Читать книгу The Vision Splendid (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - D. K. Broster - Страница 11

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Decidedly it would, after all, soon be autumn in earnest. Only five days ago, when she was in the garden among the flowers, Horatia had scouted the thought, but there was less of summer here. Farmer Wilson's beeches were actually beginning to turn. There was a tiny trail of leaves along the side of Narrow Lane, as she could see by glancing down it. The high road, less overshadowed, was clearer of these evidences of mortality. How blue was the line of the Downs!

A horseman overtook her, riding fast, and raising his hat as he passed, but without looking at her. It was no one that she knew, yet, a good rider herself, Horatia instinctively remarked his ease and grace, his perfect seat. He was taking the same road as she, but long before she got to the turn he had disappeared round it; and indeed she had forgotten him even sooner, for Rover the spaniel suddenly went delirious over a hedgehog which he just then discovered, and which he had to be coerced into leaving behind. Horatia was still praising and scolding her dog when she got to the turn – and when the sound of loud screaming ahead caused her to hasten her steps.

By the side of the road, a little way down, was a group composed of the gentleman who had passed her, his horse, and a small child in a pinafore. From this infant, seated upon the border of grass, proceeded the loud wails which Horatia had heard; the rider, one buckskinned knee upon the ground, was stooping over it and addressing it in tones that, as Horatia came nearer, sounded alternately anxious and coaxing.

"It is Tommy Wilson," thought Miss Grenville aghast. "He is always playing in the road, and now he's been ridden over.... But it can't be serious, or he would not be able to yell like that." Nevertheless she hastened still more. The gentleman, absorbed in his blandishments, did not hear her.

"Leetle boy," she heard him say – "leetle boy, you are not hurt, not the least in the world. You are frightened, soit, but you are not hurt. See, here is a crown" – the yells ceased for a moment – "now rise and go to your home. Quoi! you cannot stand upon your feet?" For he had lifted the infant to a standing posture, which it instantly abandoned, falling this time prone upon the ground, and emitting now perfect shrieks of rage or terror.

"Dieu! a-t-il des poumons!" exclaimed the young man despairingly to himself. He made a gesture and rose; at the same instant heard Horatia's step and, turning round, snatched off his hat. His mien implored the succour which she would have rendered in any case.

"Is the child really hurt, Sir?" she asked. As well pretend that she took him for an Englishman, since he spoke the tongue so readily!

"Mademoiselle," said the young man dramatically, "I swear to you that my horse never passed within a foot of him. But he runs across the road in front of me, and falls down; I dismount and pick him up – what else could I do? – and since that time he ceases not to yell comme un démon!"

His brilliant, speaking dark-blue eyes rested on her with a mixture of humour, appeal, and (it was impossible not to recognise it) of admiration. His black silk cravat was so high that his chin creased it; his chamois-coloured cashmere waistcoat was fastened with buttons of chased gold, and the cut of his greenish-bronze coat testified to an ultra-fashionable tailor. Horatia looked at Tommy Wilson, now rolling on the grass in a perfect luxury of woe. Bending over him she seized him firmly by the arm.

"Tommy," she commanded, "get up!" More successful than the Frenchman, she restored him to some measure of equilibrium. "Now you are coming with me to the doctor to show him where you are hurt. Come along!"

Her voice, which he knew, had the effect of reducing the youth's lamentations, but at her suggestion a fresh tide of alarm swept over his round, smeared face. He resisted, ejaculating hoarsely: "No, Miss! No, Miss 'Ratia! No, I 'ont!"

"Very well then, I shall bring the doctor to you here," said Miss Grenville firmly. "Now mind, Tommy, that you stay where you are without moving till I come back with him. Do you hear?" She loosed her hold and stood back, holding up a warning finger.

A success almost startling rewarded her manoeuvre. For five seconds, perhaps, Thomas Wilson stood blinking at her through his tears, his mouth working woefully at the corners; then, with an expression of forlorn determination, he turned, ran past the horse, and set off to trot home at a pace which dispelled the least suspicion of injury.