Читать книгу Leslie's Loyalty - Garvice Charles - Страница 8

When Leslie wakes next morning she wonders what it is that sends a thrill of happiness through her; then, as with dazed eyes she looks through the sunny window, she remembers the proposed expedition to St. Martin; but she remembers also that the companion of last evening is a duke, and her spirits droop suddenly.

It is difficult to persuade her father to join in the mildest of excursions; it will be very difficult, indeed, to induce him to accept an invitation to drive with a duke. Some women would have experienced an added joy at the thought that they had been honored with civility from a person of such high rank; but the fact rather lessens Leslie's pleasure.

Yorke did her justice; she is not elated nor awed by the ducal title.

When she comes down to breakfast she finds her father posing in front of his picture, his thin hands clasped behind his back, his head bent; and as she kisses him he sighs rather querulously.

"Is anything the matter, dear?" she asks.

"I've got a headache," he replies. "I – I do not feel up to work, and I am so anxious to get on. How do you think it looks?"

Leslie draws him away from the easel to the table, and forces him gently into his chair.

"We will not look at it this morning, at any rate until we have had breakfast, dear," she says. "It is wonderful how much better and brighter this world and everything in it looks after a cup of coffee. But, papa, you must not work to-day, you must take a rest – ."

"A rest!" he begins, impatiently.

"Yes; you know how often you say that working against the grain is time and energy wasted. And there is another reason, dear," she goes on, brightly. "We have an invitation for to-day!"

"A what?" he asks, querulously.

"An invitation, dear. We have been asked to drive to St. Martin. Last night," a faint blush rises to her face, "I ran down to the beach to – to find something I had lost, and I saw Mr. Temple's friend, and we went for a sail with old William; and afterward I saw Mr. Temple outside Marine Villa, and they have been kind enough to ask us to go with them to St. Martin. It was the duke who asked us," she adds, candidly; "but Mr. Temple was just as kind and pressing. I hope you will go, dear."

He puts the thin, straggling hair from his forehead with a nervous gesture.

"What are you talking about, Leslie? what duke?"

Leslie laughs softly.

"It appears that the young man who went in for Dick yesterday, Mr. Temple's friend, is a duke, the Duke of Rothbury," she replies.

Like herself, he is neither elated nor awed, but he lisps a distinct refusal of the invitation.

"The Duke of Rothbury?" he says. "I – I think I've heard the title somewhere. Why do they ask us to go with them? I don't want to go; and I suppose you don't care for it. They are strangers, perfect strangers to us."

"He has already proved himself a very kind friend," says Leslie, gently.

He flushes.

"You mean in buying the picture? Yes, yes. But you know how I dislike strangers, and – and – excursions of this kind. And if you don't want to go very much I'd rather not. Besides, I don't particularly care about making the acquaintance of a duke; I am an artist, a professional man, and I do not believe in associating with persons so far above me in rank. No, we had better decline. I dare say my head will be all right presently, and I shall be able to work, and you can come with me and mix the colors, and so on."

"Very well, dear," she says, struggling to suppress a sigh. "You shall do just as you like. I should have liked to have gone, and the drive would have done you good."

"I am quite well, and I hate long drives," he responds, emphatically, "especially in the company of dukes. What is he doing down here?" he asks, testily. "Did you say you went for a sail with him last evening?"

"Yes," says Leslie, with a sigh that will not be suppressed as she thinks of the moonlit sea, and the pleasant companion who unfortunately has turned out to be a duke. "Yes, and he was very kind and nice, and not a bit like so grand a personage," she adds, with a smile. "He looked exactly like a – fisherman last night, and talked like a young man fresh from school or college. He is not my idea of a duke at all; I fancy I must have thought that dukes talked in blank verse, and habitually wore their coronets and robes."

He waves the subject aside with nervous impatience.

"I don't know anything about them, and I don't want to," he says, getting up and fidgeting round the picture. "I've got this sky too deep, I think, and – ." He continues in an inaudible mutter.

Leslie knows that it is useless to say any more, and is silent, and when her breakfast things are cleared away she gets out her plain little desk to write a refusal.

But at the outset she finds herself in a difficulty. "Mr. and Miss Lisle regret," etc., sounds too formal after that eminently informal sail last night, and yet she does not know how to begin her note in the first person. Should she address him as "Dear duke," or "Your grace," or "My lord," or how?

"Did you ever write to a duke, papa?" she asks at last, playing a tattoo with the pen-holder upon her white, even teeth.

"Never, thank Heaven," he says, absently.

"Then you cannot help me?" she says, with a sigh, and ultimately she puts the note in the formal method.

"Miss Lisle presents her compliments to the Duke of Rothbury, and regrets that she and Mr. Lisle are unable to accept his kind invitation for to-day."

"It looks dreadfully stilted and ungrateful," she says to herself; "but it will certainly remove any risk of further acquaintance, and papa will not be worried into knowing such a great personage."

She sends the note over by Mrs. Merrick's small servant, and in five minutes that diminutive maid comes back open-eyed and mouthed with awe and importance.

"If you please, miss, I gave the note to the gentleman what wheels the other gentleman's chair, and he says the duke has gone to Northcliffe, but he'll give him the note when he comes back."

Leslie laughs rather ruefully.

"We need not have worried about the drive to St. Martin, papa," she says. "The duke has forgotten all about it."

But the artist is painting away vigorously, and apparently does not hear her, and with a feeling of disappointment which it is useless to struggle against, she gets out some work and seats herself at the open window.

She has proved more reliable than the usual run of weather prophets, and the day is all she prognosticated. The street is bathed in sunlight, the sea is sparkling as if it had been sprinkled with amethysts; there is a soft breeze laden with the perfume of the early summer flowers in the cottage gardens; a thrush perched on a tree close by is singing with all its might and main. It would have been very pleasant, that proposed drive to St. Martin.

The morning passes slowly onward; the artist, too absorbed by his work to notice the sunlight, or the sea, or the birds, is still painting when, with the striking of the midday hour there mingles the click clack of horses' hoofs on the stony street, and Leslie looking up with a start – for she has been thinking of all she has lost – sees a wagonette and a pair of stylish bays draw up to the door.

On the box is Yorke, no longer in the fisherman's jersey, but clad in Harris tweed, his handsome face bright and cheerful, his whole "get up" and manner suggesting pleasure and a holiday.

After quieting the spirited horses with words and a touch of the whip, he looks down from his high perch, and seeing the startled eyes looking up at him, raises his hat and smiles.

"Are you ready?" he inquires, just as he inquired last night.

Leslie shakes her head, and tries to smile, but the effort is a failure, and putting down her work, she comes to the open door.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she says. "Did you not get my note?"

"What note?" he asks. "Stand still, will you! No, I haven't seen any note. What was it about?"

"We cannot come," she says, with a look at the horses which is more wistful even than she knows.

His face clouds instantly.

"Not come! Oh, I say! Has anything happened? Why not? It's the loveliest day – ."

"Yes, isn't it?" she assents, shading her eyes and looking round. "But my father is not well. He has a headache, and – ."

"Why, that's all the more reason he should go!" he responds, promptly. "The drive would set him straight!" he urges, remonstratively. "Look here, I'll go and speak to him."

"And while you do the horses will run away straight into the sea," she says, with a smile.

"No, they won't. If you don't mind just standing by this one, the near one. If he moves growl at him like this, 'Stand still!' He'll stop directly."

"Well, I'll try," she says, laughing in spite of herself; and he goes straight into the room.

Lisle looks up at him with impatient surprise and half-dazed; it is as if the young fellow had brought the brilliant sunlight in with him.

"Mr. Lisle, you don't mean to say you aren't coming?" says Yorke.

"Coming? Where?" He has forgotten all about the invitation.

"Why, to St. somewhere or other," says Yorke. "It never entered my head that you'd refuse. Why should you? If you don't care about it yourself, you ought to go for Miss Leslie's sake. She wants a change, an outing; any one can see that. Perhaps you haven't noticed how pale she looks this morning."

Oh, Yorke!

"Leslie is all right," says Lisle, irritably; "she is always strong and well. I'm sorry we cannot accompany you, but I beg your pardon, you are standing in my light. Thank you."

Yorke looks from the pale, livid face of the dreamer to the impossible picture on the easel, and bites his lips. He is sorely tempted to catch up the artist, easel and all, and bundle them into the carriage. Then a far better and more feasible idea strikes him.

"I'm sorry you can't go, Mr. Lisle," he says as indifferently as he can, "because I thought of asking you to make a rough sketch of the castle for me. Want it for my own room, you know. I'm awfully mad on water colors."

Mr. Lisle looks up with awakened interest.

"There is a good sketch to be got out of the west end, the turret," he murmurs, absently.

"That's just what I wanted," Yorke strikes in promptly. "That's the bit I was going to ask you to paint. Come along, sir; allow me," and he catches up the portable easel and paint box and carries them out before Lisle can realize what is being done.

"All right!" Yorke cries to the astonished Leslie: "he is coming. Run in and put your things on, and don't give him time to think."

"But," falters Leslie, a smile beginning to break on the lovely face.

"But nothing!" he cuts in. "Please be quick, or he'll have time to change his mind."

Leslie runs in, laughing, and Yorke, stowing the easel under the seat, shouts out for Grey.

"Tell the – Mr. Temple we're ready," he says quickly. "Got that hamper?"

"Yes, your grace," says Grey.

"Confound – all right then. Get your master down as soon as possible; and Grey, bring me out a glass of ale. Heigh-ho, that was a narrow squeak," and he draws a long breath. "What, let him deprive her of her outing? Not if I had to take the house as well!"

Presently the duke and Grey come out, and Grey helps him into his seat. They have not long to wait for the other two, and Yorke looks approvingly at the slim, graceful figure, which plainly dressed though it may be, is unmistakably that of a lady.

Mr. Lisle, scarcely knowing what they are doing with him, is bundled in; and Yorke, as a matter of course, stands by to assist Leslie to the seat on the box beside him.

"But would not some one else like to sit there?" she says, hesitatingly.

"I am sure Mr. Lisle would be more comfortable inside," he says. "And we mustn't keep the horses waiting longer than we can help, please," he says, and he puts his hand under her elbow and hoists her up carefully.

Then he springs into his place, touches the horses with the whip, and away they go.

Leslie draws a long breath. It is not until they have got to the open country that she can believe that they have actually started.

"It was a near thing," he says, as if he were reading her thoughts.

"Yes," and she smiles; "I don't know how you managed it."

He laughs light-heartedly.

"It was done by force of arms. I meant you – I mean Mr. Lisle – to go, and when I mean a thing I'm hard to obstruct."

"This is rather a grand turn-out, Yorke," remarks the duke. "May one ask where and how you got it? It doesn't look like a hired affair."

"It isn't," he replies. "When I got to Northcliffe I ran against little Vinson, who appears to be staying there. The wagon was standing outside and he asked me if I would like to go for a drive. I said I should if he'd let me have the horses and not ask to go with me. He stared for a minute, then he took off his gloves, and – here you are, you know."

"Wasn't that rather cool?" asks the duke.

Yorke laughs.

"Oh, he's a good-natured little chap, and didn't seem to mind. Said he'd go for a sail instead."

"He must be very good-natured," said Leslie, smiling in spite of herself.

"So he ought to be. He's as rich as Crœsus, and hasn't a care in the world. His father, Lord Eastford, you know, bought up a lot of nursery gardens just outside what was then London, and they've turned out a gold mine. The part got fashionable, you know."

The mention of a lord reminds Leslie – she had forgotten it until now – that the young man beside her is a duke, and she wonders whether she ought to have addressed him as "your grace."

"Now, Miss Lisle," he says, "you've got to play the part of guide, you know. Is it straight on, or how?"

"Straight on, your grace," she says, thinking she will try how it sounds. It doesn't sound very well in her own ears, nor, apparently, in his, for he stops in the act of flicking a fly off the horse's harness and looks at her; but he does not make any remark.

The roads are good, the day heavenly, and as they bowl along Leslie leans back, wrapped in a supreme content. Her father's voice discoursing of "art" floats now and again toward her, the thud, thud of the horses' hoofs makes pleasant music; and if she should tire of the pretty scenery, there is the handsome face of a good-tempered young man beside her to look at for a change.

Leslie does not know very much about driving; but she knows that he is driving well, that the horses, fresh and high-mettled as they are, are thoroughly under his control; and, half-unconsciously, she finds herself admiring the way in which he handles the whip and the reins.

"May one ask what you are thinking of, Miss Leslie?" he says, glancing at her, after a long silence.

"I was wondering which I liked best – sailing or driving," she replies.

"But you haven't driven yet," he says. "Would you like to drive?"

Leslie shakes her head.

"I should drive them into a ditch, or they would run away with me," she says, smiling.

"Not a bit of it," he retorts; "and I know you are not afraid, because you said last night that you never were afraid."

"Did I say that?" she says. "What wonderful things one says in the moonlight!"

"See here," he says. "I'll show you how to hold the reins."

"If I am not afraid, they will be, if they think you are going to transfer these wild animals to my guidance," and she glances over her shoulder.

"Oh, they're all right," he says, carelessly. "Give me your hand. No, the left one. That's it."

He takes it and opens the slim fingers, and inserts the reins in their proper places; and as he does so notices, if he did not notice last night, how beautifully shaped and refined the small hand is.

"That's right. Now take the whip in your right hand, and – how do you feel?"

"As if I were chained to two romping lions, and they were dragging me off the box."

He laughs, the frank, free laugh which Leslie thinks the pleasantest she ever heard.

"You'll make a splendid whip!" he says, encouragingly. "Hold 'em tight, and don't be afraid of them. Directly you begin to think they are getting too many for you, set your teeth hard, hold 'em like a vise, and give 'em each a flick. So! See? They know you're master then."

The ivory white of Leslie's face is delicately tinted with rose, her eyes are shining brightly, her heart beating to the old tune, "Happiness."

"There is a cart coming, and there isn't room. Oh, dear!" and she begins to get flurried.

"Plenty of room," he says, coolly. "You should shout to the man! But I'll do that for you," and he wakes the sleeping wagoner with a shout that causes the man to spring up and drag his horses aside as if Juggernaut were coming down upon him. "See? That's the way! Oh, you'll do splendidly, and I shall be quite proud of you. I'm fond of driving. Do you know, I've often thought if the worst came to the worst that I'd take to a hansom cab."

Leslie stares at him.

"A duke driving a hansom cab would be rather a novelty, wouldn't it?" she says, with a smile.

To her surprise, his face flushes, and he turns his head away. What has she said? At this moment, fortunately for Yorke's embarrassment, the duke remarks with intentional distinctness:

"Are you insured against accidents, Miss Lisle?"

Leslie holds out the reins.

"You see," she says, "they are getting frightened; and not without cause."

But he will not take the reins from her.

"I know you are enjoying it," he says, just as a schoolboy would speak. "You're all right; I'll help you if you come to a fix. Give that off one a cut, he is letting the other do all the work."

"Which is the off one?" she asks, innocently.

He points to it.

"That's the one. So called because you don't let him off."

It is a feeble joke, but Leslie rewards it with a laugh far and away beyond its merits, and he laughs in harmony.

"You seem to be enjoying yourselves up there," says the duke. "Pray hand any joke down."

"It is Miss Leslie making puns," responds Yorke.

"Now you are getting tired," he says, after a mile or two.

"How do you know?" she asks, curiously.

"Because I can see your hands trembling," he replies. "Give me the reins now, and if you are a good girl you shall drive all the way home."

It is a little thing that he should have such regard for her comfort, but it does not pass unnoticed by Leslie, as she resigns the reins with a "Thank you, your grace."

His face clouds again, however, and he bestows an altogether unnecessary cut on the horses, who plunge forward.

"There is St. Martin, and there is the castle," she says, presently. "Is it not pretty?"

"Very," he assents, but he looks round inquiringly. "I'm looking for some place in which to put the cattle up," he explains. "Horses don't care much for ruins, unless there are hay and oats."

"There is a small inn at the foot of the castle," says Leslie.

"That's all right then," he rejoins, cheerfully. "Hurry up now, my beauties, and let's show them what Vinson's nags can do."

They dash up the road to the inn at a clinking pace, and pull up in masterly style.

The landlord and a stable boy come running out and Yorke flings them the reins. Then he helps Leslie down, and goes round to the back to assist the duke.

"I suppose we shall be able to get some lunch here Yorke?" he says, as he leans on his sticks.

"Lunch indoors on a day like this? Not much!" retorts Yorke, scornfully. "Out with that hamper, Grey, and get this yokel to help you carry it to the tower. You can walk as far as that, Dolph? Miss Lisle will show you the way."

At the sound of her name Leslie turns from the rustic window into which she had been mechanically looking.

"Oh, yes. There has been another party here this morning," she adds.

"How do you know that?" asks Yorke.

"Because I can see the remains of their luncheon on the table," she says, laughing.

"Yes, sir," says the landlord. "Party of three, sir; two gentlemen and a lady."

"Thank goodness they have gone!" says Yorke. "You go on. I'll go and see that the horses are rubbed down and fed; I owe that to Vinson, anyhow."

He is not long in following them, but by the time he has reached the tower, Grey has unpacked the basket, and laid out a tempting lunch. There is a fowl, a ham, an eatable-looking fruit tart, cream, some jelly, the crispiest of loaves, and firmest of butter, and a couple of bottles with golden tops.

"Where did you get this gorgeous spread, Yorke?" inquires the duke.

"Oh, I was out foraging early this morning," he says, carelessly. "Now, Miss Leslie, you are the presiding genius. Of course the salt has been forgotten; it always is."

"No, it has not!" says Leslie, holding it up triumphantly. "Nothing has been forgotten. You have brought everything."

"Including an appetite," he says, brightly, and as he opens a bottle of champagne, he sings:

"Yes, I wonder how many persons who read that in their Tennyson realize that it is champagne?" says the duke, brightly.

They seat themselves – cushions have been brought from the wagon for Leslie and the duke – and the feast begins.

"Some chicken, Miss Leslie? This is going to be a failure as a picnic; it isn't going to rain," says Yorke.

"And I rather miss the cow which usually appears on the scene and scampers over the pie," says the duke. "I suppose your grace couldn't manage a cow on a tower."

Yorke looks at him, half angrily.

"Oh, cut that!" he mutters, just loud enough to reach the duke.

Mr. Lisle looks round with his glass in his hand.

"I must find a spot for my sketch," he says.

"All right, presently," says Yorke. "Pleasure first always, as the man said when he killed the tax collector. Miss Lisle have you sworn never to drink more than one glass of champagne?"

But Leslie shakes her head, and declines the offered bottle, and her appetite is soon appeased.

"Shall we leave these gourmands, and find a particularly picturesque study for your father, Miss Lisle?" suggests Yorke; "that is if he is bent on sketch – ."

He stops suddenly, for a woman's laugh has risen from the green slope beneath them. It is not an unmusical laugh, but it is unpleasantly loud and bold, and the others start slightly.

"That is the other party," says Leslie.

"It is to be hoped that they are not coming up here. If they should, you will have an opportunity of seeing how I look when I scowl, Miss Lisle," he says.

Leslie gets up and goes to the battlements.

"No; they are going round the other side," she says.

"Heaven be thanked!"

"Too soon!" she rejoins, with a laugh; "they are coming back. What a handsome girl!"

Standing talking and laughing beneath her are two men and a girl. The latter is handsome, as Leslie says, but there is something in the face which, like the laugh, jars upon one. She is dark, of a complexion that is almost Spanish, has dark eyes that sparkle and glitter in the sunlight, and raven hair; and if the face is not perfect in its beauty, her figure nearly approaches the acme of grace. It is lithe, slim, mobile; but it is clad too fashionably, and there is a little too much color about it.

She stands laughing loudly, unconscious of the silent spectator above her, for a moment or two; then, perhaps made aware by that mysterious sense which all of us have experienced, that she is being looked at she looks up, and the two girls' eyes meet. She turns to say something to her companions, and at that moment Yorke joins Leslie.

He looks down at the group below.

"That's the party, evidently," he begins. Then he stops suddenly; something like an oath starts from his lips, and he puts his hand none too gently on Leslie's arm.

"Come away," he says, sharply, and yet with a touch of hoarseness, or can it be fear, in his voice. "Come away, Miss Lisle!"

And Leslie, as she draws back in instant obedience, sees that his face has become white to the lips.

At the same moment, a voice – it must be that of the girl beneath, floats up to them, a lively "rollicking" voice, singing this refined and charming ditty: