Читать книгу Only One Love; or, Who Was the Heir - Garvice Charles - Страница 2

She had evidently run some distance, for she stood panting and breathless, the color coming and going on her face, which shone out of the hood which half covered her head.

She was dressed in a plain cotton dress which a woodman’s daughter might wear, and which was short enough in the skirt to reveal a shapely foot, and scant enough in the sleeves to show a white, shapely arm.

But no one would have wasted time upon either arm or foot after a glance at her face.

To write it down simply and curtly, it was a beautiful face; but such a description is far too meager and insufficient. It requires an artist, a Rembrandt or a Gainsborough, to describe it, no pen-and-ink work can do it. Beautiful faces can be seen by the score by anyone who chooses to walk through Hyde Park in the middle of the season, but such a face as this which was enframed by the doorway of the woodman’s hut is not seen in twenty seasons.

It was a face which baffles the powers of description, just as a sunset sky laughs to scorn the brush of the ablest painter. It was neither dark nor fair, neither grave nor sad, though at the moment of its entrance a smile played over it as the moonbeams play over a placid lake.

To catalogue in dry matter-of-fact fashion, the face possessed dark brown eyes, bright brown hair, and red, ripe lips; but no catalogue can give the spirit of the face, no description convey an idea of the swift and eloquent play of expression which, like a flash of sunlight, lit up eyes and lips.

Beautiful! The word is hackneyed and worn out. Here was a face more than beautiful, it was soulful. Like the still pool in the heart of a wood, it mirrored the emotion of the heart as faithfully as a glass would reflect the face. Like a glass – joy, sorrow, pleasure, mirth, were reflected in the eloquent eyes and mobile lips.

Of concealment the face was entirely ignorant; no bird of the forest in which she lived could be more frank, innocent of guile, and ignorant of evil.

With her light summer cloak held round her graceful figure, she stood in the doorway, a picture of grace and youthful beauty.

For a moment she stood silent, looking from the woodman to his wife questioningly, then she came into the room and threw the hood back, revealing a shapely head, shining, bronze-like, in the light of the lamp.

“Did you send Dick for me, father?” she said, and her voice, like her face, betokened a refinement uncommon in a woodman’s daughter. “I was not far off, only at the pool to hear the frogs’ concert. Dick knows where to find me now, he comes straight to the pond, though he hates frogs’ music; don’t you, Dick?”

The dog rubbed his nose against her hand and wagged his tail, and the girl took her seat at the table.

To match face and voice, her mien and movements were graceful, and she handled the dinner-napkin like – a lady. It was just that, expressed in a word. The girl was not only beautiful – but a lady, in appearance, in tone, in bearing – and that, notwithstanding she wore a plain cotton gown in a woodman’s hut, and called the woodman “father.”

“You did not come by your usual path, father,” she said, turning from the deerhound, who sat on his haunches and rested his nose in her lap, quite content if her hand touched his head, say once during the meal.

“No, Una,” he replied, and though he called her by her Christian name, and without any prefix there was a subtle undertone in his voice and in his manner of addressing her, which seemed to infer something like respect. “No, I went astray.”

“And you were late,” she said. “Was anything the matter?” she added, turning her eyes upon him, with, for the first time, an air of interrogation.

“Matter? No,” he said, raising himself and coming to the table. “What should be? Yes, I came home by another path, and I don’t think you must come to meet me after dark, Una,” he added, with affected carelessness.

“No?” she asked, looking from one to the other with a smile of surprise. “Why not? Do you think I should get lost, or have you seen any wolves in Warden Forest, father? I know every path from end to end, and wolves have left merry England forever.”

“Not quite,” said Gideon, absently.

“Yes, quite,” and she laughed. “What Saxon king was it who offered fivepence for every wolf’s head? We were reading about it the other night, don’t you remember?”

“Reading! you are always reading,” said the woman, as she put a smoking dish on the table, and speaking for the first time. “It’s books, books, from morn to night, and your father encourages you. The books will make thee old before thy time, child, and put no pence in thy father’s pocket.”

“Poor father!” she murmured, and leaning forward, put her arms round his neck. “I wish I could find in the poor, abused books the way to make him rich.”

Gideon had put up his rough hand to caress the white one nestling against his face, but he let his hand drop again and looked at her with a slight cloud on his brow.

“Rich! who wants to be rich? The word is on your lips full oft of late, Una. Do you want to be rich?”

“Sometimes,” she answered. “As much for your sake as mine. I should like to be rich enough for you to rest, and” – looking round the plainly furnished but comfortable room – “and a better house and clothes.”

“I am not weary,” he said, his eyes fixed on her with a thoughtful air of concealed scrutiny. “The cot is good enough for me, and the purple and fine linen I want none of. So much for me; now for yourself, Una?”

“For myself?” she said. “Well, sometimes I think, when I have been reading some of the books, that I should like to be rich and see the world.”

“It must be such a wonderful place! Not so wonderful as I think it, perhaps, and that’s just because I have never seen anything of it. Is it not strange that for all these years I have never been outside Warden?”

“Strange?” he echoed, reluctantly.

“Yes; are other girls so shut in and kept from seeing the world that one reads so pleasantly of?”

“Not all. It would be well for most of them if they were. It has been well for you. You have not been unhappy, Una?”

“Unhappy! No! How could one be unhappy in Warden? Why, it’s a world in itself, and full of friends. Every living thing in it seems a friend, and an old friend, too. How long have we lived in Warden, father?”

“Eighteen years.”

“And I am twenty-one. Mother told me yesterday. Where did we live before we came to Warden?”

“Don’t worry your father, Una,” said Mrs. Rolfe, who had been listening and looking from one to the other with ill-concealed anxiety; “he is too weary to talk.”

“Forgive me, father. It was thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that you have had a hard day, while I have been idling in the wood, and over my books; it was stupid of me to trouble you. Won’t you sit down again and – and I will promise not to talk.”

“Say no more, Una. It grieves me to think that you might not be content, that you were not happy; if you knew as much of the world that raves and writhes outside as I do, you would be all too thankful that you are out of the monster’s reach, and that all you know of it is from your books, which – Heaven forgive them – lie all too often! See now, here is something I found in Arkdale;” and as he spoke he drew from the capacious pocket of his velveteen jacket a small volume.

The girl sprang to her feet – not clumsily, but with infinite grace – and leaned over his shoulder eagerly.

“Why, father, it is the poems you promised me, and it was in your pocket all the while I was wearying you with my foolish questions.”

“Tut, tut! Take your book, child, and devour it, as usual.”

Once or twice Gideon looked up, roused from his reverie by the rustling of the trees as the gusts shook them, and suddenly the sky was rent by a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, followed by the heavy rattle of the rainstorm.

“Hark at the night, father!” she said, raising her eyes from the book, but only for a moment.

“Ay, Una,” he said, “some of the old elms will fall to-night. Woodman Lightning strikes with a keen ax.”

Suddenly there came another sound which, coming in an interval of comparative quiet, caused Una to look up with surprise.

“Halloa there! open the door.”

Gideon sprang to his feet, his face pale with anger.

“Go to your room, Una,” he said.

She rose and moved across the room to obey, but before she had passed up the stairs the woodman had opened the door, and the voice came in from the outside, and she paused almost unconsciously.

“At last! What a time you have been! I’ve knocked loud enough to wake the dead. For Heaven’s sake, open the door and let me in. I’m drenched to the skin.”

“This is not an inn, young sir.”

“No, or it would soon come to ruin with such a landlord. It’s something with four walls and a roof, and I must be content with that. You don’t mean to say that you won’t let me come in?”

“I do not keep open house for travelers.”

“Oh, come,” exclaimed the young man, with a short laugh. “It’s your own fault that I am back here; you told me the wrong turning. I’ll swear I followed your directions. I must have been walking in a circle; anyhow I lost my way, and here I am, and, with all your churlishness, you can’t refuse me shelter on such a night as this.”

“The storm has cleared. It is but an hour’s walk to Arkdale; I will go with you.”

“That you certainly will not, to-night, nor any other man,” was the good-humored retort. “I’ve had enough of your confounded forest for to-night. Why, man, are you afraid to let me in? It’s a nasty thing to have to do, but – ” and with a sudden thrust of his strong shoulder he forced the door open and passed the threshold.

But the woodman recovered from the surprise in a moment and, seizing him by the throat, was forcing him out again, when, with a low cry, Una sprang forward and laid her hand on his arm.

At her touch Gideon’s hands dropped to his side. The stranger sprang upright, but almost staggered out with discomfited astonishment.

For the first time in her life she stood face to face with a man other than a woodman or a charcoal-burner. And as she looked her heart almost stopped beating, the color died slowly from her face. Was it real, or was it one of the visionary heroes of her books created into life from her own dreaming brain?

With parted lips she waited, half longing, half dreading, to hear him speak.

It seemed ages before he found his voice, but at last, with a sudden little shake of the head, as if he were, as he would have expressed it, “pulling himself together,” he took off his wide hat and slowly turned his eyes from the beautiful face of the girl to the stern and now set face of the woodman.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you had a lady – ladies with you?” half angrily, half apologetically. Then he turned quickly, impulsively, to Una. “I hope you will forgive me. I had no idea that there was anyone here excepting himself. Of course I would rather have got into the first ditch than have disturbed you. I hope, I do hope you believe that, though I can’t hope you’ll forgive me. Good-night,” and inclining his head he turned to the door.

Una, who had listened with an intent, rapt look on her face, as one sees a blind man listen to music, drew a little breath of regret as he ceased speaking, and then, with a little, quick gesture, laid her hand on her father’s arm.

It was an imploring touch. It said as plainly as if she had spoken:

“Do not let him go.”

“Having forced your way into my house you – may remain.”

“Thanks. I should not think of doing so. Good-night.”

“No; you must not go. He does not mean it. You have made him angry. Please do not go!”

The young man hesitated, and the woodman, with a gesture that was one of resigned despair, shut the door.

Then he turned and pointed to the next room.

“There’s a fire there,” he said.

“I’d rather be out in the wood by far,” he said, “than be here feeling that I have made a nuisance of myself. I’d better go.”

But Gideon Rolfe led the way into the next room, and after another look from Mrs. Rolfe to Una, the young man followed.

Una stood in the center of the room looking at the door behind which he had disappeared, like one in a dream. Then she turned to Mrs. Rolfe.

“Shall I go, mother?”

“Yes. No. Wait till your father comes in.”

After the lapse of ten minutes the woodman and the woodman’s guest re-entered. The latter had exchanged his wet clothes for a suit of Gideon’s, which, though it was well-worn velveteen, failed to conceal the high-bred air of its present wearer.

Meanwhile Mrs. Rolfe had been busily spreading the remains of the supper.

“’Tis but plain fare, sir,” she said; “but you are heartily welcome.”

“Thanks. It looks like a banquet to me,” he added, with the short laugh which seemed peculiar to him. “I haven’t tasted food, as tramps say, since morning.”

“Dear! dear!” exclaimed the wife.

Una, calling up a long line of heroes, thought first of Ivanhoe, then – and with a feeling of satisfaction – of Hotspur.

Figure matched face. Though but twenty-two, the frame was that of a trained athlete – stalwart, straight-limbed, muscular; and with all combined a grace which comes only with birth and breeding.

Wet and draggled, he looked every inch a gentleman – in Gideon’s suit of worn velveteen he looked one still.

Silent and motionless, Una watched him.

“Yes,” he said, “I got some lunch at the inn – ‘Spotted Boar’ at Wermesley – about one o’clock, I suppose. I have never felt so hungry in my life.”

“Wermesley?” said the wife. “Then you came from – ”

“London, originally. I got out at Wermesley, meaning to walk to Arkdale; but that appears to be easier said than done, eh?”

Gideon did not answer; he seemed scarcely to hear.

“I can’t think how I missed the way,” he went on. “I found the charcoal burner’s hut, and hurried off to the left – ”

“To the right, I said,” muttered Gideon.

“Right, did you? Then I misunderstood you. Anyhow, I lost the right path, and wandered about until I came back to this cottage.”

“And you were going to stay at Arkdale? ’Tis but a dull place,” said Mrs. Rolfe.

“No; I meant taking the train from there to Hurst Leigh – Hurst Leigh,” repeated the young man. “Do you know it? Ah,” he went on, “don’t suppose you would; it’s some distance from here. Pretty place. I am going to see a relative. My name is Newcombe – Jack Newcombe I am generally called – and I am going on a visit to Squire Davenant.”

Gideon Rolfe sprang to his feet, suddenly, knocking his chair over, and strode into the lamplight.

The young man looked up in surprise.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

With an effort Gideon Rolfe recovered himself.

“I – I want a light,” he said; and leaning over the lamp, he lit his pipe. Then turning toward the window, he said: “Una, it is late; go to bed now.”

She rose at once and kissed the old couple, then pausing a moment, held out her hand to the young man, who had risen, and stood regarding her with an intent, but wholly respectful look.

But before their hands could join, the woodman stepped in between them, and waving her to the stairs with one hand, forced the youth into his seat with the other.