Читать книгу The Raft - Coningsby Dawson - Страница 5

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The strange man was rather amused as he climbed the stairs, but he showed no amusement when he entered.

Jehane laid aside her book leisurely and rose from her chair; he was even better to look at than she had expected. It was his clothes that impressed her first; the gray tweeds fitted his athletic figure with just that maximum of good taste that stops short of perfection. Then it was his face, clean-shaven and intellectual—the face of a boyish man, mobile and keen in expression. She liked the way he did his dark brown hair, almost as dark as hers, swept straight back without a parting from his forehead. His eyes were kindly, piercing and blue-gray; for a man he had exceptionally long, thin hands. She liked him entirely; she wondered whether he was equally well impressed.

“So thoughtless of father—he’s out. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Jehane was tall, but she only reached up to his shoulders. His eyes looked down on hers and twinkled into a smile at her nervous gravity.

“We all know the Professor; there’s no need to apologize. Please don’t stand.”

She was about to comply with his request, when she realized that she no longer held his attention. He was staring past her. She turned her head.

“Oh, allow me to introduce you, Mr. Barrington, to my friend, Miss Tudor.”

“I thought it was.” His tones had become extraordinarily glad. “No one could forget little Nan, who’d once known her. But Nan, you’ve grown older. What do you mean by it? It’s so uncalled for, so unexpected. You’re no longer the Princess Pepperminta that you were.”

Nan crossed the room in a romping bound and commenced pumping his arm up and down.

“It’s Billy, dear old Billy! You remember, Jehane; I’ve told you. Billy who sewed up father’s surplice, and Billy who tied knots in my hair, and Billy who, when I got angry, used to call me the Princess Pepperminta. You made yourself so detestable, Billy, that our village talks about you even now.”

“A doubtful compliment; but it’s ripping to see you—simply ripping.”

Jehane stood aside and watched them. She had heard Nan talk of Billy Barrington and how her father had tutored him for Oxford—but that must be twelve years back. She had never known him herself and had never been very curious about him. But now, as she watched, she felt the appeal of this big, broad-shouldered boy of thirty.

They were talking—talking of things beyond her knowledge, things which shut her out.

“And why didn’t you write in all these years? Father and I often mentioned you. In Cassingland you were an event. It wasn’t kind of you, Billy.”

“Things at home were in such a mess. I’d to start work at once. Somehow, with working so hard, other things faded out.”

“Poor Nan with the rest!”

“No, I remembered you. ’Pon my honor I did, Nan; but I thought——”

“Yes?”

“You were such a kid in those days; I thought you’d forgotten. As though either of us could forget. I was an ass.”

Jehane had turned her back and was looking out of the window. For the first time she envied Nan—Nan, the daughter of a country parson. It was too bad.

“Miss Usk.”

She glanced across her shoulder.

“We’re being intolerably rude, talking all about our own affairs. You see, once Nan was almost my sister. How old were you, Nan? Thirteen, wasn’t it? And I was eighteen. We’ve not met since then. My father died suddenly, you know. I had to step into his shoes—they were much too big for me. That was the end of Oxford and Cassingland.”

“We were going out on the river,” said Jehane. “Perhaps you’ll join us. I’ll sit very quiet and listen. You can talk over old times to your heart’s content.”

They piled his arms with cushions, and together set out through the glistening meadows to the barges. After the rain, the air was intensely still. Sounds carried far; from tall trees on the Broad Walk and from the uttermost distance came the fluty cry of birds, from the river the rattle of oars being banked, and from every side the slow patter of dripping branches. Like a canvas, fresh from an artist’s brush, colors in the landscape stood out distinct and wet—flowers against the gray walls of Corpus, trunks of trees with their velvety blackness and shorn greenness of the Hinksey Hills. Men in disreputable shorts, returning from the boats, passed them. Some ran; some sauntered chatting.

Barrington laughed shortly and drew a long breath. “Nothing to do but enjoy themselves. Nothing to do but grow a fine body and learn to be gentlemen. I missed all that. After the rush and drive, it’s topping to sink back.”

“You’re right; it is sleepy. One day’s just like the next. We stand as still as church-steeples. People come and go; we’re left. We exist for visitors to look at, like the Martyr’s Memorial and Calvary Tower.”

He glanced down at Jehane quickly: she interested him—there was something about her that he could not understand. The long penciled brows, the thick lashes, the cloudy eyes and the straight, pale features attracted and yet repelled him. He felt that she was not happy and had never been quite happy. The natural generosity of the man made him eager to hear her speak about herself.

But Jehane was aware that she had struck a discord in what she had said. He had flinched like a child, with whom the thought of pain had not yet become a habit. She made haste to cover up her error by directing attention to himself.

“But you—what are you?”

“I’m a pub.”

“A pub! But you can’t be. You don’t mean that you——”

Nan caught his arm in her merriment and leant across him. “Of course he doesn’t. He’s a publisher. He always did clip his words.”

“But not the Barrington—father’s publisher?”

“Yes, the Barrington. It’s funny, Jehane, but it can’t be helped. Anyhow, he’s only Billy now.”

Barrington stood still, eying the two girls—the one fair and all mischief, the other dark and serious. “What’s the matter with you, Miss Usk? Why do you object?”

“If I told you, you might not like it.”

“Rubbish.”

“Well then, you ought to have a long gray beard like father. You’re not old enough.”

“I’ve sometimes thought that myself.”

“Billy’s always been young for his age,” said Nan; “he’s minus twenty now.”

But, as they walked on, Jehane was saying to herself, “Then he was only coming to see father, as everybody comes! It wasn’t my face that drew him.”

They strewed the cushions on the floor of the punt. Barrington took the pole and Jehane seated herself in front so that she could face him. All that he should see of Nan’s attractions was the back of her golden head—Jehane had arranged all that.

They swung out into mid-stream unsteadily; Barrington was struggling to recover a forgotten art. Their direction was erratic. They nearly fouled a returning eight; the maledictions of the cox, each stinging epithet of whose abuse politely ended in “sir,” drew unwelcome attention to their wandering progress. When they had collided with the opposite bank, Nan stood up and took the pole herself. Jehane was in luck.

She had often pictured such a scene to herself—a man, herself, and a punt on the river; in these pictures she had never included Nan. She had heard herself brilliantly conversing, saying amusing things that had made the man laugh, saying deep things that had made him solemn; then, presently she had ceased to torment him, his arms had gone about her, and she had lain a fluttering wild thing on his breast.

Now, in reality, she had nothing to say. When he spoke, she gave him short answers. She was not mistress of herself. She trailed her hands in the water and was afraid to look up, lest he should guess the tumult in her heart.

The punt had turned out of the main stream into the Cherwell, and was stealing between narrow banks. Jehane knew that she was appearing sullen; she always appeared like that with men. In her mind’s eye she saw herself acting the other part of gay, responsive woman of the world. She was angry with herself.

Barrington, hampered by her embarrassment, had twisted round on his cushions and was chaffing Nan. Nan was looking her best and, as usual, was quite unconscious of the fact. In her loose, blowy muslin, standing erect, leaning against the pole with the water dripping from her hands, she seemed the soul of summer and unspoilt girlhood against the background of lazy river and green shadows. There was something infantile and appealing about Nan. Her flaxen hair fitted her like a shining cap of satin. Her eyes were inextinguishably bright and blue; above them were delicate, golden brows. Her red lips seemed always slightly parted, ready to respond to mischief or merriment. She was small in build—the kind of girl-woman a man is tempted to pick up and carry. Her chief beauty was her long, slim throat and neck; she was a white flower, swaying from a fragile stem. It was impossible to think that Nan knew anything that was not good.

After they had passed under Magdalen Bridge they had the river very much to themselves: the rain had driven most of the voyagers to cover. For long stretches there was no sound but their own voices, the splash of the pole and the secret singing of birds.

Jehane, with trailing hands and brooding eyes, watched this man; she wanted him—she did not know why—she wanted him for herself. Sometimes she became so concentrated in her mood that she forgot to listen to what was being said. Through her head went humming significant and disconnected stanzas, which she repeated over and over:

“Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed:

‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said

The Lady of Shalott.”

Jehane had once been told that she was Pre-Raphaelite in appearance; she never forgot that—it explained her to herself. She had quarreled forever with a man who had said that Rossetti’s women resulted from tuberculosis of the imagination. The truth of the remark was unforgivable—she knew that she herself suffered from some such spiritual malady.

A question roused her from her trance.

“I say, Billy, are you married yet?”

It was extraordinary how Jehane’s heart pounded as she waited for the question to be answered.

He clasped his hands in supplication, “Promise not to tell my wife that we came out like this together.”

Nan let the pole trail behind her and gazed down at him mockingly. Her face was flushed with the exertion of punting: the faint gold of the stormy afternoon, drifting through gray willows, spangled her hair and dress. “When you like you can make yourself as big an ass as anyone. I don’t believe you are a pub: you’re a big, lazy fellow playing truant. Answer my question.”

“But Pepperminta, why should I?”

“Don’t call me ridiculous names. Answer my question.”

Barrington stretched himself indolently on the cushions. “You’ve not changed a bit; you’re just as funny and imperious as ever. Soon you’ll stamp your little foot; when that fails, you’ll try coaxing. After twelve years of being away from you, I can read you like a book.”

“You can’t; I never coax now. I scowl, and get angry and cruel.”

He glanced up at her gentle, laughing face. “You couldn’t make your face scowl, however much you tried.”

Jehane told herself that they were two children, rehearsing an old game together. People must be very fond of one another to play a game of pretending to quarrel. She felt strangely grown up and out of it, and quite unreasonably hurt. Nan was surprising her at every turn.

“You’ll enjoy yourself much better,” he was saying, “if I leave you in suspense. You can spend your time in guessing what she looks like. Then you can start watching me closely to see whether I love her. And then you can wonder how much I’m going to tell her of what we say to each other.”

Nan jerked the punt forward. “I don’t want to know. You can keep your secret to yourself.” Then, glancing at Jehane, “I say, Janey, you ask him. He can’t be rude to you. He’ll have to answer.”

Jehane had no option but to enter into the jest. “I know. Father told me. Mr. Barrington is a widower.”

The man’s eyes flashed and held hers steadily; they twinkled with surprise and humor. “Go on, Miss Usk; you tell her. It’s altogether too sad.”

While she was speaking, she was excitedly conscious that he was examining her and approving her impertinence. “Mr. Barrington married his mother’s parlor-maid soon after he left Cassingland. She was a beautiful creature and very modest; because she felt herself unworthy of the brilliant Mr. Barrington, she made it a condition of their marriage that it should be kept secret. Then she got it into her head that she was spoiling his promising career, and—— Well, she died suddenly—of gas. After she was dead, a volume of poems was discovered—love poems—and published anonymously; my mother attributes them to Bacon and my father used to attribute them to Shakespeare. Then father found out, but he’s never dared to tell mother; she was always so positive about it.”

Nan had stared at her friend while she was talking. Could this be the serious Jehane? What had happened? At the end she broke into a peal of laughter. “It won’t do, old girl; you’re stuffing. Billy hasn’t got a mother.”

“And he isn’t married,” he said; “and he doesn’t want to be married yet. Now are you content?”

Jehane was not content. As they drifted through Mesopotamia with its pollard-willows, sound of running waters and constant fluttering of birds, she kept hearing those words “And he doesn’t want to be married yet.” Did men ever want to be married, or was it always necessary to catch them? Catch them! It sounded horrid to put it like that, and robbed love of all its poetry. As a girl with a Pre-Raphaelite appearance, she had liked to believe all the legends of chivalry: that it was woman’s part to be remote and disdainful, while men endangered themselves to win her favor. But were those legends only ideals—had anything like them ever happened? And supposing a woman wanted to catch Barrington, how would she set about it?

The roar of water across the lasher at Parsons’ Pleasure grew louder, drowning the conversation which was taking place in low tones at the other end of the punt. As they drew in at the landing, Jehane bent forward and heard Barrington say, “I believe you’d have been disappointed if I had been married”; and Nan’s retort, “I believe I should. You know, it does make a difference.”

Nan turned to Jehane, “What are we going to do next? There’s hardly time to go further.”

“Oh, don’t go back yet,” Barrington protested; “let’s get tea at Marston Ferry.”

“But who’ll take the punt round to the ladies’ landing? Ladies aren’t allowed through Parsons’ Pleasure, and I hardly trust you to come round by yourself.” Nan eyed him doubtfully. “You may be a good pub, but you’re a rotten punter.”

“Dash it all, you needn’t rub it in. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall only get a wetting.”

“You’re sure you can swim?”

“Quite sure, thanks.”

“Well, good-by, and good luck. I should hate to lose you after all these years of parting.”

As they struck out along the path across the island and the screen of bushes shut him from their view, Jehane felt her arm taken.

“Don’t you like him, Janey?”

“What I’ve seen of him, yes.”

“I was afraid you didn’t.”

“Whatever made you think that?”

“Because he thought it. I could feel that he thought it.”

“But I did nothing.”

“You wore your touch-me-not-manners, Janey. You looked so tragic and black. I had to talk my head off to fill in the awkwardnesses.”

“I know you did; but I wasn’t sure of the reason.”

Nan glanced up quickly and her eyes filled; the blood surged into her face and throat; her lips trembled. She pressed her cheek coaxingly against the tall girl’s shoulder. “You foolish Jehane; you’re jealous. Why, Billy and I use to eat blackberries out of each other’s hands.”

Then Jehane relented. Drawing Nan to her with swift, protecting passion, she kissed the wet eyes and pouting mouth. “You dear little Nan, I was jealous. You’re so sweet and gentle; no one could help loving you. I was angry with myself—angry because I’m so different.”

“So much cleverer,” Nan whispered.

“I don’t want to be clever; I’d give everything I possess to look as good and happy as you.”

“But you are good. If you weren’t, we shouldn’t all love you.”

“All? It’s enough that you do.”

When Barrington rounded the island, he found them standing oddly near together; then he noticed a moist ball of handkerchief crushed in Nan’s free hand—and he guessed.