Читать книгу Imprudence - F. E. Mills Young - Страница 10

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The moonlight fell softly on Prudence’s bright hair, touching the curls lovingly with a wan brilliance that, paling their shining gold, added a purer sheen to replace the beauty stolen by the night. Its light was reflected in the blue depths of her eyes, eyes which took on the misty darkness of the night sky so that the moonbeams felt at home therein and lingered there confidingly. She leaned far out of the window, and the fragrance of some early gloire de Dijon roses was wafted towards her on the night breeze. A scent besides that of the roses stole up to her out of the shadows—the scent of cigarette smoke, too close under her window to suggest that the smoker was beyond the wall that shut off the garden from the road. Prudence had watched the smoker enter the garden; she watched him now throw away his cigarette among the flowers in one of the borders as he advanced, and she heard his voice speaking softly to her out of the gloom.

“Can’t you come down?” he asked.

“Not unless you have come provided with a rope ladder,” she replied as softly.

“By Jove! I never thought of that. But you aren’t locked in?”

“Not in the sense you mean. But locked doors would be trifles compared with the opposition I should encounter if I attempted to join you. I’d love to come out; but it’s impossible.”

“Is there any likelihood of our being overheard?” he asked with caution.

Prudence laughed quietly.

“Every likelihood,” she answered. “I don’t think I mind.”

Steele stood under cover of the wall of the house. There were no lights in the windows on that side; he had observed that on former occasions; the library, where Mr Graynor sat every evening with William, faced the other way.

“Then I’m going to run the risk and stay and talk with you,” he said.

There was a strange intimacy in the situation that appealed to Prudence. The adventure of the morning was as nothing compared with this stolen interview. The insufficient light of the moon, and the distance which divided them, added a touch of romance which she found pleasantly exciting. To gaze down upon his upturned face and the uncertain outline of his form below stirred her imagination; and the necessity for caution, occasioning them to lower their voices to whispers, gave to the utterance of the most trivial speech the flavour of intimate things. She leaned down nearer to him.

“It’s rather like Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it?” she said.

“That ended rottenly,” he replied, and laughed.

“So will this probably. What made you venture inside?”

“Isn’t the reason obvious?” he returned. “I thought I had prepared you for my visit at tea. It wasn’t possible for us to say good-bye like that. I’m sorry I got you into that mess.”

“You didn’t,” Prudence assured him gently. “I knew how it would be. I’m not regretting—anything. Stinging nettles cease to hurt when the rash subsides. William is furious. We don’t speak.”

“That must be rather a relief for you.”

She dimpled suddenly.

“He doesn’t think so. When I apologise I am to be taken into favour again. So, if he keeps to that, it is likely to be many years before we interchange remarks.”

“What an egregious ass he is,” Steele commented. “Never mind that now. We don’t want to discuss him. I came to-night to beg a favour. Will you write to me sometimes? ... and may I write? I don’t want to lose touch altogether.”

“I can’t promise that,” she said, and fingered a rosebud below her window, snapping its stem in nervous preoccupation. “All our letters go into a box at the post office and are sorted before we receive them. They would not allow me to correspond with you.”

“Could we not arrange a little deception,” he suggested, “by means of which you could collect your own letters from the post office?”

But this idea did not commend itself to Prudence. She might be a rebel, but she was honest, as courageous people usually are; anything in the nature of deceit repelled her. “I should not care to do that,” she said. Her answer pleased Steele, although it defeated his purpose. He had hoped to follow up this pleasant friendship begun under such unusual and difficult conditions. It was the quality of conspiracy and quick intimacy which made the acquaintance so extraordinarily attractive to him. He was more than half in love with her already; and it galled him to reflect that with his present uncertain prospects he was no match for this daughter of a wealthy man. He could not have afforded to marry had other conditions proved favourable, which they did not: Mr Graynor would scarcely have welcomed a son-in-law with a salary of under two hundred a year.

“I am afraid that settles it,” he said in tones compounded of a mixture of emotions. “I wonder if ever I’ll have the good luck to meet you again?”

This remark pulled Prudence up sharply. She had never considered the question of his going out of her life; the suggestion thus forced on her unwilling attention hurt. Abruptly the knowledge came to her that she did not wish to lose his friendship. She had not considered the matter of his going away seriously: she had taken it for granted that the business that had brought him to Wortheton would bring him again; no doubt had crossed her mind as to a further meeting—now that the doubt was implanted a vague distress seized her, bringing with it a sense of desolation. She realised that when he was gone she would miss him, would feel doubly lonely by comparison with this bright break in the monotony of her life.

“You’ll come again?” she said quickly.

“It’s possible,” he answered, “but not in the least likely. It was just a chance that brought me this time. The firm sends a more important man as a rule. If I come again you will soon know of it. I shall make my first appearance under your window. In the meanwhile you will quite possibly have forgotten my existence.”

“Amid the distractions of Wortheton!” Prudence retorted. “That’s very probable, isn’t it?”

He laughed.

“I won’t hear a word against Wortheton if it keeps your memory green,” he returned.

“It fossilises memory,” she answered. “Every little event that has ever befallen is stamped on my mind in indelible colours—drab colours for the unpleasant event, and brighter tints for the pleasant in comparison with their different degrees of agreeableness.”

“And this event?” he questioned. “These stolen moments? In what colour is this event painted?”

“I’ll tell you that when we meet again—perhaps,” she answered.

“Oh please!” he persisted. “I want to know now.”

Prudence laughed softly. He detected a slight nervousness in her mirth, a quality of shyness that gratified his eager curiosity, conveying as it did that the girl was not insensible of his influence and his unspoken homage.

“You see,” she said, and blushed warmly in the darkness as she leaned down towards him, “it is all a confusion of splashes of moonlight and brighter splashes of sunshine. There aren’t any colours on the canvas at all.”

“I’m contented with that,” he said... “a luminous impression! Your fancy pleases me. My fancy in connexion with you will picture always a rose-bowered window set in a grey stone wall—just a frame for you, with your moonlit hair and eyes like beautiful stars. Always I shall see you like that—inaccessible, while I stand below and gaze upward.”

This extravagance led to further admissions. He managed very clearly to convey to his silent listener that his feeling for her was of quite an unusual quality, that he cared immensely, that he had no intention of letting her drop out of his life. He wanted to see more of her and was fully determined to do so. He made her realise that unless she disclaimed a reciprocal liking he intended taking her silence for acquiescence. He spoke so rapidly, and with so much concentrated passion in his lowered tones, that Prudence only vaguely comprehended all that his eager words attempted to convey. She was apprehensive of discovery, and, rendered doubly nervous by this clandestine love-making and the fear of interruption, could find no words in which to reply. She wanted time to think: the whole situation flurried her; and her heart was beating with a rapidity that made articulation difficult.

“Oh!” she said... “Oh! I didn’t know... I didn’t understand...”

“Well, you understand now,” he answered. “Prudence, give me one word—one kind word to carry away with me... dear!”

There followed a pause, during which her face showed dimly above him, with eyes shadowed darkly in the wan light. She leaned towards him.

“Ssh! Good-bye—dear!” she called back softly. And the next thing he realised, even as her words floated faintly down to his eager ears, was that he was standing alone in the darkness, gazing up at the place where she had stood and from whence she had vanished with startling and unaccountable suddenness.

Later Steele walked back to the quaint little hotel where he was staying, confused by the hurried sweetness of her farewell as she withdrew from her position at the window with a caution that suggested unseen interruption. He had stepped forward with noiseless haste to secure a rose which fell from her window, and carrying it with him, made his way silently out of the garden. He was never certain whether the falling of the rose had been accidental, or whether Prudence had dropped it for him as a token and a reminder; but because her hand had gathered it, he lifted it in the moonlight and touched its cool fragrance reverently with his lips. The act made him consciously her lover. The rose became a symbol—a bond between him and her. Just so long as he kept it he knew that her influence would dominate his life, and his memory of her retain its warm and vital quality, so that she would remain a beautiful inspiration amid the sordid worries of uncongenial things.