row. It's all your fault, Dick. Why don't you go for a sail, or shrimping, or something? A boy's always a nuisance in the house. I'll come at once, Molly. There!" she exclaimed, as a woman's thin voice was heard calling in a languid and injured tone:

"Molly!"

"'Twas the voice of the sluggard——'" Dick began to quote; but Nell, with a hissed "Hush! she'll hear you!" ran out, struggling with her laughter. Five minutes later, she went up the stairs with a salver on which were a dainty chocolate service and a plate of thin bread and butter, and entering the best bedroom of the cottage, carried the salver to a faded-looking woman who, in a short dressing jacket of dingy pink, sat up in the bed.

She was Mrs. Lorton, the stepmother of the boy and girl. She had been pretty once, and had not forgotten the fact—it is on the cards that she thought herself pretty still, though the weak face was thin and hollow, the once bright eyes dim and querulous, the lips drawn into a dissatisfied curve.

"Here is your chocolate, mamma," said the girl. She hated the word "mamma"; but from the first moment of her introduction to Mrs. Lorton, she had declined to call her by the sacred name of "mother." "I'm afraid I'm late."

"It is ten minutes past the time," said Mrs. Lorton; "but I do not complain. I never complain, Eleanor. A Wolfer should at least know how to suffer in silence. I hope it is hot—really hot; yesterday it was cold—quite cold, and it caused me that acute indigestion which, I trust, Eleanor, it will never be your lot to experience."

"I'm sorry, mamma; but yesterday morning you were asleep when I brought it in, and I did not like to wake you."

"Not asleep, Eleanor," said Mrs. Lorton, with an air of long-suffering patience—"no, alas! not asleep. My eyes were closed, I have no doubt; but I was merely thinking. I heard you come in——Surely that is not all the cream! I have few fancies, Heaven knows; but I have always been accustomed to half cream and half chocolate, and an invalid suffers acutely from these deprivations, slight and trifling though they may appear to one in your robust, I had almost said savage state of health."

"Isn't there as much as usual? I will go and see if there is some more," said the girl, deftly arranging the tray. "See, it is quite hot this morning."

"But it will be cold before you return, doubtless," sighed Mrs. Lorton, with saintly resignation. "And, Eleanor, may I venture to ask you not to renew the terrible noise with which you have been filling the house for the last half hour. You know how I dislike crushing the exuberance of your animal spirits; but such a perfectly barbaric noise tortures my poor overstrained nerves."

"Yes, mamma. We'll—I'll be quiet."

"Thank you. It is a great deal to ask. I am aware that you think me exacting. This butter is anything but fresh."

"It was made this morning."

"Please, oh, please do not contradict me, Eleanor! If there is one characteristic more plainly developed in me than another it is my unerring taste. This butter is not fresh. But do not mind. I am not complaining. Do not think that. I merely passed the remark. And if you are really going to get me my usual quantity of cream, will you do so now? Cold chocolate two mornings in succession would try my digestion sadly."

The girl left the room quickly, and as she passed the dining-room door she looked in to say hurriedly:

"Dry up, Dick. Mamma's been complaining of the noise."

"'Eleanor, I never complain,'" he murmured; but he put down the banjo, rose and stretched himself, and left the room, pretending to slip as he passed Nell in the passage, and flattening her against the wall.

She gave him a noiseless push and went for the remainder of the cream.

Mrs. Lorton received it with a sigh and a patient "I thank you, Eleanor;" and while she sipped the chocolate, and snipped at the bread and butter—she ate the latter as if it were a peculiarly distasteful medicine in the solid—the girl tidied the room. It was the only really well-furnished room in the cottage; Nell's little chamber in the roof was as plain as Marguerite's in "Faust," and Dick's was Spartan in its Character; but a Wolfer—Mrs. Lorton was a distant, a very distant connection by a remote marriage of the noble family of that name—cannot live without a certain amount of luxury, and, as there was not enough to go round, Mrs. Lorton got it all. So, though Nell's little bed was devoid of curtains, her furniture of the "six-guinea suite" type and her carpet a square of Kidderminster, her stepmother's bed was amply draped, possessed its silk eider-down and lace-edged pillows; there was an Axminster on the floor, an elaborate dressing table furnished with a toilet set, and—the fashionable lady's indispensable—a cheval glass.

"I think I will get up in half an hour, if you will be good enough to send Molly up to me," said Mrs. Lorton, sinking onto her pillow as if exhausted by her struggle with the chocolate.

"Yes, mamma," assented the girl. "What will you have for lunch?"

"Lunch!" sighed Mrs. Lorton, with an assumption of weary indifference. "It is really of no consequence, Eleanor. I eat so little, especially in the middle of the day. Perhaps if you could get me a sweetbread I might manage a few morsels. But do not trouble. You know how much I dislike causing trouble. A sweetbread nicely browned—on a small, a very small piece of toast; quite dry, please, Eleanor."

"Yes, mamma, I know," said Eleanor; but she looked out of the window rather doubtfully. Sweetbreads were not easily obtained at the only butcher's shop in the village; and, when they were, they were dear; but she had just paid the long-running bill, and——

"I'll go up to Smart's and see about it," she said. "Is there anything you want in the village, mamma?"

Mrs. Lorton sighed again; she rarely spoke without a sigh.

"If you really want the walk and are going, Eleanor, you might ask Mrs. Porter if she has got that toilet vinegar for me. She promised to get it down from London quite a week ago. It is really too ridiculous! But what can one expect in this hole, and living among a set of barbarians? I know that I shall never grow accustomed to this life of savagery; my memory of the past is too acute, alas! But I must stifle it; I must remember that the great trial of my life has been sent for my good, and I will never complain. Not one word of discontent shall ever pass my lips. My dear Eleanor, you surely are not going to be so mad as to open that window! And my neuralgia only just quiet!"

"I beg your pardon, mamma. The room seemed so hot, and I forgot. I've closed it again; see! Let me draw the eider-down up; that's it. I won't forget the toilet vinegar."

"I thank you, Eleanor; and you might get this week's Fashion Gazette. It is the only paper I care for; but it is not unnatural that I should like to see it occasionally. One may be cut off from all one's friends and relations, may be completely out of the world of rank and refinement, but one likes now and then to read of the class to which one belongs, but from which one is, alas! forever separated."

"I'll get the Fashion Gazette if Mrs. Porter has it, mamma. I won't be long, and Molly will hear you if you want her before the time."

Mrs. Lorton sighed deeply in acknowledgment, and Nell left the room.

She had been bright and girlish enough while romping with her brother, but the scene with her stepmother had left its impression on her face; the dark-gray eyes were rather sad and weary; there was a slight droop at the corners of the sweetly curved lips; but the change lent an indescribable charm to the girlish face. Looking at it, as it was then, no man but would have longed to draw the slim, graceful figure toward him, to close the wistful eyes with a kiss, to caress the soft hair with a comforting hand. There was a subtle fascination in the very droop of the lips which would have haunted an artist or a poet, and driven the ordinary man wild with love.

Mrs. Lorton had called Shorne Mills a "hole," but as a matter of fact, the village stood almost upon the brow of the hill down which ran the very steep road to the tiny harbor and fishing place which nestled under the red Devon cliffs; and barbaric as the place might be, it was beautiful beyond words. No spot in this loveliest of all counties was more lovely; and as yet it was, so to speak, undiscovered. With the exception of the vicarage there was no other house, worthy the name, in the coombe; all the rest were fishermen's cots. The nearest inn and shops were on the fringe of the moor behind and beyond the Lorton's cottage; the nearest house of any consequence was that of the local squire, three miles away. The market town of Shallop was eight miles distant, and the only public communication with it was the carrier's cart, which went to and fro twice weekly. In short, Shorne Mills was out of the world, and will remain so until the Railway Fiend flaps his coal-black wings over it and drops, with red-hot feet, upon it to sear its beauty and destroy its solitude. It had got its name from a flour and timber mill which had once flourished halfway down the coombe or valley; but the wheels were now silent, the mills were falling to pieces, and the silver stream served no more prosaic purpose than supplying the fishing folk with crystal water which was pure as the stars it reflected. This stream, as it ran beside the road or meandered through the sloping meadows, made soft music, day and night, all through the summer, but swelled itself into a torrent in the winter, and roared as it swept over the smooth bowlders to its bridegroom, the sea; sometimes it was the only sound in the valley, save always the murmur of the ocean, and the shrill weird cry of the curlew as it flew from the sea marge to the wooded heights above.

Nell loved the place with a great and exceeding love, with all the love of a girl to whom beauty is a continual feast. She knew every inch of it; for she had lived in the cottage on the hill since she was a child of seven, and she was now nearly twenty-one. She knew every soul in the fishing village, and, indeed, for miles around, and not seldom she was spoken of as "Miss Nell, of Shorne Mills;" and the simple folk were as proud of the title as was Nell herself. They were both fond and proud of her. In any cottage and at any time her presence was a welcome one, and every woman and child, when in trouble, flew to her for help and comfort even before they climbed to the vicarage—that refuge of the poor and sorrowing in all country places.

As she swung to the little gate behind her this morning, she paused and looked round at the familiar scene; and its beauty, its grandeur, and its solitude struck her strangely, as if she were looking at it for the first time.

"One could be so happy if mamma—and if Dick could find something to do!" she thought; and at the thought her eyes grew sadder and the sweet lips drooped still more at the corner; but as she went up the hill, the fine rare air, the brilliant sunshine acted like an anodyne, and the eyes grew brighter, the lips relaxed, so that Smart's—the butcher's—face broadened into a smile of sympathy as he touched his forehead with a huge and greasy finger.

"Sweetbreads! No, no, miss; I've promised the cook up at the Hall——There, bless your heart, Miss Nell, don't 'ee look so disappointed. I'll send 'em—yes, in half an hour at most. Dang me if it was the top brick off the chimney I reckon you'd get 'ee, for there ain't no refusin' 'ee anything!"

Nell thanked him with a smile and a grateful beam from her gray eyes, and then, still lighter-hearted, went on to Mrs. Porter's. By great good luck not only had the toilet vinegar arrived from London, but a copy of the Fashion Gazette; and with these in her hand Nell went homeward. But at the bend of the road near the cottage she paused. Mrs. Lorton would not want the vinegar or the paper for another hour. Would there be time to run down to the jetty and look at the sea? She slipped the paper and the bottle in the hedge, and went lightly down the road. It was so steep that strangers went cautiously and leaned on their sticks, but Nell nearly ran and seemed scarcely to touch the ground; for she had toddled down that road as a child, and knew every stone in it; knew where to leave it for the narrow little path which provided a short cut, and where to turn aside for the marvelous view of the tiny harbor that looked like a child's toy on the edge of the opal sea.

Women and children came out of the cottages as she went swiftly past, and she exchanged greetings with them; but she was in too great a hurry to stop, and one child followed after her with bitter complaint.

She stood for a moment or two talking to some of the men mending their nets on the jetty, called down to Dick, who was lying—he was always reclining on something—basking in the stern of his anchored boat; then she went, more slowly, up the hill again.

As she neared the cottage, a sound rose from the house and mingled with the music of the stream. It was the yelp of staghounds. She stopped and listened, and wondered whether the stag would run down the hill, as it sometimes did; then she went on. Presently she heard another sound—the tap, tap of a horse's hoofs. Her quick ear distinguished it as different from the slow pacing of the horses which drew the village carts, and she looked up the road curiously. It was not the doctor's horse; she knew the stamp, stamp of his old gray cob. This was a lighter, more nervous tread.

Within twenty paces of the cottage she saw the horse and horseman. The former was a beautiful creature, almost thoroughbred, as she knew; for every woman in the district was a horsewoman by instinct and association. The latter was a gentleman in a well-made riding suit of cords. He was riding slowly, his whip striking against his leg absently, his head bent.

That he was not one of the local gentry Nell saw at the first glance. In that first glance also she noted a certain indescribable grace, an air of elegance, which, as a rule, was certainly lacking in the local gentry. She could not see his face, but there was something strange, distinguished in his attitude and the way he carried himself; and, almost unconsciously, her pace slackened.

Strangers in Shorne Mills were rare. Nell, being a woman, was curious. As she slowly reached the gate, the man came almost alongside. And at that moment a rabbit scuttled across the road, right under the horse's nose. With the nervousness of the thoroughbred, it shied. The man had it in hand in an instant, and touched it with his left spur to keep it away from the girl. The horse sprang sideways, set its near foot on a stone, and fell, and the next instant the man was lying at Nell's feet.