Читать книгу The Dark Mile - D. K. Broster - Страница 18

It is true that, in consequence of this precaution, Ian slept; but he woke early. Only three days more, however, and he would no longer be forced to look at that pale, sparkling face, that mouth with the curve which took his breath away, the arch of those slender eyebrows, black as a raven’s feather, nor the wonderful grey eyes beneath them. She would be gone from Invernacree for ever, and this haunting fear—it was hardly less—would ebb back from his heart, and all would be as before. . . . Yes, and he could go and begin his wooing of Maclean of Garroch’s second daughter.

The young man groaned, and flung himself out of bed. He must be bewitched. He plunged his face into cold water, threw on his clothes, and, early as it was, went out of the sleeping house and down to the edge of the loch with some idea of having a swim. But when he was there the intention abandoned him, and he walked for a long time to and fro on the pebbles, his hands clutched behind him. The tide was coming up Loch Linnhe, sucking gently sideways over the stones, little patches of mist were wreathing away before the sun, a gull or two was crying, and all at once, quite near the shore, Ian was aware of a dark, sleek, rounded head in the water—a young seal’s. And into his mind sprang a medley of seal legends which as a child he had drunk in from his nurse, a woman of the Outer Isles, where seals were human creatures under spells, princes and princesses, the children of the King of Lochlann, who yet married sometimes with ordinary mortals; for if a man saw a seal-woman in her shape as she truly was (and three times a year she must assume it) he went mad for love of her. Ian stopped his pacing and threw a stone at the sleek head, which vanished instantly.

Ian was late for breakfast, an offence in the laird’s eyes. Apologising, he said that he had gone down to the loch betimes to have a swim, and had walked farther than he had realised. He forgot to add that he had not fulfilled his intention, so that Jacqueline was caused to wonder why his neatly tied-back hair was so evidently bone dry. She thought he looked rather strange, almost ill, but she knew better than to remark upon this.

After breakfast Ian went off to one of the farms. As he returned through the garden he saw Miss Campbell sitting in a chair, which had apparently been brought out for that purpose, by some old stone balustrading, whence there was a good view down over the loch. He had to pass near her to reach the house, to pass near or to turn back altogether; and this latter he could have done without being seen, for she was not looking his way. But he did not. It was uncouth, uncivil, to avoid her; was a Stewart to show himself lacking in breeding, and before a Campbell? He approached.

Olivia heard his step, and turned her beautiful head—like a lily on its stalk, the young man was thinking even then.

“Good morning, Mr. Stewart. I am a shocking late riser, whereas you, no doubt, have been about much earlier.”

He had, indeed, and she was the cause of it. Ian said, “You are under the doctor’s orders, Miss Campbell. I hope he would not disapprove of your sitting in the open air on such a morning.”

“I regard myself,” returned Miss Campbell cheerfully, “as now emancipated from the doctor’s care. And your kindest and best of sisters, Mr. Stewart, in whose judgment I have the greatest faith, permits it. I even have a book to read while she and Miss Jacqueline are about their household duties, so you see that I intend remaining here for some time.”

“Nevertheless, I fear that we shall have rain before long,” said Ian doubtfully, looking westwards at the mountains beyond the loch.

“Let us not anticipate calamity,” answered Olivia gaily. “Yet, since you are looking in that direction, Mr. Stewart, will you not be my dominie, and rehearse me the names of the peaks over yonder which I tried to learn yesterday. I desire to know if I remember them aright.” She looked up and sent him a little smile, like a flower only half unfolded; but the same shaft sped through the young man again, and, tingling as though from some actual physical impact, he sat down upon the balustrade beside her and obeyed.

From that he found himself talking of the region in general. Miss Campbell spoke of the peaks of Jura, an island which Ian did not know. Her brothers, she said, had climbed some of those heights; no doubt Mr. Stewart was familiar in the same way with some of the crests at which they were looking. “If I were not a woman,” she said, pointing over the loch, “I should like to stand on that summit yonder. Have you ever stood there, Mr. Stewart?”

“No, never,” confessed Ian. “I have not often been on the farther side of Loch Linnhe. But I think my brother Alan once——” He pulled himself up, his colour changing, then went on rather lamely, “My brother Alan once climbed Ben Mheon.”

“Oh, I did not know you had a brother.”

“Nor have I . . . now,” said Ian, looking away. “He is dead.”

“Indeed, I am sorry,” came Olivia Campbell’s voice after a moment, with real sympathy in its soft tones. “Recently?”

Ian had a savage longing to go on, “And it is your father who is responsible for his death,” not exactly from a desire to shock and wound the girl beside him, but to remind himself that he had no business to sit here talking idly with Campbell of Cairns’ daughter because she had smiled at him. Yet, instead of flinging that reproach at her he found himself, to his surprise, bestowing something of a confidence.

“No, not recently. Nine years ago. He was my elder—the heir, and my father’s darling. If he had lived——” Again he broke off. Often and often as he had thought how different things would have been for him if Alan were not lying with all the dead of the clan in the great grave on Culloden Moor, there came at the moment a new realisation of what the difference might have been, so startling that he got up from the balustrade. The thought was mad, traitorous! Even had he been still the younger son. . . .

“The rain will really be here in a moment or two,” he said in a strained voice. “It is sweeping fast over Loch Linnhe. Indeed you should go indoors—allow me to carry your shawl.”

“Mr. Stewart,” said Olivia, looking up at him with compassionate eyes, “I regret very much if I have trespassed upon memories——”

“No, no!” he broke in. “You have done nothing. . . . And here comes Grizel to hasten you. Pray take my arm.”

He offered it, catching up her wraps with the other hand, as Grizel came running over the grass at the first drops of the shower.

That evening Miss Campbell was with them until eight o’clock, but no longer, so that, as yesterday, supper seemed a dullish meal. And yet Ian had a shamed sense of safety. When he could not see the King of Lochlann’s daughter he could not, surely, be bewitched by her.

But when he went to bed he found this a most fallacious doctrine. He was in the toils of something which he shrank from putting a name to. Was it only a little more than a week ago, when Ewen Cameron was here, that he had sat at this window and reflected how rapture had passed him by, and he must make a mere humdrum marriage? This was not rapture, God knew—it was enslavement, sorcery . . . and all to no purpose. He must forget the spell-weaver as fast as possible, for she could never be his wife.

He descended next morning, after a wretched night, to find Miss Campbell at breakfast with the rest of his family. During the meal it transpired that she had already heard that one of her brothers was coming to fetch her away the day after to-morrow. Lamentations from Grizel and Jacqueline, and polite regrets from the old laird. Ian alone said nothing. What was he to say, he who was so much relieved at the idea?

But was he relieved?

At any rate, since Miss Campbell was leaving so soon, he might safely show her some civility. He thought of offering to accompany her and Jacqueline to some spot whence they would have a good prospect, but the morning, which early had been fine, deteriorated with that blighting rapidity characteristic of the Western Highlands, and by the afternoon the steady drizzle had become torrents of rain, loch and mountains were blotted out, and Grizel had a fire burning in the drawing-room.

And there, about four o’clock, Ian somehow found himself playing chess with their guest, while Jacqueline looked on and Grizel sewed at a little distance. Miss Campbell proved to be a moderately good player; Ian was usually something more than that. Yet since, against his will, he paid more attention to the fair hand which moved the pieces than to the pieces themselves, it was not wonderful that in the end he was badly beaten.

“I verily believe,” said Olivia laughingly to Jacqueline, “that your brother has allowed himself to be defeated out of chivalry. Else he could never have overlooked the disgraceful blunder which I made some twenty minutes ago.”

“I thought you were laying a trap for me,” retorted Ian with a smile. “But indeed I have no pretensions to being a great chess player. I but learnt in order to please my father.”

“And I to tease mine,” averred Olivia. “He used to say that all women played chess (when they played at all) without judgment, and I thought to disprove it.”

“I am sure,” said Jacqueline admiringly, “that he cannot say so now!”

Miss Campbell laughed her low, captivating laugh. “Now he says that they play without true judgment, so I have not done much to convert him from his opinion!”

And for a moment there was merriment round the fire. The rain lashing against the windows only made this warm, cheerful seclusion the more desirable, in the pleasant and homely room with the faded carpet whose red and yellow roses Ian could remember as long as he remembered anything, except perhaps the twin ivory elephants which his grandfather had brought, so he had always understood, from the mysterious land of China itself. He could see them now in the cabinet behind Miss Campbell’s head, as he sat opposite her in her gown of green silk with a silver shine in its folds. All these years, and the familiar old room had never known its proud destiny—to enclose her; nor the battered old knights and castles theirs—to be touched by those beautiful fingers. . . . The spell snapped, as like a bitter, searing wind there blew into Ian’s soul the remembrance of the identity of the father at whose prejudices the girl here by the hearth was gently laughing, and he and his sisters with her—the man of that greatly hated race whose action had cut off their brother Alan from that very fireside, to lie for ever out in the cold and the rain. With darkening eyes he rose from his seat opposite her, and to give some colour to the movement, threw another log on to the fire. Perhaps the chill which had swept over his spirit, as well as the fact that he was thinking of something else, was the reason why he threw on so many. The flame shot up hot and crackling.

“Why, Ian,” said Grizel in surprise, “you’ll roast us all! I am sure Miss Campbell, near the fire as she is, will be incommoded by such a blaze.”

“I beg your pardon,” said her brother mechanically, glancing round for a second at the guest. “I was not thinking what I was about.” No more did he seem to be thinking of it now, when he remedied his absentmindedness by taking hold of the last log which he had thrown on and pulling it off again, not without cost to himself.

“Mr. Stewart, did you not burn your hand then?” exclaimed Olivia Campbell, leaning forward. “Oh, why did you not leave that log where it was!”

“It had not caught fire,” replied Ian carelessly, pointing with his left hand to the piece of birch. The right was already thrust deep into his pocket, for, though the log in question was not alight, the flame through which he had plunged that member had licked his wrist and scorched his sleeve.

“Yes, but something has caught fire,” said Grizel, putting down her work. “I can smell singeing. Ian, how could you be so foolish! Let me see what you have done to yourself!”

“Nonsense,” said her brother. “ ’Tis only my sleeve. I felt nothing.” He came and resumed his place at the little table opposite Olivia. “Miss Campbell, will you allow me the opportunity of my revenge, or am I too unworthy a foe?”

But Miss Campbell seemed in distress . . . and how lovely in it! “Mr. Stewart, I implore you to allow your sister to look at your hand!” And as Ian, shaking his head with a smile, and saying again that it was nothing, began to replace his pieces on the board with his left hand, she leant over and said in a pleading tone, “Do not refuse me this favour!”

Ian set his king firmly where his queen should have stood. What a fool he had been to cause all this pother—and, incidentally, this pain to himself! His wrist was smarting like hell. But he answered with polite nonchalance, “When we have had our game, Miss Campbell, with pleasure.”

“Jacqueline,” said Grizel, rising from her chair, “pray go up to the cupboard in my room and bring what I have there in readiness for burns.—If you will not seek a leech, Ian, the leech must e’en come to you.”

“No doubt,” observed Ian with a resigned air, as Jacqueline fled from the room. “You have had experience, Miss Campbell, of what it is to fall into the clutches of a female Æsculapius. If you want to make Grizel happy, contrive to scratch yourself, however slightly. I have sometimes done it with that object, when I was a boy.”

He continued to arrange his side of the chess board, still with his king and queen reversed; but Olivia made no effort to set hers. He had burnt himself, she could tell. How obstinate and crazy and generally incalculable men could be!

Miss Stewart seemed to share this unspoken opinion. “I have no patience with you!” she declared, suddenly coming and standing over her brother, and looking as if a very little more would cause her to withdraw his other hand from its seclusion in his coat pocket. “And what is that child about? I suppose I must needs go myself.” She went, and the chess players were left alone.

“You have not set your pieces, I see, Miss Campbell,” observed Ian in a business-like tone. “Or is it that you will not play with me again?”

“I certainly cannot play with you until you have had your hand dressed,” said Olivia gravely.

“But I can make the moves equally well with my left. Or, for the matter of that, and to prove to you that it is unhurt, with my right.” And he plucked his other hand out of his pocket and laid it on the table by the chess board. “You see, all this to-do is about nothing, but, as I say, Grizel dearly loves——”

He got no further. Two swift, cool hands had his imprisoned as it lay there, and fingers, with incredible gentleness in their touch, were pushing the scorched cuff away from his red and blistered wrist. “Mr. Stewart, look at that!” said an accusing voice. “Now, was it worth it!”

(“If you will keep your fingers there, yes, it was worth it, a thousand times worth!”) thought Ian. They were snowflakes . . . snowdrops . . . and what were the grey eyes—soft now, not sparkling—which looked at him so reproachfully? It was not the pain of the burn which made his head swim as he ventured to meet them, and the chessmen dance wildly for a second or two in the firelight. Ah, beautiful and kind, and for ever impossible to love, you shall not know that it is my heart which you have between those healing hands of yours!

“. . . But you see how little damage has been done,” he said, and knew not how dazedly he spoke. He tried to summon up resolution to draw his hand away. And there was a moment’s silence; only the fire crackled, and, without, the wind flung itself against the glass. Then Grizel came in, and Jacqueline after her.

Ian rose to his feet at once. He did not intend any ministrations to be carried out in here. “I’ll come with you as meek as a sheep,” he said quickly, “if Miss Campbell will but excuse me. Jacqueline, will you not stay with our guest?” And he followed his elder sister out.

“Do you think my brother’s hand is much burnt, Miss Campbell?” asked Jacqueline a little anxiously.

Olivia was thoughtfully fingering a chessman. “It was not his hand; it was his wrist. I wish he had not been so rash. If I may say so, one would not have expected it of him.”

“But one is never quite sure what Ian may not do,” explained Jacqueline, sitting down in Ian’s place. “He appears so composed, and then suddenly he is not composed.—But when I say that one is not sure what he may not do, pray do not think I mean that he would ever do anything dishonourable—that he would, for instance, ever forsake a friend.”

“I hope we should none of us do that,” said Miss Campbell.

“No, indeed! Yet I meant something more than that. . . . I do not know how to put it.”

“You mean perhaps, Miss Stewart, that he would never forsake a cause,” suggested Olivia, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. “I do not forget that you are all Jacobites.—Perhaps you mean also that he would never forgive an enemy?”

“I don’t know,” said little Jacqueline, looking troubled. “We ought all to forgive our enemies, ought we not?—But perhaps I do mean that.”

“Yet I hope Mr. Stewart will forgive me for that burn,” said Olivia with a whimsical little smile. “You must intercede for me, Miss Jacqueline!”

“Oh, dear Miss Campbell, the burn was Grizel’s fault, I think, not yours!”

“Then I hope he will forgive me for having called attention to the injury, for it was undoubtedly I who did that in the first place, and he was not best pleased, I think.”

“Men,” pronounced nineteen-year old Jacqueline with a great air of experience, “are very strange creatures in that respect. For if you neglect to notice their injuries they do not like that neither.”

“In short,” said Olivia laughing, “we women are the only sensible sex. (Yet men say that we are not over faithful to our friends.) Come, let us put away the chessmen, for something tells me that your brother will not come back, although he challenged me to another game.”

And in this prediction Miss Campbell found herself perfectly correct.