Читать книгу The Moving Finger - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 8

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The words which passed between Pauline Marrabel and her host at the railway station were words which the whole world might have heard and remained unedified. The first part of their drive homeward, even, passed in complete silence. Yet if their faces told the story, Rochester was with the woman he loved. He had driven a small pony-cart to the station. There was no room, even, for a groom behind. They sat side by side, jogging on through the green country lanes, until they came to the long hill which led to the higher country. The luggage cart and the omnibus, with her maid and the groom who had driven down with Rochester, passed them soon after they had left the station. They were alone in the country lane, alone behind a fat pony, who had ideas of his own as to what was the proper pace to travel on a warm spring afternoon.

More than once he looked at her. Her oval face was almost devoid of color. There were rings underneath her large soft eyes. Her dark hair was brushed simply back from her forehead. Her travelling clothes were of the plainest. Yet she was always beautiful—more so than ever just now, perhaps, when the slight hardness had gone from her mouth, and the strain had passed from her features.

Rochester, too, was curiously altered by the change in the curve of his lips. There was a new smile there, a new light in his eyes as they jogged on between the honeysuckle-wreathed hedges. Their silence was even curiously protracted, but underneath the holland apron his left hand was clasping hers.

“How are things with you?” she asked softly.

“About the same,” he answered. “We make the best of it, you know. Mary amuses herself easily enough. She has what she wanted—a home, and I have someone to entertain my guests. I believe that we are considered quite a model couple.”

Pauline sighed.

“Henry,” she said, “it is beautiful to be here, to be here with you. The days will not seem long enough.”

Rochester, so apt of speech, seemed curiously tongue-tied. His fingers pressed hers. He made no answer. She leaned a little forward and looked into his face.

“Wonderful person!” she declared. “Never a line or a wrinkle!”

He smiled.

“I live quietly,” he said. “I am out of doors all day. Excitement of any sort has not touched my life for many years. Sometimes I feel that this perfect health is a torture. Sometimes I am afraid of never growing old.”

She laughed very softly—a dear, familiar sound it was to him. He turned his head to watch the curve of the lips that he loved, the faint contraction of her eyebrows as the smile spread.

“You dear man!” she murmured. “To look at you makes me feel quite passée.”

“The Daily Telegraph should reassure you,” he answered. “I read this morning that the most beautiful woman at the Opera last night was Lady Marrabel.”

“The Daily Telegraph man is such a delightful creature,” she answered. “I do not like reporters, but I fancy that I must once have been civil to this one by mistake. Henry, you have had the road shortened. I am perfectly certain of it. We cannot be there.”

“I am afraid it is the sad truth,” he answered. “You see they are all having tea upon the lawn.”

He touched the pony with his whip, and turning off the main avenue, drew up at the bottom of one of the lawns, before a sunk fence. A servant came hurrying down to the pony’s head, and together Pauline and he made their way across the short green turf to where Lady Mary was dispensing tea. Rochester’s face suddenly darkened. Seated next to his wife, with Lois on the other side of him, was Saton!

Lady Mary rose to welcome her guest, and Rochester exchanged greetings with some callers who had just arrived. To Saton he merely nodded, but when a little later Lois rose, and announced that she was going to show Mr. Saton the orchid houses, he intervened lazily.

“We will all go,” he said. “Lady Penarvon is interested in orchids, and I am sure that Pauline would like to see the houses.”

“I am interested in everything belonging to this delightful place,” she declared, rising.

Lois frowned slightly. Saton’s face remained inscrutable. In the general exodus Rochester found himself for a moment behind with his wife.

“Did you encourage that young man to stay to tea?” he asked. “I thought you disliked him so much.”

Lady Mary sighed. She was a gentle, fluffy little creature, who had a new whim every few minutes.

“I am so changeable,” she declared. “I detested him yesterday. He wore such an ugly tie, and he would monopolize Lois. This afternoon I found him most interesting. I believe he knows all about the future, if one could only get him to tell us things.”

“Really!” Rochester remarked politely.

“He has been talking in a most interesting fashion,” continued Lady Mary.

“Has he been telling you all your fortunes?”

“You put it so crudely, my dear Henry,” his wife declared. “Of course he doesn’t tell fortunes! Only he’s the sort of person that if one really wanted to know anything, I believe his advice would be better than most peoples’. Perhaps he will talk to us about it after dinner.”

“What, is he dining here?” Rochester asked.

“I have asked him to,” Lady Mary answered, complacently. “We are short of young men, as you know, and really this afternoon he quite fascinated us all. The dear Duchess is so difficult and heavy to entertain, but she quite woke up when he began to talk. Lady Penarvon just told me that she thought he was wonderful.”

“He seems to have the knack of interesting women,” Rochester remarked.

“And therefore, I suppose,” Lady Mary said, “you men will all hate him. Never mind, I have changed my opinion entirely. I think that he is going to be an acquisition to the neighborhood, and I am going to study occultism.”

Rochester turned away with a barely concealed grimace. He went up to Lois, calmly usurping Saton’s place.

“My dear Lois,” he said, as they fell behind a few paces, “so your latest young man has been charming everybody.”

“He is nice, isn’t he?” she answered, turning to him a little impulsively.

“Marvelously!” Rochester answered. “Hatefully so! Has he told you anything, by the bye, about himself?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing that I can remember,” she answered. “He is so clever,” she added, enthusiastically, “and he has explained all sorts of wonderful things to me. If one had only brains,” she continued, with a little sigh, “there is so much to learn.”

Rochester picked a great red rose and handed it to her.

“My dear child,” he said, “there is nothing in knowledge so beautiful as that flower. By the bye,” he added, raising his voice to Saton, who was just ahead, “I thought you were going to London to-day.”

“I have put off my visit until to-morrow,” Saton answered. “Your wife has been kind enough to ask me to dine.”

Rochester nodded. He carefully avoided endorsing the invitation.

“By the bye,” he remarked, “we had the pleasure of directing a lady in distress to your house this morning.”

Saton paused for a moment before he answered.

“I am very much obliged to you,” he said.

He offered no explanation. Rochester, with a little shrug of the shoulders, rejoined Pauline. Lady Mary was called away to receive some visitors, and for the first time Lois and Saton were alone.

“Mr. Rochester has taken a dislike to me,” he said quietly.

Lois was distressed.

“I wonder why,” she said. “As a rule he is so indifferent to people.”

Saton shook his head a little sadly.

“I cannot tell,” he answered. “Certainly I cannot think of anything I have done to offend him. But I am nearly always unfortunate. The people whom I would like to have care about me, as a rule don’t.”

“There are exceptions,” she murmured.

She met his eyes, and looked away. He smiled softly to himself. Women had looked away from him before like that!

“Fortunately,” he continued, “Lady Mary seems to be a little more gracious. It was very kind of her to ask me to dine to-night.”

“She is always so interested,” Lois said, “in things which she does not understand. You talked so well this afternoon, Mr. Saton. I am afraid I could not follow you, but it sounded very brilliant and very wonderful.”

“One speaks convincingly,” he said, “when one really feels. Some day, remember,” he continued, “we are going to have a long, long talk. We are going to begin at the beginning, and you are going to let me help you to understand how many wonderful things there are in life which scarcely any of us ever even think about. I wonder——”

“Well?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Will they let me take you down to dinner?”

She shook her head doubtfully.

“I am afraid not,” she said. “I am almost certain to go in with Captain Vandermere.”

He sighed.

“After all,” he said, “perhaps I had better have taken that train to town.”