Читать книгу Under Two Skies - E. W. Hornung - Страница 7

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The gate between the home-paddock and the horse-paddock, half a mile from the homestead: half-past nine on a hot Sunday evening in December.

A slim figure all in white leant over the gate, and the full moon shone so brilliantly that any one within a hundred yards might have seen that it was Miss Jenny. Moreover, but for the hindering box clump on the other side of the gate, Miss Jenny might herself have seen some one hurrying across the paddock towards her, and have conquered her uneasiness; for this was Jim-of-the-Whim.

It was their first meeting by design, but there had been accidental meetings, one, two and three, since Jim's risky descent of the whim-shaft: at least, they appeared to be accidents—like the slipping of the whip that day from Miss Jenny's fingers.

All at once the night air was filled with a music that should have silenced every chirruping locust in the land—music whereat Miss Jenny sighed her deep relief and fluttered with delight.

"La donna è mobile" sang the voice, and came nearer every second. It was Verdi at his most tuneful: in the moonlit wilderness: by the sweetest tenor out of Italy.

Miss Jenny had heard Rigoletto with the same tenor that took more than her fancy in Traviata. For the first time—for she had only heard Jim sing once before—she compared his voice with the heavenly Roberto's. And then and there a suspicion entered her soul that would have been torture had not the opportunity of satisfying it been immediately at hand. For the song had come to an undignified end in the full tide of the second verse, and—and Miss Jenny was on one side of the gate and Jim on the other.

"You were singing Rigoletto?" said Jenny.

"Yes; I was forced to sing something for very joy."

"I have heard Roberto sing that thing; and, do you know, you sing exactly like Roberto, and look like him too!"

No answer.

"Are you Roberto?" cried Jenny, in the greatest excitement.

"Can it make any difference to you? Even so, should I not be miles beneath you still?"

Miss Jenny did not answer.

"You own that I should—and," cried Jim, "that's the best of it! You take me for what I am. Very well; I'll tell you what I was—I was Roberto! Does it make any difference?"

It did not—but it made them practically silent. The full moon sank lower, and peeped under the very broad brim of Jim's wideawake. That was bad taste on the moon's part.

"You were to tell me your whole history." Miss Jenny whispered. "Were you always on the stage?"

"No," said Jim. "Ten years ago I was at the 'Varsity. You wouldn't have thought it, would you?"

"Oh, indeed, I—"

"Oh no, you wouldn't! I had forgotten it myself until—until I saw you! No, it was the common savage you liked, not the ex-gentleman; and by liking him you have saved him! My angel! My good angel! For your sake I'll be the man I was once, so help me God!"

The girl blushed crimson in the moonlight, and Jim liked her the better for it. The poor fellow little dreamt how much she had to blush for.

"I'm the prodigal son of rather a well-known parent," Jim went on. "You can see his name in any English newspaper. It is the parable all through so far, minus the happy ending. That's what you and I are going to bring about."

"You mean that you are disinherited! What was it you did?"

Inquisitiveness was innate in Miss Jenny; but at the same time, to do her justice, she was thinking of her own little dower, and of its possibilities as an aid to reconciling her future husband with his family. Yet she would have given something to know what Jim's original crime had been.

Jim would not answer. He said that it was a long story, and his face showed that the memory pained him still. Nor would he say why he had quitted the stage, on which he had achieved a great though brief reputation throughout the Colonies.

Soon Miss Jenny looked at her watch, and said she must fly. Whereupon Jim opened the gate to fly with her as far as he dare. But they did not fly at all; they walked very slowly indeed; and on this walk they made their final arrangements. There is nothing to conceal in these arrangements. In the circumstances, they were the simplest and most natural in the world. Jim was to get his cheque next day, and set off walking for Wagga-Wagga. He was to wait in that town; if not in the church-porch, at any rate on the platform of the railway-station. He would not have to wait many days, though the date of Miss Howard's departure from her brother-in-law's station was not absolutely settled. She was preparing, however, to go down to Melbourne for Christmas, and she intended travelling by rail from Hay, by way of Wagga and Albury, instead of in the coach by the more direct route to Deniliquin. She would leave the train at Wagga, and be married then and there.

After that, as Jim said, the world lay at their feet. They would go to England. His father would forgive everything; all would be well; the years of exile and degradation should be forgotten. Nor were all Jim's prophecies so vague, and Genevieve quickly shared his high hopes; for among her own people the realisation of half the golden programme that Jim now unfolded would atone for the rash plunge she was going to take. She was intoxicated with joy, for there were prospects, as it turned out, undreamed of till now, though she had suspected from the beginning that Jim had sunk from some better state. But her little heart was honestly on fire as it had never quite been before; and in her happiness she for once shook off the haunting vision of poor Clinton, who at that moment was walking home to his Melbourne lodgings from Sunday supper at the parsonage, hugging to his heart the velvet embroidered case that had 'inspired' his evening sermon.

As for Jim, he carolled all the way back to the hut—still in Italian.