Читать книгу D. K. Broster Collection - D. K. Broster - Страница 145

And now Captain Hector Grant’s courtship began to prosper less conspicuously, for the home-coming of young Invernacree cast a perceptible blight upon its hitherto very rapid growth. It was not only that his physical presence was inconvenient, seeing that he was much more likely to come unexpectedly upon the lovers than was the old laird or Grizel, but it also reacted mentally upon Jacqueline herself, who began to close up as the anemone touched by a rash finger furls the pretty fringe which the tide has set waving in the pool. She was very fond of Ian, and sensitive to a disapproval which she felt the more, perhaps, that it was unexpressed. Hector cursed to himself, but he was unable to do much save see all he could of his lady, and as little as possible of her brother. He wondered how much longer he could with decency prolong his visit. Ian Stewart’s covert hostility, which he could not quite understand, was additionally trying because he himself was in Ian’s debt over the old Fort William business. And he had not yet approached the laird on the subject of his younger daughter—did not even know whether he suspected anything of his feelings. Suppose it was Invernacree’s son who first enlightened the old man; that would be awkward in the extreme! Endowed with all the sensitive pride of a Highlander, Hector was uneasy lest he should have placed himself in a false position, and that in the house of another Highlander. And on the third afternoon after Ian’s return he spoke of his perplexities to Jacqueline herself, driven to it by the knowledge that her brother was actually closeted with Invernacree at the very moment—at least, he had seen Ian go into the old man’s study a little while ago, and, as far as he knew, he had not come out again. He and Jacqueline were seated in the window-seat of the drawing-room, and he was holding a skein of green silk for her to wind. But when he made the suggestion of asking her father for her hand without further delay the girl ceased winding, and looked intensely troubled.

“But I did not wish my father . . . anyone . . . to know just yet!” she objected.

“My darling! Yet your brother guesses, I think. I should have spoken to your father already,” said Hector, slipping the skein off his hands.

“But,” said Jacqueline, looking down at it, “I hoped . . . it is so short a time that you have been here . . . O, pray, Mr. Grant . . .”

“Mr. Grant!”

“Hector, then,” she said in a small voice, her fingers all the while doing a good deal of damage to the skein.

He captured the little ravagers. “ ‘O pray, Hector’—what then?” he asked smiling. “ ‘O pray, Hector’—silence! But, my heart’s treasure, what if your brother has forestalled me!”

“He cannot—he would not do such a thing! Ian is too fond of me!”

“Cela n’empêche pas le moins du monde,” her lover assured her, in the tongue which was almost as natural to him as his own. “All the more reason, on the contrary, that he should. He does not love me with any great affection, I am sure, and he will be the less anxious to lose you. I should have been beforehand with your father. Directly I can be sure that your brother has left his room I shall ask for an interview and make a formal demand for—this.” He lifted the little hand to his lips as he spoke.

“Yes, I suppose you must,” murmured Jacqueline, still looking down. “But if my father should refuse——” She came to a stop, and when she raised her eyes they had become homes of tragedy.

“He’ll not refuse,” returned Captain Grant with much assurance. “But if he should, I’ll get round him somehow. I will procure Ewen Cameron, for instance, to plead my cause.”

“That would be a good notion,” said the girl, brightening. “My father thinks a great deal of Cousin Ewen. . . . But you say that Ian is with him now. Suppose they were already speaking of . . . us!”

“That, mon amour,” observed the young man, “as I was saying, is just what I am afraid of.”

But before he could enlarge upon this possibility they were somewhat apologetically interrupted by Grizel, who needed Jacqueline’s presence on household affairs.