Читать книгу The Hillman - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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Louise, with a heavy, silver-plated candlestick in her hand, stood upon the uneven floor of the bedroom to which she had been conducted, looking up at the oak-framed family tree which hung above the broad chimney-piece. She examined the coat of arms emblazoned in the corner, and peered curiously at the last neatly printed addition, which indicated Stephen and John Strangewey as the sole survivors of a diminishing line. When at last she turned away, she found the name upon her lips.

"Strangewey!" she murmured. "John Strangewey! The name seems to bring something into my memory. Have I ever known any one with such a name, Aline?"

The maid shook her head.

"Never, madame, to the best of my belief," she declared. "Yet I, too, seem to have heard it, and lately. It is perplexing. One has seen it somewhere. One finds it familiar."

Louise shrugged her shoulders. She stood for a moment looking around her before she laid down the candlestick.

The room was of unusual size, with two worm-eaten beams across the ceiling; the windows were casemented, with broad seats in each recess. The dressing table, upon which her belongings were set out, was of solid, black oak, as was also the framework of the huge sofa, the mirror, and the chairs. The ancient four-poster, hung with chintz and supported by carved pillars, was spread with fine linen and covered with a quilt made of small pieces of silk, lavender-perfumed. The great wardrobe, with its solid mahogany doors, seemed ancient enough to have stood in its place since the building of the house itself. A log of sweet-smelling wood burned cheerfully in the open fireplace.

"Really," Louise decided, "we have been most fortunate. This is an adventure! Aline, give me some black silk stockings and some black slippers. I will change nothing else."

The maid obeyed in somewhat ominous silence. Her mistress, however, was living in a little world of her own.

"John Strangewey!" she murmured to herself, glancing across the room at the family tree. "It is really curious how that name brings with it a sense of familiarity. It is so unusual, too. And what an unusual-looking person! Do you think, Aline, that you ever saw any one so superbly handsome?"

The maid's little grimace was expressive.

"Never, madame," she replied. "And yet to think of it—a gentleman, a person of intelligence, who lives here always, outside the world, with just a terrible old man servant, the only domestic in the house! Nearly all the cooking is done at the bailiff's, a quarter of a mile away."

Louise nodded thoughtfully.

"It is very strange," she admitted. "I should like to understand it. Perhaps," she added, half to herself, "some day I shall."

She passed across the room, and on her way paused before an old cheval-glass, before which were suspended two silver candlesticks containing lighted wax candles. She looked steadfastly at her own reflection. A little smile parted her lips. In the bedroom of this quaint farmhouse she was looking upon a face and a figure which the illustrated papers and the enterprise of the modern photographer had combined to make familiar to the world.

A curious feeling came to her that she was looking at the face of a stranger. She gazed earnestly into the mirror, with new eyes and a new curiosity. She contemplated critically the lines of her slender figure in its neat, perfectly tailored skirt—the figure of a girl, it seemed, notwithstanding her twenty-seven years. Her soft, white blouse was open at the neck, displaying a beautifully rounded throat. Her eyes traveled upward, and dwelt with an almost passionate interest upon the oval face, a little paler at that moment than usual; with its earnest, brown eyes, its faint, silky eyebrows, its strong, yet mobile features; its lips a little full, perhaps, but soft and sensitive; at the masses of brown hair drawn low over her ears.

This was herself, then. Did she really justify her reputation for beauty, or was she just a cult, the passing craze of a world a little weary of the ordinary standards? Or, again, was it only her art that had focused the admiration of the world upon her?

How would she seem to these two men down-stairs, she asked herself—the dour, grim master of the house, and her more youthful rescuer, whose coming had somehow touched her fancy? They saw so little of her sex. They seemed, in a sense, to be in league against it. Would they find out that they were entertaining an angel unawares?

She thought with a gratified smile of her incognito. It was a real trial of her strength, this! When she turned away from the mirror the smile still lingered upon her lips, a soft light of anticipation was shining in her eyes.

John met her at the foot of the stairs. She noticed with some surprise that he was wearing the dinner-jacket and black tie of civilization.

"Will you come this way, please?" he begged. "Supper is quite ready."

He held open the door of one of the rooms on the other side of the hall, and she passed into a low dining room, dimly lit with shaded lamps. The elder brother rose from his chair as they entered, although his salutation was even grimmer than his first welcome. He was wearing a dress-coat of old-fashioned cut, and a black stock, and he remained standing, without any smile or word of greeting, until she had taken her seat. Behind his chair stood a very ancient man servant in a gray pepper-and-salt suit, with a white tie, whose expression, at the entrance of this unexpected guest, seemed curiously to reflect the inhospitable instincts of his master.

Although conscious of this atmosphere of antagonism, Louise looked around her with frank admiration as she took her place in the high-backed chair which John was holding for her. The correctness of the setting appealed strongly to her artistic perceptions. The figures and features of the two men—Stephen, tall, severe, stately; John, amazingly handsome, but of the same type; the black-raftered ceiling; the Jacobean sideboard; the huge easy chairs; the fine prints upon the walls; the pine log which burned upon the open hearth—nowhere did there seem to be a single alien or modern note.

The table was laid with all manner of cold dishes, supplemented by others upon the sideboard. There were pots of jam and honey, a silver teapot and silver spoons and forks of quaint design, strangely cut glass, and a great Dresden bowl filled with flowers.

"I am afraid," John remarked, "that you are not used to dining at this hour. My brother and I are very old-fashioned in our customs. If we had had a little longer notice—"

"I never in my life saw anything that looked so delicious as your cold chicken," Louise declared. "May I have some—and some ham? I believe that you must farm some land yourselves. Everything looks as if it were home-made or home-grown."

"We are certainly farmers," John admitted, with a smile, "and I don't think there is much here that isn't of our own production."

"Of course, one must have some occupation, living so far out of the world," Louise murmured. "I really am the most fortunate person," she continued. "My car comes to grief in what seems to be a wilderness, and I find myself in a very palace of plenty!"

"I am not sure that your maid agrees," John laughed. "She seemed rather horrified when she found that there was no woman servant about the place."

"Aline is spoiled, without a doubt," her mistress declared. "But is that really the truth?"

"Absolutely."

"But how do you manage?" Louise went on. "Don't you need dairymaids, for instance?"

"The farm buildings are some distance away from the house," John explained. "There is quite a little colony at the back, and the woman who superintends the dairy lives there. It is only in the house that we are entirely independent of your sex. We manage, somehow or other, with Jennings here and two boys."

"You are not both woman-haters, I hope?"

Her younger host flashed a warning glance at Louise, but it was too late. Stephen had laid down his knife and fork and was leaning in her direction.

"Madam," he intervened, "since you have asked the question, I will confess that I have never known any good come to a man of our family from the friendship or service of women. Our family history, if ever you should come to know it, would amply justify my brother and myself for our attitude toward your sex."

"Stephen!" John remonstrated, a slight frown upon his face. "Need you weary our guest with your peculiar views? It is scarcely polite, to say the least of it."

The older man sat, for a moment, grim and silent.

"Perhaps you are right, brother," he admitted. "This lady did not seek our company, but it may interest her to know that she is the first woman who has crossed the threshold of Peak Hall for a matter of six years."

Louise looked from one to the other, half incredulously.

"Do you really mean it? Is that literally true?" she asked John.

"Absolutely," the young man assured her; "but please remember that you are none the less heartily welcome here. We have few women neighbors, and intercourse with them seems to have slipped out of our lives. Tell me, how far have you come to-day, and where did you hope to sleep to-night?"

Louise hesitated for a moment. For some reason or other, the question seemed to bring with it some unexpected and disturbing thought.

"I was motoring from Edinburgh. As regards to-night, I had not made up my mind. I rather hoped to reach Kendal. My journey is not at all an interesting matter to talk about," she went on. "Tell me about your life here. It sounds most delightfully pastoral. Do you really mean that you produce nearly everything yourselves? Your honey and preserves and bread and butter, for instance—are they all home-made?"

"And our hams," the young man laughed, "and everything else upon the table. You underestimate the potentiality of male labor. Jennings is certainly a better cook than the average woman. Everything you see was cooked by him. We have a sort of secondary kitchen, though, down at the bailiff's, where the preserves are made and some of the other things."

"And you live here all the year round?" she asked.

"My brother," John told her, "has not been further away than the nearest market-town for nearly twenty years."

Her eyes grew round with astonishment.

"But you go to London sometimes?"

"I was there eight years ago. Since then I have not been further away than Carlisle or Kendal. I go into the camp near Kendal for three weeks every year—Territorial training, you know."

"But how do you pass your time? What do you do with yourself?" she asked.

"Farm," he answered. "Farming is our daily occupation. Then for amusement we hunt, shoot, and fish. The seasons pass before we know it."

She looked appraisingly at John Strangewey. Notwithstanding his sun-tanned cheeks and the splendid vigor of his form, there was nothing in the least agricultural about his manner or his appearance. There was humor as well as intelligence in his clear, gray eyes. She opined that the books which lined one side of the room were at once his property and his hobby.

"It is a very healthy life, no doubt," she said; "but somehow it seems incomprehensible to think of a man like yourself living always in such an out-of-the-way corner, with no desire to see what is going on in the world, or to be able to form any estimate of the changes in men's thoughts and habits. Human life seems to me so much more interesting than anything else. Does this all sound a little impertinent?" she wound up naïvely. "I am so sorry! My friends spoil me, I believe, and I get into the habit of saying things just as they come into my head."

John's lips were open to reply, but Stephen once more intervened.

"Life means a different thing to each of us, madam," he said sternly. "There are many born with the lust for cities and the crowded places in their hearts, born with the desire to mingle with their fellows, to absorb the conventional vices and virtues, to become one of the multitude. It has been different with us Strangeweys."

Jennings, at a sign from his master, removed the tea equipage, evidently produced in honor of their visitor. Three tall-stemmed glasses were placed upon the table, and a decanter of port reverently produced.

Louise had fallen for a moment or two into a fit of abstraction. Her eyes were fixed upon the opposite wall, from which, out of their faded frames, a row of grim-looking men and women, startlingly like her two hosts, seemed to frown down upon her.

"Is that your father?" she asked, moving her head toward one of the portraits.

"My grandfather, John Strangewey," Stephen told her.

"Was he one of the wanderers?"

"He left Cumberland only twice during his life. He was master of hounds, magistrate, colonel in the yeomanry of that period, and three times he refused to stand for Parliament."

"John Strangewey!" Louise repeated softly to herself. "I was looking at your family tree up-stairs," she went on. "It is curious how both my maid and myself were struck with a sense of familiarity about the name, as if we had heard or read something about it quite lately."

Her words were almost carelessly spoken, but she was conscious of the somewhat ominous silence which ensued. She glanced up wonderingly and intercepted a rapid look passing between the two men. More puzzled than ever, she turned toward John as if for an explanation. He had risen somewhat abruptly to his feet, and his hand was upon the back of her chair.

"Will it be disagreeable to you if my brother smokes a pipe?" he asked. "I tried to have our little drawing-room prepared for you, but the fire has not been lit for so long that the room, I am afraid, is quite impossible."

"Do let me stay here with you," she begged; "and I hope that both of you will smoke. I am quite used to it."

John wheeled up an easy chair for her. Stephen, stiff and upright, sat on the other side of the hearth. He took the tobacco-jar and pipe that his brother had brought him, and slowly filled the bowl.

"With your permission, then, madam," he said, as he struck a match.

Louise smiled graciously. Some instinct prompted her to stifle her own craving for a cigarette and keep her little gold case hidden in her pocket. All the time her eyes were wandering around the room. Suddenly she rose and, moving round the table, stood once more facing the row of gloomy-looking portraits.

"So that is your grandfather," she remarked to John, who had followed her. "Is your father not here?"

He shook his head.

"My father's portrait was never painted."

"Tell the truth, John," Stephen enjoined, rising in his place and setting down his pipe. "Our father's portrait is not here, madam, because he was one of those of whom I have spoken—one of those who were drawn into the vortex of the city, and who knew only the shallow ways of life. Listen!"

With a heavy silver candlestick in either hand, Stephen crossed the room. He raised them high above his head and pointed to the pictures one by one.

"John Robert Strangewey, our great-grandfather," he began. "That picture was a presentation from the farmers of Cumberland. He, too, was a magistrate, and held many public offices in the county.

"By his side is his brother, Stephen George Strangewey. For thirty-five years he took the chair at the farmers' ordinary at Market Ketton on every Saturday at one o'clock, and there was never a deserving man in this part of the county, engaged in agricultural pursuits, who at any time sought his aid in vain. They always knew where he was to be found, and every Saturday, before dinner was served, there would be some one there to seek his aid or advice. He lived his life to his own benefit and to the benefit of his neighbors—the life which we are all sent here to lead.

"Two generations before him you see my namesake, Stephen Strangewey. It was he who invented the first threshing-machine used in this county. He farmed the land that my brother and I own to-day. He was churchwarden at our little church, and he, too, was a magistrate. He did his duty in a smaller way, but zealously and honestly, among the hillmen of this district."

"There are gaps in your family history," Louise observed.

"The gaps, madam," Stephen explained, "are left by those who have abandoned their natural heritage. We Strangeweys were hillfolk and farmers, by descent and destiny, for more than four hundred years. Our place is here upon the land, almost among the clouds, and those of us who have realized it have led the lives God meant us to lead. There have been some of our race who have been tempted into the lowlands and the cities. Not one of them brought honor upon our name. Their pictures are not here. They are not worthy to be here."

Stephen set down the candlesticks and returned to his place. Louise, with her hands clasped behind her back, glanced toward John, who still stood by her side.

"Tell me," she asked him, "have none of your people who went out into the world done well for themselves?"

"Scarcely one," he admitted. "My brother's words seem a little sweeping, but they are very near the truth. The air of the great cities seems to have poisoned every Strangewey—"

"Not one," Stephen interrupted. "Colonel John Strangewey died leading his regiment at Waterloo, an end well enough, but reached through many years of evil conduct and loose living."

"He was a brave soldier," John put in quietly.

"That is true," Stephen admitted. "His best friends have claimed no other quality for him. Madam," he went on, turning toward Louise, "lest my welcome to you this evening should have seemed inhospitable, let me tell you this. Every Strangewey who has left our county, and trodden the downward path of failure, has done so at the instance of one of your sex. That is why those of us who inherit the family spirit look askance upon all strange women. That is why no woman is ever welcome within this house."

Louise resumed her seat in the easy chair.

"I am so sorry," she murmured, looking down at her slipper. "I could not help breaking down here, could I?"

"Nor could my brother fail to offer you the hospitality of this roof," Stephen admitted. "The incident was unfortunate but inevitable. It is a matter for regret that we have so little to offer you in the way of entertainment." He rose to his feet. The door had been opened. Jennings was standing there with a candlestick upon a massive silver salver. Behind him was Aline. "You are doubtless fatigued by your journey, madam," Stephen concluded.

Louise made a little grimace, but she rose at once to her feet. She understood quite well that she was being sent to bed, and she shivered a little when she looked at the hour—barely ten o'clock. Yet it was all in keeping. From the doorway she looked back into the room, in which nothing seemed to have been touched for centuries. She stood upon the threshold to bid her final good-night, fully conscious of the complete anachronism of her presence there.

Her smile for Stephen was respectful and full of dignity. As she glanced toward John, however, something flashed in her eyes and quivered at the corners of her lips, something which escaped her control, something which made him grip for a moment the back of the chair against which he stood. Then, between the old man servant, who insisted upon carrying her candle to her room, and her maid, who walked behind, she crossed the white stone hall and stepped slowly up the broad flight of stairs.