Читать книгу One Maid's Mischief - George Manville Fenn - Страница 10

“Fainted dead away, Arthur; fainted dead away, Miss Rosebury; and until I shouted aloud there was my fair pussy peeping out of paradise over the wall to see if a young Adam was coming. Ha! ha! ha!”

“I am very much surprised, Dr. Bolter,” said Miss Rosebury, severely; “I always thought the Miss Twettenham’s was a most strictly-conducted establishment?”

“So it is, my dear madam—so it is; but they’ve got one little black ewe lamb in the flock, and the old ladies told me that if my young lady had not been about to leave they’d have sent her away.”

“And very properly,” said Miss Rosebury, tightening her lips and slightly agitating her curls.

“And did the lady soon come to, Harry?” said the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, for he seemed to be much interested in his friend’s discourse over the dessert.

“Oh, yes, very soon. When I shouted, the dark nymph hopped off the garden-seat, and the fair one came running from the flowers, and we soon brought her to. Then I had a good look at the girls.”

Miss Rosebury’s rather pleasantly-shaped mouth was fast beginning to assume the form of a thin red line, so tightly were her lips compressed.

“By George, sir! what a girl! A graceful Juno, sir; the handsomest woman I ever saw. I was staggered. Bless my soul, Miss Rosebury, here’s Perowne and here’s Stuart; they say to me, ‘You may as well take charge of my girl and see her safe back here,’ and being a good-natured sort of fellow—”

“As you always were, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur, beaming mildly upon his friend, while Miss Rosebury’s lips relaxed a little.

“All rubbish! Stuff, man! Well, I said yes, of course, and I imagined a couple of strips of schoolgirls that I could chat to, and tell them about the sea, and tie on their pinafores before breakfast and dinner, and give them a dose of medicine once a week; while here I am dropped in for being guardian to a couple of beautiful women—girls who will set our jungles on fire with their eyes, sir. By George, it’s a startler, sir, and no mistake.”

“Dr. Bolter seems to be an admirer of female beauty,” said Miss Rosebury, rather drily.

“Not a bit of it, madam. By George, no! Ladies? Why, they have always seemed to be studies to me—objects of natural history. Very beautiful from their construction, and I shouldn’t have noticed these two only that, by George! I’ve got to take charge of them—deliver them safe and sound to their papas—with care—this side up; and the first thing I find is that they’ve got eyes that will drive our young fellows wild, and one of them—the peep out of paradise one—knows it too. Nice job for a quiet old bachelor, eh?”

“You don’t tell us anything about yourself, Harry,” said the Reverend Arthur; and Miss Rosebury seemed a little more at her ease.

“Nothing to tell you, my boy. Claret? Yes, thanks. Have you such a thing as a lemon, Miss Rosebury?”

Miss Rosebury had, and as she rang she smiled with satisfaction at being able to supply the wants of the bright little man who had been so true a friend to her brother in the days gone by.

“Thank you, Miss Rosebury. Tumbler—water. Thanks. The lemon is, I think, the king of fruits, and invaluable to man. Deliciously acid, a marvellous quencher of thirst, a corrective, highly aromatic, a perfect boon. I would leave all the finest wines in the world for a lemon.”

“Then you believe all intoxicating drinks to be bad, doctor?” said Miss Rosebury, eagerly.

“Except whiskey, my dear madam,” said the doctor, with a twinkle of the eye.

“Ah!” said Miss Rosebury, and the eager smile upon her lips faded; but as she saw the zest with which the doctor rolled the lemon soft, and after cutting it in half, squeezed the juice and pulp into his glass, she relaxed a little, and directly afterwards began to beam, as the doctor suddenly exclaimed:

“There, madam, smell my hands! There’s scent! Talk of eau-de-cologne, and millefleurs, and jockey club! Nothing to it! But come, Arthur, you don’t tell me about yourself.”

“About myself,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling blandly; “I have nothing to tell. You have seen my village; you have looked at my church; you have been through my garden; and you have had a rummage in my study. There is my life.”

“A blessed one—a happy one, my dear Arthur. A perfect little home, presided over by a lady whose presence shows itself at every turn. Miss Rosebury,” said the doctor, rising, “when I think of my own vagabond life, journeying here and there with my regiment through heat and cold, in civilisation and out, and after many wanderings, come back to this peaceful spot, this little haven of rest, I see what a happy man my old friend must be, and I envy him with all my heart.”

He reseated himself, and Miss Rosebury’s lips ceased to be compressed into a tight line; and as she smiled and nodded pleasantly, she glanced across at her brother, to see if he would speak, before replying that, pleasant as their home was, they had their troubles in the parish.

“And I have no end of trouble with Arthur,” she continued. “He is so terribly forgetful!”

“He always was, my dear madam,” said the little doctor. “If you wanted him to keep an appointment in the old college days you had to write it down upon eight pieces of paper, and place one in each of his pockets, and pin the eighth in his hat. Then you might, perhaps, see him at the appointed time.”

“Oh, no, no, Harry! too bad—too bad!” murmured the Reverend Arthur, smiling and shaking his head.

“Well, really, Arthur,” said his sister, “I don’t think there is much exaggeration in what Dr. Bolter says.”

“I am very sorry,” said the Reverend Arthur, meekly. “I suppose I am far from perfect.”

“My dear old boy, you are perfect enough. You are just right; and though your dear sister here gives you a good scolding sometimes, I’ll be bound to say she thinks you are the finest brother under the sun!”

Miss Rosebury left her chair with a very pleasant smile upon her lips, and a twinkling in the eyes that had the effect of making her look ten years younger.

“I am going into the drawing-room,” she said, in a quick little decided way. “Arthur, dear, I daresay Dr. Bolter would like to smoke.”

“But, my dear madam, it would be profanity here.”

“Then you shall be profane, doctor,” said the little lady, nodding and smiling, “but don’t let Arthur smoke. He tried once before when he had a friend to dinner, and it made him feel very, very sick.”

The Reverend Arthur raised his eyebrows in a deprecating way, and then shook his head sadly.

“Then I will not lure him on to indulgence in such a bad habit, Miss Rosebury,” said the little doctor. “In fact, I feel that I ought not to indulge myself.”

“Well, I really think it is very shocking, doctor!” said Miss Rosebury, merrily. “You, a medical man, and you have confessed to a love for whiskey, and now for tobacco.”

“No, no; no, no!” he cried holding up his hands. “They are nauseous medicines that I take to do me good.”

“Indeed!” said the little lady, lingering in the room, and hanging about her brother’s chair as if loth to go; and there was a very sarcastic ring in her voice.

“Oh, be merciful, Miss Rosebury!” said the doctor, laughing. “I am only a weak man—a solitary wanderer upon the face of the earth! I have no pleasant home. I have no sister to keep house.”

“And keep you in order,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling pleasantly.

“And to keep me in order!” cried the doctor. “Mine’s a hard life, Miss Rosebury, and with all a man’s vanity—a little man’s vanity, for we little men have a great deal of conceit to make up for our want of stature—I think I do deserve a few creature comforts.”

“Which you shall have while you stay, doctor; so now light your cigar, for I’ll be bound to say you have a store of the little black rolls somewhere about you.”

“I confess,” he said, smiling, “I carry them in the same case with a few surgical instruments.”

“But I think we’ll go into the little greenhouse, Mary,” said the Reverend Arthur. “I feel sure Harry Bolter would not mind.”

“Mind? My dear Miss Rosebury, I’ll go and sit outside on a gate and smoke if you like.”

“No, no,” said the Reverend Arthur, mildly; “the green fly are rather gaining ground amongst my flowers, and I thought it would kill a few.”

“Dr. Bolter is going to smoke his cigar here, where I am about to send in the coffee,” said Miss Rosebury, very decidedly, and the Reverend Arthur directed an apologetic look at his old friend.

“Hah!” ejaculated the little doctor, taking out his case, and selecting a cigar, “that’s just the kind of social tyranny I like. A man, sir, is stronger than a woman in physical development, but weaker in the matter of making up his mind. I never am able to make up mine, and I am quite sure, Arthur, old fellow, that you are very weak in the matter of making up yours: thus, in steps the presiding genius of your house, and bids you do this, and you do it. Yes, Miss Rosebury, I am going to sit here and smoke and—”

“I am ready with a light, Dr. Bolter,” said the little lady, standing close by with a box and a wax-match in her hands.

“No, no, really, my dear madam, I could not think of beginning while you are here.”

Scratch! went the match; there was a flash from the composition, and then Miss Rosebury’s plump taper little fingers held out the tiny wax-light, which was taken; there were a few puffs of bluish smoke, and Dr. Bolter sank back in his chair, gazing at the door through which Miss Rosebury had passed.

“Hah!” he ejaculated. “I shall have to be off to-morrow.”

“Oh, nonsense!” cried the Reverend Arthur. “I thought you would come and stay a month.”

“Stay a month!” cried the doctor. “Why, my dear boy, what should I be fit for afterwards if I did?”

“Fit for, Harry?”

“Yes, fit for. I should be totally spoiled. I should become a complete domestic sybarite, and no more fit to go back to my tasks in the Malay jungle than to fly. No, Arthur, old fellow, it would never do.”

“We shall keep you as long as you can stay,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling. “But seriously, did you not exaggerate about those young ladies?”

“Not in the least, my dear boy, as far as regards one of them. The other—old Stuart’s little lassie—seems to be all that is pretty and demure. But I don’t suppose there is any harm in Helen Perowne. She is a very handsome girl of about twenty or one-and-twenty, and I suppose she has been kept shut up there by the old ladies, and probably, with the best intentions, treated like a child.”

“That must be rather a mistake,” murmured the Reverend Arthur, dreamily.

“A mistake, sir, decidedly. If you have sons or daughters never forget that they grow up to maturity; and if you wish to keep them caged up, let it be in a cage whose bars are composed of good training, confidence and belief in the principles you have sought to instil.”

“Yes, I quite agree with you, Harry.”

“Why, my dear boy, what can be more absurd than to take a handsome young girl and tell her that men are a kind of wild beast that must never be looked at, much more spoken to—suppressing all the young aspirations of her heart?”

“I suppose it would be wrong, Harry.”

“Wrong and absurd, sir. There is the vigorous young growth that will have play, and you tighten it up in a pair of moral stays, so to speak, with the result that the growth pushes forth in an abnormal way to the detriment of the subject; and in the future you have a moral distortion instead of a healthy young plant. Ha—ha!—ha—ha!”

“Why do you laugh?” said the Reverend Arthur. “I think what you have said quite right, only that ladies like the Misses Twettenham are, as it were, forced to a very rigid course.”

“Yes, yes, exactly. I was laughing because it seems so absurd for a pair of old fogies of bachelors like us to be laying down the law as to the management and training of young girls. But look here, Arthur, old fellow, as I am in for this job of guardian to these girls, I should like to have something intermediate.”

“Something intermediate? I don’t understand you. Thank you; set the coffee down, Betsey.”

“Hah! Yes; capital cup of coffee, Arthur,” said the doctor, after a pause. “Best cup I’ve tasted for years.”

“Yes, it is nice,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling, as if gratified at his friend’s satisfaction. “My sister always makes it herself.”

“That woman’s a treasure, sir. Might I ask for another cup?”

“Of course, my dear Harry. Pray consider that you are at home.”

The coffee was rung for and brought, after a whispered conversation between Betsey the maid and Miss Mary the mistress.

“What did they ring for, Betsey?” asked Miss Mary.

“The little gentleman wants some more coffee, ma’am.”

“Then he likes it,” said Miss Mary, who somehow seemed unduly excited. “But hush, Betsey; you must not say ‘the little gentleman,’ but ‘Dr. Bolter.’ He is your master’s dearest friend.”

A minute or two later the maid came out from the little dining-room, with scarlet cheeks and wide-open eyes, to where Miss Mary was lying in wait.

“Is anything the matter, Betsey?” she asked, anxiously.

“No, ma’am, only the little Dr. Bolter, ma’am, he took up the cup and smelt it, just as if it was a smelling-bottle or one of master’s roses, ma’am.”

“Yes—yes,” whispered Miss Mary, impatiently.

“And then he put about ten lumps of sugar in it, ma’am.”

“How many Betsey?”

“Ten big lumps, mum, and tasted; and while I was clearing away he said, ‘Hambrosher!’ I don’t know what he meant, but that’s what he said, mum.”

“That will do, Betsey,” whispered Miss Mary. “Mind that the heater is very hot. I’ll come and cut the bread and butter myself.”

Betsey went her way, and Miss Mary returned to the little drawing-room, uttering a sigh of satisfaction; and it is worthy of record, that before closing the door she sniffed twice, and thought that at a distance the smell of cigars was after all not so very bad.

Meanwhile the conversation had been continued in the dining-room.

“What do I mean by intermediate, Arthur? Well, I don’t want to take those girls at one jump from the conventual seclusion of their school to what would seem to them like the wild gaiety of one of the great steamers of the Messageries Maritimes. I should like to give them a little society first.”

“Exactly; very wisely,” assented the Reverend Arthur.

“So I thought if your sister would call on the Misses Twettenham with you, and you would have them here two or three times to spend the day, and a little of that sort of thing, do you see?”

“Certainly. We will talk to Mary about it when we go in to tea. I am sure she would be very pleased.”

“That’s right; and now what do you say to a trot in the garden?”

“I shall be delighted!” was the reply; and they went out of the French window into the warm glow of the soft spring evening, the doctor throwing away the stump of his cigar as they came in sight of Miss Mary with a handkerchief tied lightly over her head, busy at work with scissors and basket cutting some flowers; and for the next hour they were walking up and down listening to the doctor’s account of Malaya—its heat, its thunder-storms, and tropic rains; the beauties of the vegetation; the glories of its nights when the fire-flies were scintillating amidst the trees and shrubs that overhung the river, and so on, for the doctor never seemed to tire.

“How anxious you must be to return, doctor!” said little Miss Rosebury at last.

“No,” he said, frankly. “No, I am not. I am very happy here in this charming little home; but when I go back, I hope to be as happy there, for I shall be busy, and work has its pleasures.”

Brother and sister assented, and soon after they went in to tea, over which the visiting question was broached, and after looking rather severe, little Miss Rosebury readily assented to call and invite the young ladies to spend a day.

The evening glided away like magic; and before the doctor could credit that it was so late, he had to say “good-night,” and was ushered into his bedroom.

“Hah!” ejaculated the little man as he sank into a soft easy-chair, covered with snow-white dimity, and gazed at the white hangings, the pretty paper, the spotless furniture, and breathed in the pleasant scent of fresh flowers, of which there was a large bunch upon his dressing table. “Hah!” he ejaculated again, and rising softly, he went to the table and looked at the blossoms.

“Why, those are the flowers she was cutting when we went down the garden,” he said to himself; and he went back to his chair and became very thoughtful.

At the end of a quarter of an hour he wound up his watch and placed it beneath his pillow, and then stood thinking for a few minutes before slowly pulling off his boots.

As he took off one, he took it up meditatively, gazed at the sole, and then at the interior, saying softly:

“She is really a very nice little woman!”

Then he took off the other boot, and whispered the same sentiment in that, and all in the most serious manner; while just before dropping off into a pleasant, restful sleep, he said, quite aloud this time:

“A very nice little woman indeed!”