Читать книгу My Lady Bountiful - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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Kathleen was up betimes in the morning. She was anxious to examine the paradise where her lines had fallen. She saw the grand old rooms packed with their treasures, oak and lath and plaster all teeming with memories; she saw the grand old half-timbered front, the trim lawns and terraces beyond what had once been the moat. It was all so quaint and beautiful, that Kathleen could do no more than saturate herself with the savour of it. She knew her Scott almost by heart, her veneration for the spirit of age was intense, but in her wildest flights she had never anticipated anything like this.

She was glad to have it all to herself. It was almost with a sense of dismay that she saw the double doors in the Gothic porch open and the stately figure of Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram emerge. She was dressed precisely as she had been the night before, save that she wore no ornaments. She slightly inclined her weight upon a clouded cane, but it was evident that she had not the slightest need of this support. Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram came along stately and smiling.

"My dear, you may kiss me," she said graciously. "It is a gratification to me to see that you love early hours. I always have, and took at me."

"Oh," Kathleen cried, "you are wonderful, Aunt Maria."

Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram murmured something about flattery, but she was highly pleased. She patted Kathleen's cheek, quite affectionately.

"That was very pretty and very sincere," she said. "But there, as a family, we are always sincere. We can afford to be. But the family traditions must be observed. How old are you?"

"I am over twenty-one," Kathleen said. "I understand what you mean."

"You are clever. Yes, you have a clever face. And you would resent anybody interfering with your freedom of action. Still, if you are to remain here——"

"My dear aunt, I should like nothing better in the world."

"Another compliment," Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram smiled. "Yes, yes. But there are certain traditions. I have strong views about girls. For instance, your dress. Now, something more in the style of Edna and Phillipa——"

"Oh, I couldn't," Kathleen cried. "I really couldn't. Don't ask me."

Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram froze slightly. She had brooked no opposition in her life.

"All that is here, you share," she said. "After my death it will be a different matter. But so long as you are a—pardon me, dependent upon——"

"But I am not," Kathleen exclaimed. "You see there is my book."

"Book! Child! child! Do you mean that you have written a——"

She paused, overcome for words. She stood, like another Dedlock, before the ruined floodgates of society. Kathleen nodded slightly.

"A novel," she said. "Forty thousand copies have been disposed of, and it is still selling. That means some two thousand pounds to me, half of which I have. And I have been offered a lot of money for the serial rights of the new book. As things go, I am quite well off."

Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram leant upon her clouded cane with real need of support. Here was a new type to her—a Wolfram who actually wrote novels. In her mind's eye the average authoress smoked cigarettes and wore short hair. Visions of Georges Sand rose up horribly and grizzly before her.

"I cannot understand it," she said. "I am bewildered. So that if I ask you, if I implore you to—er—in fact, become more like Edna——"

"I should decline to do it. I couldn't. With my sense of humour, I should pine and die."

"My dear child, but if I made it a condition——"

"Then I should have to go elsewhere. It was always a consolation to my dear, kind, thoughtless father that I should find a home here. And amidst surroundings like these one could do the highest, noblest work. I should be dreadfully sorry, aunt, but I should have to go."

The clouded cane bent beneath the weight upon it. It was a clear case for the advice of the Foreign Secretary. The vitiated influence of the Commons had snatched him from the joys of early rising, so he was not at hand.

"We will discuss the question again," Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram said in a faraway voice. For the moment she felt dazed and unreal. "You are my brother's child——"

She broke off abruptly and went slowly towards the house. Kathleen smiled unsteadily. There was something pathetic alongside the comedy of it. This wide breach of opinion was trying, but to dress like the twins, like early Victorian dolls! Not only must she decline anything of the kind, but she must do all in her power for the emancipation of the marionettes.

She turned into a green alley along the side of the house, and thence came to a long avenue of yews cropped into the semblance of a solid wall. There was a quaint trimness about it that fascinated Kathleen. Goodness knows how many centuries this alley had been tended and pruned and shaven. The grass was emerald below, here and there arbours had been made in the busy growth, like unto havens carved out of solid stone.

"Never was a glace like it," Kathleen cried. "One could imagine Cavaliers hiding here from the Roundheads, or troubadours waiting to keep some love tryst. Or revenge standing in the gloom yonder with a dagger."

Kathleen slipped into one of the arbours. It was quite dark behind there. The flashing sunshine made quite a dazzle outside. Then, before she could emerge again, the figure of Margaret came into the frame work of dark verdure, and almost instantly the figure of a man. He was young and strong and dark, with a resolute face, lighted by a pair of steady, kindly, blue eyes.

"Dr. Dennison for a groat," Kathleen murmured. "I wish they were a little further off."

The situation was suggestive of eavesdropping but Kathleen's conscience was clear. The stranger was following Margaret evidently, and pleading some cause violently.

"It would break her heart," Margaret was saying.

"I don't think so. Hearts don't break so easily. And they managed to do without you so long."

"I know, I know. And yet she saved my life. She brought me, a total stranger, down here, she gave me all the heart could desire——"

"And if you had not seen her you would have been my wife by this time, Madge."

Margaret threw up her hand as if to ward off something. Her dark eyes were full of tears. Her glance was passionate, yet pleading.

"I know it, Jack," she said. "And I—well, I am between love and duty. If you only knew, if I only dared to tell you. Can't you trust me, Jack, and say no more?"

There were eager words on the man's lips, but he checked himself. He bent over Margaret's hand and kissed it. Then he strode on his way, and was lost to the verdant frame. With a hot face Kathleen crept from the alcove.

"I'm dreadfully sorry," she stammered, "but I could not prevent it. You came upon me so suddenly—Margaret, if I could only help you."

The pink flush was reflected on Margaret's cheeks.

"I can trust you," she said. "And I must tell someone. Come and sit here by this old dial in the sunshine, and I will tell you a story after your own heart. Only it must not be put into a book; it must not be told to anybody."