Читать книгу Madcap - George Gibbs - Страница 10

On the porch he sank into the wicker chair, filled his pipe and looked afar, his ear attuned to the sounds of his domestic upheaval, not quite sure whether he was provoked or amused. At moments, by her pluck she had excited his admiration, at others she had seemed a little less worthy of consideration than a spoiled child, but her present role amused him beyond expression. Whoever she was, whatever her mission in life, she was quite the most remarkable young female person in his experience. Who? It didn't matter in the least of course, but he found himself somewhat chagrined that his memory had played him such a trick. Young girls, especially the impudent, self-satisfied kind that one met in America, had always filled Markham with a vague alarm. He didn't understand them in the least, nor did they understand him, and he had managed with some discretion to confine his attentions to women of a riper growth. Madame Tcherny, for instance!

Markham sat suddenly upright in his chair, a look of recognition in his eyes.

Olga Tcherny! Of course, he remembered now. And this was the cheeky little thing Olga had brought to the studio to see her portrait, who had strutted around and talked about money—Miss—er—funny he couldn't think of her name! He got up after a while, walked around and peered in at the kitchen door.

His visitor had washed the shelves with soap and water, and now he found her down on her knees with the bucket and scrubbing-brush working like a fury.

"See here, I can't let you do that—" he began again.

She turned a flushed face up at him and then went on scrubbing.

"You've got to stop it, do you hear? I won't have it. You're not up to that sort of work. You haven't got any right to do a thing like this. Get up at once and go out of doors!"

She made no reply and backed away toward the door of the living-room, finishing the last strip of unscoured floor before she even replied. Then she got up and looked at her work admiringly.

"There!" she said as though to herself. "That's better."

The area of damp floor lay between them and when he made a step to relieve her of the bucket she had lifted, she waved him back.

"Don't you dare walk on it—after all my trouble. Go around the other way."

He obeyed with a meekness that surprised him, but when he reached the other door she had already emptied her bucket and her roving eye was seeking new fields to conquer.

"You've got to stop it at once," he insisted.

"It's the least I can do to earn my board. This room must be dusted, the bed made and—"

"No. I won't have it."

He took her by the elbows and pushed her out of the door to the chair on the porch into which she sank, red of face and out of breath.

"I'll only rest for a minute," she protested.

"We'll see about that later," he said with a smile. "For the present, strange as it may seem, you're really going to obey orders!"

She squared her chin at him defiantly.

"Really! Are you sure?"

"Positive!"

"It's more than I am."

"I'm bigger than you are."

"I'm not in the least afraid of you."

He laughed.

"You hardly know me well enough to be afraid of me."

"Then I don't want to know you any better."

"You're candid at any rate. But when I like I can be most unpleasant.

Ask Olga Tcherny."

Her gaze flickered then flared into steadiness as she said coolly.

"I haven't the remotest idea what you're talking about."

"Do you mean to say that you don't remember?" he asked smiling.

"My memory is excellent. Perhaps I lack imagination. What should I remember?"

"My studio—in New York. You visited me with the Countess Tcherny."

"I do not know—I have never met the Countess Tcherny."

The moment was propitious. There was a sound of voices, and Markham and his visitor glanced over their shoulders past the angle of the cottage to where in the bright sunlight into which she had emerged, stood the Countess Olga.

"Hermia, thank the Lord!" she was saying. "How you've frightened us, child!" She came quickly forward, but when Markham rose she stopped, her dark eyes round with astonishment.

"You! John Markham! Well, upon my word! C'est abracadabrant! Here I've been harrowing my soul all morning with thoughts of your untimely death, Hermia, dear, turning Westport topsy-turvy, to find you at your ease snugly wrapped in tÂte-Â-tÂte with this charming social renegade. It is almost too much for one's patience!"

Hermia rose laughing, and faced the rescue party which came forward chattering congratulations.

"I thought my friends were too wise ever to be worried about me," she said coolly. "But I'm awfully obliged and flattered. Hilda, have you met Mr. Markham? Miss Ashhurst, Miss Van Vorst, and Mr. Armistead, Mr. Markham's island fortunately happened to be just underneath where my machine decided to miss fire—"

"You did fall then?"

"Well rather—look at my poor bird, there."

Salignac, the mechanician, was already on the spot confirming the damage.

"How on earth did you happen to know that you would find me here?" asked Hermia.

"We didn't know it," replied the countess. "We took a chance and came, worried to death. The head coachman's wife who was up with a sick child heard you get off and watched your flight over the bay in this direction. She didn't see you fall. But when you didn't return she became frightened and alarmed the household—woke us all at half-past five. Think of it!" She yawned and dropped wearily on the step of the porch. And then, as Markham went indoors in search of chairs, in a lower tone to Hermia, "With a person you have professed to detest you seem to be getting on famously, my dear."

"One hardly quarrels with the individual who provides one with breakfast," she said coolly.

At the call of Salignac, the mechanician, Hermia followed the others down the slope to the machine, leaving the Countess and Markham alone.

"Well," Olga questioned, "what on earth are you doing here?"

He couldn't fail to note the air of proprietorship.

"What should I be doing?" and he made a gesture toward his idle easel.

"Why didn't you answer my letters?"

"I have never received them. No mail has been forwarded here."

"Oh!" And then: "I didn't know just what to think—unless that you had gone back to Normandy."

"I'm going next month. Meanwhile I rented Thimble Island—"

"I wrote you that I was coming here to 'Wake-Robin,' Miss Challoner's place," she said pettishly, "and that I was sure there would be one or two commissions for you in the neighborhood if you cared to come."

"It was very kind of you. I'm sorry. It's a little too late now. I'm due at Havre in August."

She made a gesture of mock helplessness.

"There. I thought so. My plans for you never seem to work out. It's really quite degrading the way I'm pursuing you. It almost seems as if you didn't want me"

He leaned over the back of her chair, his lips close to her ear. "You know better than that. But I'm such hopeless material to work with. These people, the kind of people one has to paint—they want lies. It gives me a diabolical pleasure to tell them the truth. I'll never succeed. O Madame! I'm afraid you'll have to give me up."

"And Hermia?" she asked.

He laughed.

"An enfant terrible! Has she no parent—or guardians? Do you encourage this sort of thing?"

"I—Dieu! No! She will kill herself next. I have no influence. She does exactly as she pleases. Advice merely decides her to do the opposite thing."

"It's too bad. She's quite human."

"Oh."

The Countess Olga examined him through her long lashes.

"Are you alone here?"

"Yes. I'm camping."

"Ugh," she shuddered. "You had better come to 'Wake-Robin'."

"No."

She stamped her small foot.

"Oh, I've no patience with you."

"Besides, I haven't been asked," he added.

The others were not approaching and Markham straightened as Hermia came toward him.

"Olga, dear, we must be going. It's too bad to have spoiled your morning, Mr. Markham."

The obvious reply was so easy and so polite, but he scorned it.

"Oh, that doesn't matter," he said, "and I'm the gainer by a clean kitchen."

No flattery there. Hermia colored gently.

"I—I scrubbed his floor," she explained to Olga. "It was filthy."

The Countess Olga's eyes opened a trifle wider.

"I don't doubt it," she said, turning aside.

Miss Van Vorst in her role of ingÂnue by this time was prying about outside the bungalow, on the porch of which she espied Markham's unfinished sketch.

"A painting! May I look? It's all wet and sticky." She had turned it face outward and stood before it uttering childish panegyric. "Oh, it's too perfectly sweet for anything. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so wonderful. Won't you explain it all to me, Mr. Markham?"

Markham good-humoredly took up the canvas.

"Very glad," he said, "only you've got it upside down."

In the pause which followed the laughter Salignac came up the slope and reported to Hermia that he had found nothing wrong with the engine and that the damaged wing could be repaired with a piece of wire.

Hermia's eyes sparkled. The time for her triumphant departure, it seemed, had only been delayed. "Good news," she said quietly. "In that case I intend flying back to 'Wake-Robin'."

A chorus of protests greeted her decision.

"You shan't, Hermia," shouted Reggie Armistead, "until either Salignac or I have tried it out."

"You will oblige me, Reggie," replied Hermia calmly, "by minding your own business."

"O Hermia, after falling this morning! How can you dare?" cried Miss

Van Vorst, with a genteel shudder.

"Si Mademoiselle me permettrait—" began Salignac.

But she waved her hand in negation and indicated the wide lawn in front of the ruined buildings which sloped gently to the water's edge.

"Wheel it there, Salignac," in French, "and, Reggie, please go at once and help."

Armistead's boyish face turned toward her in admiration and in protest, but he followed Salignac without a word.

"It's folly, Hermia," added Hilda. "Something must be wrong with the thing. You remember just the other day—"

"I'm going, Hilda," imperturbably. "You can follow me in the launch."

Of Hermia's companions, Olga Tcherny alone said nothing. She had no humor to waste her breath. And Markham stood beside the group, his arms folded, his head bowed, listening. But when Hermia went into the cottage for her things he followed her.

"You're resolved?" he asked, helping her into her blouse.

"Well, rather."

"I wish I might persuade you—your nerves were—a little shaken this morning."

She paused in the act of putting on her gauntlets and held one small bare hand under his nose that he might see how steady it was. He grasped it in both of his own and then, with an impulse that he couldn't explain, kissed it again and again.

"Don't go, child," he whispered gently. "Not today."

She struggled to withdraw her hand, a warm flush stealing up her neck and temples.

"Let me go, Mr. Markham. Let me go."

He relinquished her and stood aside.

"As you please," he muttered. "I'm sorry—"

She turned, halfway to the door and examined his face.

"Sorry? For what?"

"That I haven't the authority to forbid you."

"You?" she laughed. "That is amusing."

"I would teach you some truths that you have never learned," he persisted, "the fatuity of mere bravado, the uses of life. You couldn't play with it if you knew something of its value—"

"The only value of life is in what you can get from it—"

"Or in what you can give from it—"

"Good-bye, Mr. Markham. I will join your school of philosophy another day. Meanwhile—" and she pointed her gauntleted hand toward the open doorway, "life shall pay me one more sensation."

He shrugged his shoulders and followed.

The machine was already on the lawn surrounded by Hermia's guests and preliminary experiments had proven that all was ready. Hermia climbed into the seat unaided, while Markham stood at one side and watched the propellers started. Faster and faster they flew, the machine held by Armistead and the Frenchman, while Hermia sat looking straight before her down the lawn through the opening between the rocks which led to open water.

"Au revoir, my friends," she cried and gave the word, at which the men sprang clear, and amid cries of encouragement and congratulation the machine moved down the lawn, gathering momentum with every second, rising gracefully with its small burden just before it reached the water and soaring into the air. The people on the lawn watched for a moment and then with one accord rushed for the launch.

Olga Tcherny paused a moment, her hand on Markham's arm.

"You will come to 'Wake-Robin'?" she asked.

"I think not," he replied.

"Then I shall come to Thimble Island," she finished.

"I shall be charmed, of course."

She looked over her shoulder at him and laughed. He was watching the distant spot in the air.

"You're too polite to be quite natural."

"I didn't mean to be."

"Then don't let it happen again."

The voices of her companions were calling to her and she hastened her footsteps.

"Ã bientÂt," she cried.

"Au revoir, Madame." He saw her hurried into the launch, which immediately got under way, its exhaust snorting furiously, and vanished around the point of rocks. In a moment there was nothing left of his visitors to Markham but the lapping of the waves from the launch upon the beach and the spot in the air which was not almost imperceptible.

He stood there until he could see it no more, when he turned and took his pipe thoughtfully from his trousers pocket and addressed it with conviction.

"Mad!" he muttered. "All—quite mad!"