Читать книгу A Double Knot - Fenn George Manville - Страница 2

“Ruth.”

“Yes, dear; I’ll come directly.”

“Ruth!”

“Be quiet, Clo. She can’t come yet.”

“But she must come. Ruth!”

“May I go to her, Marie?”

“No, certainly not. Finish my hair first.”

Two pretty little white patient hands went on busying themselves plaiting the rich dark-brown hair of a singularly handsome girl, sitting back in a shabby, painted, rush-bottomed chair, in a meanly-furnished chamber, whose bare boards looked the more chilly for the scraps of carpet stretched by bedside, toilet-table, and washstand.

The bed had not long been left, and the two pillows each bore the impress of a head. The bedstead was an attenuated four-post structure, with dreary and scanty slate-coloured hangings, that seemed to have shrunk in their many washings, and grown skimpy and faded with time; the rush-bottomed chairs were worn and the seats giving way, and a tall painted wardrobe had been scrubbed until half the paint had gone. Even the looking-glass upon the paltry old dressing-table seemed to have reflected until it could perform its duties no more, for the silver had come off in patches, and showed the bare brown wood behind.

Wherever the eye rested it was upon traces of cleanly, punctilious poverty, for even the dresses that were hanging from the row of drab-painted wooden pegs nailed against the dreary washed-out wall-paper looked mean and in keeping with the room. There was not one single attractive object of furniture or attire besides, not even a bright spring flower in a vase or glass; all was drab, dreary, and dull, and yet the room and objects full of life and light.

For the girl seated indolently in the chair before the glass, draped in a long washed-out dressing-gown that heightened rather than hid the graces of her well-developed form, possessed features which might have been envied by a queen. Her dark, well-arched eyebrows, the long heavy lashes that drooped over her large eyes, her creamy complexion, rather full but well-cut lips and high brow, were all those of a beautiful woman whom you would expect to look imperious and passionate if she started into motion, and raised and flashed upon you the eyes that were intent upon a paper-covered French novel, whose leaves she turned over from time to time.

Bending over her, and nimbly arranging the rich hair that hung over the reader’s shoulders, was a girl not unlike her in feature, but of a fairer and more English type. Where the hair of the one was rich and dark, that of the other was soft and brown. The contour was much the same, but softer, and the eyes were of that delicious well-marked grey that accords so well with light nut-brown hair. There was no imperious look in her pleasant, girlish countenance, for it was full of care consequent upon her being wanted in two places at once.

For the sharp demand made upon her was uttered by a third occupant of the room – a girl of one or two and twenty, sister, without doubt, of the reader at the dressing-table, and greatly like her, but darker, her eyebrows and hair being nearly black, her complexion of a richer creamy hue, one which seemed to indicate the possibility of other than English blood being mingled in her veins.

She, too, was draped in a long washed-out print dressing-gown, and as she lolled upon a great box whose top was thinly stuffed and covered with chintz to make it do duty for an ottoman, her long dark hair fell in masses over her shoulders.

Sisters undoubtedly, and the family resemblance of the fair-complexioned girl suggested the possibility of her occupying the same relationship, though the difference was so marked that cousin seemed more probable.

“Finish your own hair,” cried the girl upon the ottoman, in an angry voice. “I won’t wait any longer; I was up first;” and she banged down the circulating library novel she had been skimming.

“Shan’t!”

“Bring my hairbrush, Ruth.”

The girl addressed retained her hold of the massive plait that she was forming, and, snatching a well-worn hairbrush from the table, reached out as far as she could from the tether of plait that held her to the girl in the chair, when the brush was snatched from her, and sent whizzing through the air, narrowly missing the reader’s head, but putting an end to the reflective troubles of the unfortunate toilet-glass, which was struck right in the centre, and shivered into fragments.

“Oh!” ejaculated Ruth.

“Beast!” cried Marie, leaping up, sending her chair backwards, and dashing the French novel at her sister.

“Wretch! devil!” retorted the other, her creamy face flushing, her dark eyes scintillating with passion, and her ruddy lips parting from her regular white teeth, as she retaliated by throwing the book she held, but with a very bad aim.

For a moment it seemed as if blows were to follow, but after a short skirmish with a comb, an empty scent-bottle, and a pin-cushion, the beginner of the fight uttered a cry of triumph, and pounced upon the French novel.

“I wanted that,” she cried.

“Ruth, fetch back that book,” cried Marie.

“Please give me that book back, Clotilde,” said the obedient girl, as, crossing the room, she held out her hand to the angry beauty.

For answer, the maiden upon the box caught her by the wrist with both hands, bent her head rapidly down, and fixed her white teeth in the soft, round arm.

“There, take that, and I wish it was ’Rie’s. Now you stop here, and do my hair directly. Hateful little beast! why didn’t you come before?”

The blood flushed up in Ruth’s face, and little troubled lines made their appearance in her forehead as, after a piteous glance at the other sister, she began to brush the great flowing bands of dark hair waiting their turn.

“I don’t care,” said Marie, with all the aggravating petulance of a child. “Mine was just done.”

“But I’ve got the book,” retorted the other. “Be careful, little beast; don’t pull it out by the roots.”

She turned her face up sharply to the busy toiler, with the effect that she dragged her own hair, and this time she struck the girl so sharply on the cheek with the open hand that the tears started to her eyes.

“Nasty, spiteful, malicious wretch!” said Marie, giving the finishing touches to her own hair; “but you’ll have a good lecture for breaking the glass. Aunties will be angry.”

“I shall say Ruth did it,” said the girl.

“Just like you, Clo,” retorted the other.

“If you call me Clo again, I’ll – I’ll poison you.”

“Shall if I like: Clo, old Clo – Jew – Jew – Jew! There!”

As she spoke, Marie turned her mocking countenance to her sister, and finished off by making what children call “a face,” by screwing up her mouth and nose; desisting, however, as Clotilde made a dash at the water-glass to throw it at her head, and then made a feint of spitting at her in a feline way.

The whole affair seemed to be more the quarrel of vulgar, spoiled children of nine or ten than an encounter between a couple of grown women in the springtide of their youth, and Ruth silently glanced from one to the other with a troubled, half-pitying expression of countenance; but she did not speak until the noise had begun to lull.

“Please don’t say that I broke the glass,” she said at last.

“I shall. Hold your tongue, miss. She broke it through her wretched carelessness, didn’t she, ’Rie?”

“Give me back the French book, and I’ll tell you,” was the reply.

“Take your nasty old French book,” said Clotilde, throwing it back. “I’ve read it all, and it’s horribly naughty. Now, then, didn’t she break the glass?”

“Yes,” said Marie, arranging her shabby morning dress, and standing before the fragments of the toilet-glass, a handsome, lady-like girl, whose beauty no shabbiness of costume could conceal.

“There,” said Clotilde, “do you hear, Cindy? You broke the glass, and if you say you didn’t I’ll make your wretched little life miserable.”

“Very well, dear, I’ll say I did,” said Ruth calmly.

“Hist, ’Rie! The book!” whispered Clotilde, her sharp ears having detected a coming step.

Marie made a pantherine bound across the room, and thrust the book between the mattress and palliasse just as the handle rattled, and a tall, gaunt elderly woman entered the room.

She was not pleasant to look upon, for there was too much suggestion of a draped scaffold erected for the building of a female human figure about her hard square bony form, while her hard face, which seemed to wrinkle only about the forehead, as if it had never smiled since childhood, was not made more pleasant by the depth and darkness of the lines in her brow all being suggestive of the soap and flannel never probing their depths, which was not the case, however, for she was scrupulously clean, even to her blonde cap, and its side whiskers with a sad-coloured flower in each.

“Morning, children,” she said harshly. “Your aunts ’ll be down directly. You ought to be dressed by now.”

“Morning, nurse,” said the girls in chorus.

“Ruth’s so slow,” said Clotilde.

“Then do your hair yourself,” said the woman roughly. “Ruth, child, turn down that bed, and open the window.”

Their actions before her arrival had been those of children; she treated them like children, and they were as obedient and demure now as little girls, while the woman placed a large white jug containing a tablespoon upon the table, and a plain tumbler beside it.

Ruth began to open the bed, and Marie cast anxious eyes at the part where her French novel lay perdu.

“’Tisn’t physic morning again, nurse,” said Clotilde pettishly.

“Yes it is, miss, so don’t you grumble. You know it’s Wednesday as well as I do.”

Clotilde turned her head away, and gave her teeth an angry snap as she went on rapidly dressing, while the new arrival poured out half a tumbler of a dark-brown fluid from the jug, after giving the said jug a twirl round to amalgamate its contents. This tumbler was handed to Clotilde.

“I’m not ready, nurse,” she said pettishly; “leave it on the table, and we’ll take it. We shall be down directly.”

“I don’t go till I can tell your aunts that every drop’s taken,” said the woman sturdily. “I know your tricks, making Miss Ruth drink it all. Both of you did last time.”

“Did Ruth dare to say we did?” cried Marie sharply.

“No, she didn’t, miss, so don’t you go in a pet.”

“Then how could you tell?” cried Clotilde.

“How could I tell, big baby?” said the woman scornfully; “why, wouldn’t three doses make her ill?”

“I don’t know. Ugh! filthy stuff!” said Clotilde, taking the tumbler, drinking off the brown draught, and shuddering afterwards. She set down the glass, which was, after another flourish of the white jug, the spoon being held captive by the woman’s thumb, half filled again.

“Now, Miss Marie.”

Marie made a grimace, and drank her portion in turn, after which Ruth swallowed hers with the patience and long-suffering of custom.

“Now, Miss Clotilde,” said the woman, picking out something dark from the bottom of the jug with the spoon, “here’s your prune.”

This was held out in the spoon, and it was ludicrous to see the handsome, womanly girl open her ruddy lips to admit the brown swollen morsel, a similar process being gone through with Marie and Ruth.

“There, children, don’t make such a fuss about it,” said the woman. “It’s lucky for you that you’ve got aunties who take such care of you. Pretty skins and complexions you’d have if you weren’t looked after, and when you grow up, if you’re wise, you’ll treat yourselves just the same. Now then, make haste down.”

This was uttered as she left the room and closed the door, after which Clotilde waited till her steps were inaudible, when she stamped with both her feet, and ground her teeth like an angry child.

“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried. “The disgusting, filthy stuff. I’m sick of it all, ’Rie. I’ll run away with the first man who asks me, even if he’s a sweep. I hate it; I hate everything; I hate myself, and won’t submit any longer. We’re not children, and I won’t have it. Where’s our spirit, that we don’t rebel?”

“Where could we go? What could we do?” replied Marie. “It’s horrible. How could we bear it all these weary years?”

She clasped her hands, and threw herself into her chair, rocking herself to and fro, while Ruth crept softly to her side, and placed her blonde face against the riper, rounder cheek of her cousin.

It was a mute way of showing her sympathy, and Marie felt it to be so, for she turned quickly and kissed her just as the loud jangle of a large hand-bell was heard from below, and Clotilde returned from the open window.

“Come down, girls,” she said bitterly; “there’s the bell. Old Markes didn’t see the broken glass. Go on, Ruthy, and let’s get prayers over, or you’ll be afraid to tell that fib.”

The bell was still clanging as the three girls went down the one flight of stairs contained in their aunts’ share of the private apartments at Hampton Court, at the bottom of which stairs a tall, thin young man, in a striped jacket, was frantically swinging the noisy instrument to and fro – having to stop, though, to allow the young ladies to pass, when he set down the bell with a clang upon the hearth-stoned floor in a dark corner, fiercely dragged a form from under the stairs, and carried it into the dining-room.

It was a brilliant morning in May, but the one window of that dark room received none of the sunshine, for it looked north, over a festive-looking yard or quadrangle, whose stones were mossy and green, kept comfortably damp by their proximity to a basin of water, out of which spurts of water rose from what looked like pieces of black gas-pipe; while three bloated gold and two silver fish swam solemnly round and round, gaping placidly, and staring with apoplectic eyes upwards at the strange phenomenon of what must have seemed to them like a constant shower of rain.

The room was lofty, and panelled in regular compartments, all painted a pale drab, as were also the sides of the floor where the well-worn, indescribable-patterned carpet did not reach; and over this painted portion chair-legs gave uncomfortable scroops.

It was a depressing room, without a particle of ornament, and would have produced indigestion in the healthiest subject. There was a circular sideboard at one end, upon which stood a solemn-looking lamp, whose globe made a dismal boom like a funeral knell when it was removed. Twelve spindly-legged chairs covered with chintz of a washed-out material stood stiffly against the walls, and there were two uneasy chairs covered with chintz and very angular in their backs on either side of the fire, where hung a pair of old-fashioned brass bellows and a worn-out telescope toasting-fork.

As the young ladies entered the room, looking as prim and demure as the chintz-covered chairs, a thin sharp cough was heard on the stairs, followed immediately by another thin sharp cough like the echo of the first, and two very tall meagre ladies entered the room.

Each was dressed in a pale washed-out fabric, with voluminous sleeves tight at the wrists, and had her grey hair in a large cluster of curls at the temple, the back hair being kept in place by a large tortoiseshell comb similar in shape to the leather withers protector carried on the collar by the horses in a brewer’s dray.

There was a pinched, refined air about the aspect of their faces, as if they had led ascetic lives in an aristocratic shade; and as they entered the room side by side, the young ladies approached them, and were received with an old-fashioned courtly grace such as was probably presumed to be correct within these palatial walls.

“Good-morning, aunt dear,” was said to each in turn by the young ladies, in return for which a little birdlike peck of a kiss was given to each soft round face, after which there was silence, each one waiting till there was a scuffle outside, and a little angry muttering, all of which was entirely ignored by the tall, thin, pale ladies, who stood with their mitten-covered hands crossed in front of them, and their eyes cast down.

Everything was so chilly, in spite of its being a warm spring morning, that the advent of a very old and battered but very hot bronze urn seemed quite to send a glow through the room as it was whisked in by the thin young man and placed upon the table, to hurry out and return directly with a crockery toast-rack, full of thin, dry husks of mortified half-burned bread.

Meanwhile, Sister Philippa unlocked a tea-caddy, while Sister Isabella let some hot water run into the pot, and poured it out into the pale blue-and-white cups.

Two caddy-spoonfuls were then placed in the pot, which was duly filled, and Sister Philippa said with grave austereness:

“My dears, will you take your places?”

Then in utter silence the three girls came to the table, and partook with their aunts of the very thin tea, sweetened with no liberal hand, while the bread-and-butter looked untempting and stale.

This went on for some few minutes, every act in connection with the breakfast being performed with scrupulous attention to etiquette, as taught in the highest old-fashioned circles.

“May I give you a little more tea, Clotilde?”

“Will you have the goodness to pass the bread-and-butter, Marie?”

“Ruth, I will trouble you, my dear, for the dry toast.”

After awhile Sister Philippa started an enlivening conversation on the number of drawing-rooms that were held by her late Majesty Queen Adelaide at which they were present as girls, Sister Isabella being of our opinion that the Court dresses of that period of history were much more modest, refined and graceful than those of to-day.

Sister Philippa agreed to this, and with her agreement the breakfast came to an end.

“We will take our morning’s walk, my dears, at once, as it is fine,” said Sister Philippa. “Will you go and dress?”

“Yes, aunt,” was chorused, and the young ladies rose, curtsied, and retired backwards from the room, to ascend to their chamber, through which Ruth had to proceed to get into the cupboard which held her bed and a small chest of drawers.

The moment they were inside the room, Clotilde rushed into the middle, gritting her teeth together and clenching her fists.

“Oh-h-h!” she exclaimed, with a cry of suppressed passion, “I can’t bear it. I shall go mad.”

Then with a bound she dashed to the bed, striking at it and seizing the pillow in her teeth.

Marie got rid of her suppressed vitality by fiercely seizing Ruth by the shoulders, shaking her angrily, and then, as if repenting, catching her about the waist, and waltzing her round the room.

“Oh, Clo! it’s horrible,” she cried, loosing Ruth to seize her sister. “Get up, and let’s quarrel or fight, or do something. I can’t – I won’t – I shan’t – I will not bear it. It’s like being mummies in a tomb.”

Clotilde turned round, and let herself sink upon the floor, with her head leaning back against the bed, biting the counterpane and twisting it viciously with her hands.

“’Rie,” she said at last, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke, “do you know what happened in the old days to the captive maidens in the stony castles?”

“Yes; the knights came and rescued them.”

“Then, why don’t they come and rescue us? I’ll run away with the first man who asks me. I’d marry that thin wretch Joseph to-morrow if he’d have me, and I’d stick pins in him all the rest of his life to see him writhe.”

“I can’t bear it much longer,” said Marie, in a low, deep voice; “I’m nineteen, Clo, and you are turned twenty, and they treat us as if we were little children still. Ah, how I hate them both!”

“Oh, Marie,” said Ruth reproachfully, “how can you say so!”

“Because I do – I do,” she cried. “I’m not a soft, smooth thing like you. If this lasts much longer I shall poison them, so as to be hung out of my misery.”

“I shan’t,” said Clotilde. “I say I’ll marry the first man who asks me. I will marry him; I’ll make him marry me; and then – ah,” she cried fiercely, as she started up, and began pacing up and down, beautiful as some caged leopard, “once I am free, what I will do! We might as well be nuns.”

“Better,” cried Marie angrily, “for we should be real prisoners, and expect no better. Now we are supposed to be free.”

“And there’d be some nice fat old father confessors to tease. Better than the smooth-faced, saintly Paul Montaigne. Oh, how I would confess!” cried Clotilde.

“Old Paul’s a prig,” said Marie.

“He’s a humbug, I think,” said Clotilde.

“Bother your nice old fat father confessors,” cried Marie, with her eyes gleaming. “I should like them to be young, and big, and strong, and handsome.”

“And with shaven crowns,” said Clotilde maliciously. “How should you like them, Ruth?”

“I don’t know,” said Ruth simply. “I have never thought of such a thing.”

“Take that, and that, you wicked story-teller!” cried Clotilde, slapping her arms; “I know you think more about men than either of us. For my part, the man I mean to have will – ”

She stopped, for Marie laid her hand upon her lips, and they both began to prepare themselves for their walk as the grave-looking woman entered the room.

“Oh, you’re not ready, then?” she said grimly.

“No, nurse; but we shall be directly.”

“No, you needn’t; you’re not going.”

“Not going, nurse? Why?”

“The new Lancer regiment is coming to the barracks this morning, and your aunts say some of the officers may be about.”