Читать книгу Phyllis - Duchess - Страница 12

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It is the evening of the same day, and we are all seated in our accustomed places at the dinner table; all, that is, except papa. It is such an unusual thing for him to be absent, once a bell has sounded summoning us to meals, that we are busy wondering what can be the matter, when the door is flung violently open, and he enters. It becomes instantly palpable to every one of us, that, in the words of the old song, "sullen glooms his brow;" Billy alone, with his usual obtuseness, remaining dangerously unconscious of this fact.

Papa sits down in a snapping fashion and commences the helping process in silence. Mamma never sits at the head of her table except on those rare and unpleasant occasions when the neighbors are asked to dine. Not a word is spoken; deadly quiet reigns, and all is going on smoothly enough, until Billy, unhappily raising his head, sees Dora's crimson lids.

"Why, Dora," he exclaims, instantly, in a loud and jovial tone, "what on earth is the matter with you? Your eyes are as red as fire."

Down goes Dora's spoon, up comes Dora's handkerchief to her face, and a stifled sob conveys the remainder of her feelings. It is the last straw.

"William!" cries my father in a voice of thunder, "go to your room." And William does as he is bid.

The brown gravy-soup has not yet been removed; and, Billy being our youngest, and consequently the last helped, more than half his allowance of that nutritious fluid still remains upon his plate. His going now means his being dinnerless for this day at least. A lump rises in my throat and my face flushes. For the moment I feel that I have Dora and papa and my own soup, and, leaning back in my chair, suffer it to follow Billy's.

I am almost on the verge of tears, when, happening to glance upwards, my eyes fall upon Roly's expressive countenance. In his right eye is screwed the most enormous butcher's penny I ever beheld; his nose is drawn altogether to one side in a frantic endeavor to maintain it in its precarious position; his mouth likewise; his left orb is firmly fixed upon our paternal parent.

I instantly become hysterical. An awful fear that I am going to break into wild laughter seizes hold of me. I grow cold with fright, and actually gasp with fear, when mother (who always knows by instinct, dear heart, when we are on the brink of disgrace) brings her foot heavily down on mine, and happily turns the current of my thoughts. She checks me just in time; I wince, and, withdrawing my fascinated gaze from Roly's penny, fix my attention on the tablecloth, while she turns an agonizing look of entreaty upon her eldest hope; but, as his only available eye is warily bent on papa, nothing comes of it.

There is an unaccountable delay after the soup has been removed. Can Billy have been adding to his evil doing by any fresh misconduct? This idea is paramount with me as I sit staring at the house-linen, though all the time in my brain I see Roland's copper regarding me with gloomy attention.

The silence is becoming positively awful, when papa suddenly raises his head from the contemplation of his nails, and Roland sweeping the penny from his eye with graceful ease, utters a languid sigh, and says, mildly:—

"Shall we say Grace?"

"What is the meaning of this delay?" demands papa, exploding for the second time. "Are we to sit here all night? Tell cook if this occurs again she can leave. Three-quarters of an hour between soup and fish is more than I will put up with. If there is no more dinner, let her say so."

"Perhaps Mrs. Tully is indisposed," says Roly, politely, addressing James. "If so, we ought to make allowances for her." Mrs. Tully's admiration for "Old Tom" being a well-known fact to every one in the house except papa.

"Be silent, Roland; I will have no interference where my servants are concerned," declares papa; and exit James, with his hand to his mouth, to return presently with a very red face and the roast mutton.

"Where's the fish?" asks papa, in a terrific tone.

"It didn't arrive in time, sir."

"Who has the ordering of dinner in this house?" inquires papa, addressing us all generally, as though ignorant of the fact of mother's having done so without a break for the last twenty-six years. "Nobody, I presume, by the manner in which it is served. Now, remember, James, I give strict orders that no more fish is ever taken from that fishmonger. Do you hear?"

"Yes, sir." And at length we all get some roast mutton.

It seems to me that dinner will never come to an end; and yet, to watch me, I feel sure no stranger would ever guess at my impatience. Experience has taught me that any attempt at hurry will betray me, and produce an order calculated to prevent my seeing Billy for the entire evening. I therefore smother my feelings, break my walnuts, and get through my claret with a great show of coolness. Claret is a thing I detest; but it pleases papa to form our tastes, which means condemning us to eat and drink such things as are nauseous and strictly distasteful to us.

At length, however, the welcome word is spoken, and we rise from the table. Once outside the door, I fly to the cook, and, having obtained such delicacies as are procurable, rush upstairs, and enter Billy's room, to find him seated at the farthest end, the deepest look of dejection upon his features.

As our eyes meet, this gloom vanishes, giving place to an expression of intense relief.

"Oh!" he says, "I thought you were Dora."

"No. I could not come sooner, as papa fought over every course. But I have brought you your dinner now, Billy. You must be starving."

"I had it long ago," says Billy, drawing a potato from his pocket and a plate from under the dressing-table on which mutton is distinctly visible. I feel rather disappointed.

"Who brought it to you?" I ask; but before I can receive a reply a heavy step upon the stairs strikes terror to our hearts.

Instantly Billy's dinner goes under the table again, and the dejected depression returns to his face. But I, what am I to do? Under the bed I dive, plate and all, thrusting the plate on before me, and am almost safe, when I tip over a bit of rolled carpet and plunge forward, bringing both hands into the gravy. In this interesting position I remain, trembling, and afraid to stir or breathe, with my eyes directed through a small hole in the valance.

The door opens noisily, and—enter Roly with a cane in his hand and a ferocious gleam in his eyes.

"Oh, Roly!" I gasp, scrambling out of my hiding-place, "what a fright you gave us! We were sure it was papa."

"Where on earth have you come from?" asked Roly, gazing with undisguised amazement at the figure I present. "And—don't come any nearer—'paws off, Pompey'—what is the matter with your hands?"

"Oh, I had just brought up Billy some dinner, and when I heard you I ran under the bed and tripped over the carpet and fell splash into the gravy. But it is nothing," I wind up, airily.

"Nothing! I wish it was less. Go wash yourself, you dirty child." Then resuming the ferocious aspect, and with uplifted cane, he advances on Billy.

"William"—imitating papa's voice to a nicety—"I have not yet done with you. What, sir, did you mean by exposing your sensitive sister to the criticisms of a crowded table? If your own gentlemanly instincts are not sufficiently developed to enable you to understand how unpardonable are personal remarks, let this castigation, that a sense of duty compels me to bestow, be the means of teaching you."

Billy grins, and for the third time commences his dinner while Roland leans against the window-shutter and contemplates him with lazy curiosity.

"Billy," he asks, presently, "is mutton—when the fat has grown white and the gravy is in tiny lumps—a good thing?"

"No it ain't," returns Billy, grumpily, and with rather more than his usual vulgarity.

"I ask merely for information," says Roly. "It certainly looks odd."

"It's beastly," says Billy. "If the governor goes in for any more of this kind of thing I'll cut and run; that's what I'll do."

"Why didn't you have some dumpling?" Roland goes on, smoothly. "The whipped cream with it was capital."

"Dumpling?" says Billy, regarding me fixedly; "dumpling! Phyllis, was there dumpling?"

"There was," I reply.

"And whipped cream!"

"Yes," I answer, faintly.

"Oh, Phyllis!" says Billy, in the liveliest tone of reproach. The flicker of an amused smile shoots across Roland's face.

"Phyllis, why did you not bring him some?" he asks, in a tone that reflects Billy's.

"How could I?" I exclaim, indignantly. "I could not carry more than one plate, and even as it was the gravy was running all about. I was afraid every minute I would be caught. Besides—"

"Miss Phyllis, Miss Phyllis," comes a sepulchral whisper at the door, accompanied by a faint knock. In the whisper I recognize James. Having taken a precautionary peep through the keyhole, I open the door, and on the threshold discover our faithful friend, a large plate of apples and cream in his hand, and a considerable air of mystery about him.

"Miss Phyllis," he says, in a fine undertone, "cook sent this here to Master Billy; and the mistress says you are to come down at once, as the master has been asking where you all are."

"I am coming," I return; "and tell cook we are awfully obliged to her." Whereupon, having deposited the dainties before Billy, I charge down stairs and into the library; and, having seized hold of the first book I can see, I collect myself, and enter the drawing-room with a sedate air.

"Where have you been?" demands papa, twisting his head round until I wonder his neck doesn't crack.

"In the library, choosing a book."

"What book."

I glance at the volume I carry, and, to my unmitigated horror find it a treatise on surgery.

"It is by Dr. Batly," I murmur, vaguely.

"Come here and let me see it." Trembling, I advance and surrender my book.

"Is this a proper subject for a young woman to study?" exclaims papa, in high disgust, when he has read through the headings of the chapters. "What an abominable girl you are! Go over there and sit down, and keep yourself out of mischief for the remainder of the evening, if you can."

"Would you like Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'?" asks Dora, sweetly, raising her white lids for a moment to hold out to me an elegant little edition in green and gold.

"No, thank you," I answer, curtly, and, subsiding into my chair, sulk comfortably until bedtime.