Читать книгу The Master of the Ceremonies - Fenn George Manville - Страница 19

No one would have called Miss Clode pretty, “but there were traces,” as the Master of the Ceremonies said. She was thin and middle-aged now, but she had once been a very charming woman; and, though the proprietress of the circulating library at Saltinville, a keen observer would have said that she was a lady.

Richard Linnell entered her shop on the morning after the carriage accident, and a curious flush came into her little thin face. There was a light in her eye that seemed to make the worn, jaded face pleasanter to look upon, and it seemed as if something of the little faded woman’s true nature was peeping out.

She did not look like the little go-between in scores of flirtations and intrigues; but as if the natural love of her nature had come to the surface, from where it generally lay latent, and her eyes seemed to say:

“Ah, if I could have married, and had a son like that.”

It is the fashion, nowadays, for ladies to attempt a strong-minded rôle, and profess to despise the tyrant man; to take to college life and professorship; to cry aloud and shout for woman’s rights and independence; for votes and the entry to the school board, vestry, and the Parliamentary bench; when all the time Nature says in her gentle but inflexible way: “Foolish women; it was not for these things that you were made to tread the earth.”

Study! Yes, nothing is too abstruse, nowadays. The pretty maidens, who used to learn a little French with their music and drawing, now take to Greek and Latin and the higher mathematics, but they cannot stitch like their grandmothers.

“And,” says a strong-minded lady, “are they any worse companions now for men than they were then?”

“Opinions are various, madam.” I used to write that as a text-hand copy in a nicely-ruled book that I used to blot with inky fingers. You, madam, who claim your rights, surely will not deny me mine – to have my own opinion, which I will dare to give, and say:

“Yes; I think they have not improved. Somehow one likes softness and sweetness in a woman, and your classic young ladies are often very sharp and hard.

“If you combat my opinion upon the main idea of women’s purpose here, add this to your study – the aspect of a woman when she is most beautiful.

“And when is that? – in her ball dress? – in her wedding costume? – when she first says ‘yes?’

“Oh, no; none of these, but when she is alone with the child she loves, and that sweet – well, angelic look of satisfied maternity is on her face, and there is Nature’s own truth stamped indelibly as it has been from the first.

“Men never look like that. They never did, and one may say never will. It is not given to us, madam. Study that look; it is more convincing than all the speeches women ever spoke on woman’s rights.”

Just such a look was upon the face of little thin white-faced Miss Clode, as the frank, manly young fellow strode suddenly into her shop, making her start, change colour, and set down on the counter something she was holding, taking it up again directly with trembling hands.

“Ah, Miss Clode,” he said cheerfully, “here I am again. Is it the weather, or are your strings bad?”

“Do they break so, then?” she said, hurriedly producing a tin canister, which refused to give up its lid; and Richard had to take it, and wrench it off with his strong fingers, when a number of oily rings of transparent catgut flew out on to the glass case.

“How clumsy I am,” he said.

“No,” she said softly; “how strong and manly. How you have altered these last ten years!”

“Well, I suppose so,” he said, smiling down at the little thin, upturned, admiring face. “But you’ll ruin me in strings, Miss Clode.”

“I wish you would not pay for them,” she said plaintively. “I get the very best Roman strings. I send on purpose to a place in Covent Garden, London, and they ought to be good.”

“And so they are,” he said, taking up half a dozen rings on his fingers and examining them to see which were the clearest, smoothest, and most transparent.

“But they break so,” she sighed. “You really must not pay for these.”

“Then I shall not have any,” he said.

She gazed tenderly in his face, and her eyes were very intent as she watched him. Then, coughing slightly, and half turning away, she said gently:

“And your father – is he quite well?”

“Oh yes, thank you. Very well. Well as a man can be who has such a great idle, useless son.”

Miss Clode shook her little curls at him reproachfully, and there was something very tender in her way as she cried, “You should not say that.” Then, in a quiet apologetic manner, she lowered her tone and said:

“You can’t help being so tall and strong and manly, and – and – and – I’m only an old woman, Mr Linnell,” she said, smiling in a deprecating way, “and I’ve known you since you were such a boy, so I shall say it – you won’t be vain – so handsome.”

“Am I?” he said, laughing. “Ah well, handsome is that handsome does, Miss Clode.”

“Exactly,” she said, laying her hand upon his arm and speaking very earnestly, “and I have three – three notes here.”

“For me?” he said, blushing like a woman, and then frowning at his weakness.

“Yes, Mr Linnell, for you.”

“Tear them up, then,” he said sharply. “I don’t want them.”

Miss Clode gave vent to a sigh of relief.

“Or no,” he said firmly. “They were given to you to deliver. Give them to me.”

She passed three triangular notes to him half unwillingly, and he took them, glanced at the handwritings, and then tore them across without opening them.

“No lady worth a second thought would address a man like that,” he said sharply. “Where shall I throw this stuff?”

Miss Clode stooped down and lifted a waste-paper basket from behind the counter, and he threw the scraps in.

“We are old friends, Miss Clode,” he said. “Burn them for me, please, at once. I should not like to be so dishonourable as to disgrace the writers by letting them be seen.”

“People are talking about you so, sir.”

“About me?” he cried.

“Yes, Mr Linnell; they say you behaved like a hero.”

“Absurd!”

“When you swam out to the pony carriage and helped to rescue those – er – ladies.”

“My dear Miss Clode, would not any fisherman on the beach have done the same if he had been near? I wish people would not talk such nonsense.”

“People will talk down here, Mr Linnell. They have so little else to do.”

“More’s the pity,” said Richard pettishly.

“And is – is Mrs Dean quite well again, Mr Linnell?”

“Oh yes,” he said coolly. “She was more frightened than hurt.”

“Does Miss Dean seem any worse, sir? Does she look pale?”

The little woman asked these questions in a hesitating way, her hands busy the while over various objects on her counter.

“Pale – pale?” said Richard, turning over the violin strings and looking to see which were the most clear. “Really, I did not notice, Miss Clode.”

“He would not speak so coolly if this affair had ripened into anything more warm than being on friendly terms,” thought the little woman, and she seemed to breathe more freely.

“I’m afraid I’ve been very rude,” continued the young man. “I ought to have asked after them this morning.”

Miss Clode gave another sigh of relief.

“No one shall see those scraps, Mr Linnell,” she said quietly; and the look of affectionate pride in him seemed to intensify. “It is quite right that a young gentleman like you should have some one to love him, but not in such a way as that.”

“No,” he replied shortly, and the colour came into his cheeks again, making them tingle, so that he stamped his foot and snatched up the violin strings again to go on with his selection. “There, I shall have these four,” he said, forcing a smile, “and if they don’t turn out well I shall patronise your rival, Miss Clode.”

“My rival!” exclaimed the little woman, turning pale. “Oh, I understand. Yes, of course, Mr Linnell. Those four. Let me put them in paper.”

“No, no. I’ll slip them in this little case,” he said, and he laid four shillings on the counter.

“I’d really much rather you did not pay for them,” she protested, and very earnestly too.

“Then I won’t have them,” he said; and, with a sigh, Miss Clode placed the money in her drawer.

“I hope you were not one of the party who serenaded a certain lady on that terrible night of horrors, Mr Linnell,” she said, smiling; and then, noticing quickly the start he gave, “Why, fie! I did not think you thought of such things.”

“Yes; don’t talk about it, I beg,” he exclaimed. “It was by accident. I did not know I was going there.”

“But surely, Mr Linnell, you don’t think – Oh!”

She stood gazing at him with her lips apart.

“Miss Clode,” he said firmly, “I do not confide to people what I think. Good-morning.”

“No, no: stop,” she said earnestly; and he turned, wondering at her tone of voice, and agitation.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Only – only – that I have known you so long, Mr Linnell, I can’t help – humbly, of course – taking a little interest in you – you made me feel so proud just now – when you tore up those foolish women’s letters – and now – ”

“Well, and now?” he said sternly.

“It troubled me – pray don’t be angry with me – it troubled me – to think – of course it was foolish of me, but I should not – should not like to see you – ”

“Well, Miss Clode, pray speak,” for she had stopped again.

“See you make an unworthy choice,” she faltered.

“Miss Clode, this is too much,” he said, flushing angrily, and he turned and left the shop, the little thin pale woman gazing after him wistfully and sighing bitterly as he passed from her sight.

“I’m – I’m very fond of him,” she said as she wiped a few weak tears from her eyes. “Such a brave, upright, noble young fellow, and so gentle one moment, and so full of spirit the next. Dear, dear, dear, what a thing it is! He never wastes money in gambling, and wine and follies. Perhaps he would though, if he were as rich as the rest of them. And he ought to be.”

She wiped her eyes again, and as she did so the woman’s entire aspect changed. For just then Miss Cora Dean was driven by in a hired carriage, her dark eyes flashing, half veiled as they were by the long fringe of lashes, and then she was gone.

“Ah!” exclaimed Miss Clode angrily, “you are a beauty, sitting up there as haughty as a duchess, and your wicked old mother lying back there in her silks and satins and laces, as if all Saltinville belonged to you, instead of being drowned. But mind this, my fine madams, I may be only little Miss Clode at the library, but if you work any harm between you to those I love I’ll have you both bundled neck and crop out of the place, or I’ll know the reason why.

“A wretch!” she said, after a pause. “She’d like nothing better than to tempt him to follow her. But he won’t! No; he’s thinking of that girl Claire, and she is not half good enough for him. I don’t like them and their fine ways. I don’t like Denville with his mincing, idiotic airs. How that man can go about as he does with the stain of that poor old woman’s death at his house astounds me.

“Well, poor wretch,” she said scornfully, “it is his trade, as this miserable go-between business is mine. Perhaps he has fallen as low as I have; but I don’t live as he does – as if he had thousands a year, when they are next door to starving and horribly in debt.

“Ah, well, it is to make a good show in his shop,” she went on, speaking very bitterly – “to dress the window, and sell his girls, and start his boys.

“Nice bargain he has made in selling one. There’s something more about that wretched little empty-headed child than I know, but I shall find out yet. Surely he does not think of that boy and Drelincourt. Oh, it would be too absurd. I’ve not seen the other brother lately. What a family! And for that boy to be taken with – oh, I must stop it if I can.

“Mrs Burnett? Yes, I must know about her. There was a great deal going on with that poor young artist who went away – and died. There was some mystery about that, I know, and – ”

“What are you talking about, auntie? I thought there was some one in the shop, and came to see if you wanted me.”

“Talking? I talking? Oh, nonsense, my dear. I was only thinking aloud.”

“Well, auntie, it was very loud, for I heard you say you would have to find out something about Mrs Burnett.”

“You heard me say that? Nonsense!”

“But I did, auntie; and, do you know, I could tell you something so funny about her.”

“You could, child?” cried the little woman fiercely.

“Yes, and about Mr Richard Linnell, too.”

Miss Clode caught the girl by the arm, and held her tightly while she seemed to be gasping for breath.

“About May Burnett? about Richard Linnell?”

“Yes, auntie, for do you know the other night as I was going down by the lower cliff to see if Fisherman Dick had – ”

“Hush!” cried Miss Clode, pressing her arm so sharply that the girl winced. “Here she is.”