Читать книгу Rubies - Elizabeth Louisa Moresby - Страница 4

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INEED hardly say it was not through the big handsome gates of Hatton Park that I got in. No, no! The gold dragons atop the old brick pillars were not for me. I understood my business, for though my father would never let me set a trap, I had seen plenty, and in our outer meadow I had got from Wetherall, our hedger, a coil of wire and another of stout twine, and why he had them I did not ask. For my own purpose I had a light rope. I held these carelessly in my hand, and stood a moment some way off the entrance lodge, but in sight of it, to survey the situation.

Now, there is a big wall runs all round Hatton Park, about ten feet high and hard to climb, but with some footing here and there for a nailed boot rightly placed. So up I went leisurely and sat awhile on top, balancing there with ease and looking about me until I saw old Martin Holmes, the lodgekeeper, come out and glance round. He saw me and halted as if he could hardly believe his eyes. Then, with some apparent haste, I dropped the wire into the park and began to get down after it.

Lord! How he bellowed, running toward me!

“Get out, you young swine! I’ll have your life! I’ll get his lordship! Coming trapping in open daylight! If all the men in this parish are not devils’ spawn I don’t know who is!”

He was an Englishman, you see, and the English don’t understand the Cornish folk—nor the other way over—and anyhow the boys led him a dog’s life of it. I won’t give you his talk, for he had learnt his swearing in the Boer War, and no better school anywhere, they tell me.

I did a boy’s trick. I put my thumb to my nose and spread my fingers and waggled them at him, and so mad with fury did it make him that he came prancing at me like a bull; then I turned and was out of sight among the trees in a minute, he following, purple and boiling with rage. I ran through the glades, soft but steady (for I knew Holmes would come up by the drive), until I got up near the gardens—great handsome gardens with spreading lawns mown like velvet abutting on the woods. There were fountains and long rose-walks, and everywhere a kind of sumptuous air, as if money were hiding behind it and pretending to be forgotten. But I did not stay to look, though it was my first sight of that sort of thing, but, choosing a fine beech-tree, smooth and shining in the skin as a woman’s arm, I threw my rope over the first trustworthy limb, about twenty feet off the ground, and so up with me and waited comfortably in the crook, leaving a tail of rope hanging down for betrayal.

Here I had a fine view of the gardens. It was a lovely day, and so were the sights and sounds from my leafy tower. All over the flower-beds the bees were humming in the wilderness of sweets, and this mingled with the plash of water from two great fountains and a stream contrived to run down a rockery where ferns grew long and moist, so that a very luxury of sound delighted the ear. For the nose’s pleasure the whole green world smelt like a queen’s posy, to which the gorgeous garden blooms added a fair magnificence of perfume. And for the eye’s, what could excel the long reaches of smooth-mown grass, diversified with great clumps of rhododendrons and rose-walks and clumps of blossoming trees and the fountains falling back into basins, where marble girls dreamed among water-lilies, white as lilies themselves against long arcades of black, clipped yew?

On one of the lawns, almost beneath me, was a long chair drawn out luxuriously in the dappled shade, with big cushions, and beside it a wicker table with a silver tankard of cool and refreshing suggestion—so much so that I thought: “Lucky are the rich that don’t have to go hoeing turnips in the heat, or sheep-washing, but can lie here dreaming of heaven right in the middle of it.”

For I could see glimpses of the fine old red-brick Hall with its gables, through the trees, mellowed like a velvet coat by wear and the more beautiful, and it seemed to me that such a man need not envy the King on his throne.

The gentleman in the chair was Lord Kyriel. He wore breeches and gaiters, just as he had come in from riding, and a riding-whip had dropped from his long, fine hand on the grass beside him. His head was on the purple pillows, and he was fast asleep, so that I could have a soul-satisfying stare at him as I never had had yet in church or town, for though my father was a gentleman, and the name of Pendarvis as good as any in Cornwall, we had no time or taste for what folks call Society, and Kyriel kept himself to himself, either because he liked or must, since the gentry did not seem to want him and the farmers he thought beneath him.

To a young man like me there is something about a peer of the realm, especially if considered a bit wicked, which strikes a kind of awe, as if he had some mysterious power to make you feel small and out of place where you are, and he looked an extremely fine gentleman. Perhaps I felt it the more because I had no right to be in his beech-tree, and I asked myself rather anxiously how the interview was likely to turn, for in the far distance I fancied I could hear Holmes puffing up the drive. I began to consider how much I could stand if it came to insults. By my father’s instructions I must stand whatever Kyriel might choose to say. But supposing he put it over a little too strongly, with Holmes looking on—and supposing Holmes let himself go too generously before Kyriel! After all, a Pendarvis is not a doormat, and I knew my temper, if smouldering, could blaze. I could not see my way ahead, and would gladly have stepped back to take my father’s advice had it been possible.

As it was not, I studied Lord Kyriel. A long man and well made, I should say about fifty-two. I guessed his height at my own. Figure good, face handsome in a dark, dissolute kind of way, a small mouth like a woman’s, but cruel—I hate a small mouth in a man—and high nostrils which might dilate like a thoroughbred’s if he was moved. I knew his shut eyes were black. I had seen them when at times he passed me, riding in the careless, easy way that made man and horse seem one. And somehow the more I looked at him, the less I liked my errand.

Presently a curious thing. I saw him, without raising his head from the pillows, slide his watch from his pocket and with a skew of the eye take the time and slide it in again, shutting his eyes sharp and lying in the drowsiest possible attitude, like a man drowned in sleep. And at once I knew he had never been asleep at all, and wondered if the quick eyes had seen me climb the beech while I thought myself so clever. This motion of his gave me a feeling of alarm at him, and I cannot tell why, unless it was that the action did not seem to match with his high, clear features and the noble house and gardens. It was a small thing, but like finding a spider in a glass of fine old wine.

But I could hear Martin Holmes grunting and labouring up and then twitching at the latch of the little garden gate. And still Lord Kyriel slept soundly, though I could picture him now with one bright veiled eye like a rat’s on the gate.

And as Martin came muffled over the turf, but puffing and the sweat running down his face, my lord stretched himself drowsily like a child, and so woke gently up, though without as yet raising himself.

“What’s that?” says he, with a yawn like an oyster, but all most delicately done.

“It’s me, my lord—Holmes, from the west gate—and I ask your lordship’s pardon if I roused you, but them Cornish villains is more nor flesh and blood can bear, and the game is ruined with their thieveries, and if I was to let it go on—”

“Thieveries!” The blood was scarlet in my ears. I would not stand for that! I rose up in my crook, rustling like the father of all the rooks, and got ready to slide down—then hesitated. Kyriel yawned again and slowly raised himself, dropping his long legs over the side of the chair.

“You do very right, Holmes, to be on the watch. Those poachers should be hided until they run blood. But what have they been at now, and who is it?”

“Coming into the park, your lordship, over the wall with his wire and twine, and spread out his devil’s claws—so!—when I hailed him, and then away with him into the trees, as if the place was his own. He had a rope over his arm too. And then the gamekeepers are at me for not watching the gates—as if them thieves would come in at the gates, flags flying!”

“A wire?” says his lordship, now standing and looking alertly about him. “The devil! You can’t name the man?”

“Why, my lord, not to swear to, but if I was to be damned for it I believe it was young Pendarvis.”

“Aha! I know something of Pendarvis. Thinks himself a little king because he owns a few beggarly acres! A gentleman should be a gentleman, and a farmer a farmer. Pendarvis is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. Do you hear anything against the young man, Holmes?”

The man was too furious to consider his words. I was always consorting and drinking with the fishermen and smugglers—low company for a man whose father held his head so high as Squire Pendarvis. I had made the trip to France in a Penzance lugger—and that was true enough, for my father sent me over to a man he knew there to learn the language, and I was there for the best part of a year —but no harm in that. Out it came, lies and truth tumbling neck and crop, exactly as when the women feed the pigs with bread and turnips and lumps of waste all shouldering each other in a flood of wash.

Kyriel listened in grave silence, gently slashing his boot with his riding-whip, and I declare I was so furious with that old scoundrel and Kyriel’s silence—as if this was to be believed for a moment—that I took hold of my rope and once more was for sliding down it to dash into the talk, when Kyriel spoke again.

“Why, this is a very serious matter for Pendarvis, Holmes, if his son is a smuggler. Can you prove it? Remember, I am a magistrate and bound to listen. Can you give me time and place, and we can have him up on a much more serious charge than poaching? Is old Pendarvis in with the smugglers? Now, be careful! An oath’s an oath, and a libel’s a libel—you know the risks.”

The old brute halted, confused. And still I delayed to hear more, thinking my father must know precious little of Kyriel if he trusted him at all. I was in a fog of bewilderment.

“Why, no, my lord, not exactly so as to swear, but Shoal Bay is like a hive of bees for smuggling, and Squire Pendarvis’s farm runs down to the cliff and—”

“But do you know he harbours them?” very quick and cold. “That’s the point.”

“Why, no, not to swear it; but if your lordship’d have him watched, him and his limb of a son—”

Holmes made a wry face, as if he’d smelt a dead polecat, and my lord rolled a cigarette delicately, as he did everything—and looked upward at my tree.

“As to the young man— By the way, Holmes, do I see a rope hanging from that beech to the right?”

With a rush and a whirr I came down the rope, scarlet to the tips of my ears with rage. Later I thought he had worked me up on purpose, that I might make a furious entry before Holmes, but that never dawned on me then. I flung the gate open and up to the pair of them, Kyriel holding me off with his eyes and measuring me as I spoke, panting with haste and wrath.

“Sir, I heard what you said, and I say straight that if you listen to this old liar you are as bad as he! What, set him to watch my father—as good a gentleman as yourself? You’re a cad and no better!”

And here, to my unspeakable mortification, my voice choked in my throat for anger, and I was afraid they would take it for fear and me no better than a sissy. My lord looked at me as gravely as he had done at Holmes, never turning an eyelash.

“Either this is a very clever young hypocrite, Holmes, or the secret is very well kept in the family. Now, tell me, young man, what is your errand on my property?”

The real truth would have leaped from my lips under the quick, dark flash of his look but that suddenly I remembered my father’s injunction, and though, in my confusion, the air was thick with things I could not understand, that one thing loomed out clear. I saw that though I might have been an angry fool it was possible I had done no harm yet—perhaps even good.

“Sir—Lord Kyriel, I mean,” says I, “I came for a look through your woods, and I must own up that I had twine and wire with me; so far that old scoundrel is right, and no further; and if this offends you, I’ll make it good any way you like—that is, if you’ll take my word.”

I felt like a callow fool under the chilly distinction of his look, as if I could be nothing that mattered one way or another. But I did my best, and I think the circumstances were a bit hard on me. He eyed me with his peculiar, steely glance.

“You seem to have brass enough for a bell foundry! And supposing I tell Holmes to give you the lambasting you deserve, will you take it as you say?”

I felt the blood burn up in my cheeks, but stared hardily at him.

“Why, no, not that! I’ll see him damned first! But any apology to you—”

His smile lifted his lip and showed his teeth. Smiling, I did not think him so handsome.

“It seems I must keep a dog and bark myself. Well, I give you your choice. Will you take what I choose to give you, or be prosecuted? You know the law is pretty sharp in defence of fur and feather.”

I had no time to think it out, and I said, “No prosecution for me!” not knowing what he was after.

Swift as a snake strikes he was at me, and a thin, stinging lash of the whip got me across the cheek and another on the hand, and cut me so that the blood burst on the knuckles—and all so quick that the whip made circles in the air, as when a boy plays at curlicues with a burning stick.

Flesh and blood could not stand it. I saw red, and went for him and got him by the arm and flung him off, so that he all but fell against Holmes. And suddenly again I remembered my father and pulled up, with Holmes staring at us with owl’s eyes and dropped jaw, ready to take to his heels for fright.

And judge if I was ashamed of my cut and the fix I was in when I heard a scream and a girl ran out from the rhododendrons, with a woman after her, crying, “Father, Father! What is it? Oh, stop, stop!”

We all pulled ourselves together and the scene was over, and for the soul of me I could not tell whether I had ruined the whole thing or helped it. Anyhow, they all stared at me as if I were a mad dog—I knew that, though I had never lifted my eyes above her grey shoes, but I heard her draw her breath sharply. She had halted in a kind of horror, and there was I, caught like a thief! What could I say? I knew the blood was oozing from my hand and a weal on my cheek, for the man had put his heart into the blows and had a cruel pleasure in them. How could I look up at women?

Holmes had scuffled off. Lord Kyriel filled the bill and asked imperiously, “What business have you here, Marcia? You and Mrs. Lyon go on with your walk. As for you, sir, come up to the house and wash the blood from yourself, for you’re a sight to frighten the crows. Forget what you have seen, Marcia, because though this young man trespassed he has taken his punishment well. Go on, sir.”

He spoke like a man that would have his way, and I heard light feet brushing over the grass. I walked the way he pointed with his whip, and he followed me in silence, as if he drove me before him.