Читать книгу King of the Castle - George Manville Fenn - Страница 5

“Hullo, Claude, going for a walk?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Alone?”

“No: Mary is going with me.”

“Humph! If you were as giddy as Mary, I’d—I’d—”

“What, papa?”

“Don’t know; something bad. But, Claude, my girl.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Why the dickens don’t you dress better? Look at you!”

The girl admonished turned merrily round, and stood facing an old bevelled-glass cabinet in the solid-looking, well-furnished library, and saw her reflection—one which for some reason made her colour slightly; perhaps with pleasure at seeing her handsome oval face with soft, deep brown hair, and large dark, well-shaded eyes—a face that needed no more display to set it off than the plain green cloth well-fitting dress, held at the throat by a dead gold brooch of Roman make.

“Well, papa,” she said, as she altered the sit of her natty, flat-brimmed straw hat, “what is the matter with my dress?”

The big-headed, grey-haired man addressed gave his stiff, wavy locks an impatient rub, wrinkled his broad forehead, and then smiled in a happy, satisfied way, his dark eyes lighting up, and his smile driving away the hard, severe look which generally rested upon his brow.

“The matter?” he said, drawing the girl on to his knee and kissing her. “I don’t understand such things; but your dress seems too common and plain.”

“But one can’t wear silks and satins and muslins to scramble among the rocks and go up the glen.”

“Well, there, don’t bother me. But dress better. If you want more money you can have it. You ought to take the lead here, and there were ladies on some of the yachts and on the pier yesterday who quite left you behind.—Yes! What is it?”

“Isaac Woodham, from the quarry, sir, would like to see you,” said a servant.

“Confound Isaac Woodham! Send him in.”

The servant retired, leaving his master muttering.

“Wants to spend money in some confounded new machinery or something. I made all my money without machinery, Claude, but these people want to waste it with their new-fangled plans.”

“But, papa dear, do speak more gently to them.”

“What! let them be masters and eat me out of house and home? Not such a fool.”

“But, papa—”

“Hold your tongue. Weak little goose. You don’t know them; I do. They must be ruled—ruled. There: be off, and get your walk. Seen Mr Glyddyr to-day?”

The girl flushed scarlet.

“Hallo, pussy; that brings the colour to your cheeks.”

“No, papa; indeed I—”

“Yes, I know. I say, Claudie, fine handsome fellow, eh? Bit too pale for a yachtsman. But what a yacht! Do you know he came in for three hundred and fifty thousand when his father died?”

“Indeed, papa?” said the girl carelessly.

“Yes! Old Glyddyr was not like your grandfather, confound him.”

“Papa!”

“Con—found him! Didn’t I speak plain? Glyddyr left his boys a slate quarry in Wales for the eldest, and three hundred and fifty for the younger. Parry’s the younger. Eh? Nice fortune for a handsome young yachtsman, Claudie. There, go and have your walk, and keep Mary out of mischief.—Well?”

This was to a hard, heavy-looking man in working clothes, covered with earth stains and stone dust, who was ushered into the room, and who, ignoring the speaker’s presence, stood bowing awkwardly, cap in hand, and changing it from right to left and back.

“Quite well, thank ye, miss, and sent her dooty to you.”

“I’m very glad, Woodham. Remember me kindly to Sarah, and tell her I shall call at the cottage soon.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old man impatiently, following his daughter to the door; “go on now. I have business with Woodham. Don’t be so familiar with the work-people,” he whispered, as he closed the door after the girl, who ran lightly to the foot of the great carved oak staircase, to call out merrily,—

“Not ready, Mary?”

“Yes; coming, coming, coming,” and a quaint, mischievous-looking little body came tripping down the stairs, halting slightly as if from some form of lameness, which her activity partly concealed. But no effort or trick of dress could hide the fact that she was deformed, stunted in proportion, and with her head resting closely between her shoulders, which she had a habit of shrugging impatiently when addressed.

“Oh, do make haste, Mary, or we shall have no time before lunch.”

“Yes, I know. You’ve seen him go by.”

“For shame, Mary!” said Claude, flushing. “You are always thinking of such things. It is not true.”

“Yes, it is; and I don’t think more of such things than you do. ‘Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round,’” she sang, in a singularly sweet, thrilling soprano voice, her pretty but thin keen face lighting up with a malicious smile. But the old song was checked by Claude’s hand being clapped sharply over her mouth.

“Be quiet, and come along. Papa will hear you.”

“Well, I daresay he wants to see his darling married. Take away your hand, or I’ll bite it.”

“You’re in one of your mocking moods this morning, Mary, and you really make me hate you.”

“Don’t tell fibs,” said the deformed girl, throwing her arms lovingly about her companion. “You couldn’t hate anybody, you dear old pet; and why shouldn’t you have a true, handsome lover?”

“Oh, Mary, you are insufferable. You think of nothing else but lovers.”

“Well, why not, Claudie?” said the girl with a sigh, and a peculiarly pinched look coming about her mouth, as her clear, white forehead wrinkled up, and her fine eyes seemed full of trouble. “One always longs for the unattainable. Nobody will ever love me, so why shouldn’t I enjoy seeing somebody love you?”

“Mary, darling, I love you dearly.”

“Yes, pet, like the dearest, sweetest old sister that ever was. You worship poor old humpty dumpty?”

“Don’t ridicule yourself. Mary dear.”

“Why not? But I meant no nice, handsome Christopher Lisle will ever want to look in my eyes and say—”

“Will you be quiet, Mary? Why will you be always bringing up Mr Christopher Lisle? I never tease you about Mr Gullick.”

“Because—because—because—” She did not finish her speech, but burst out into a loud, ringing laugh, full of teasing, malicious mirth, till she saw Claude’s flushed face, and then she stopped short.

“There, I’ve done. Which way shall we go?”

“I don’t care. I feel as if I’d rather stay at home now.”

“No, no; I won’t tease. Shall we go as far as the town?”

“No; anywhere you like.”

“Say somewhere.”

“Not I. You’ll only tease me, and say I had some reason. I’ll only go where you choose.”

“Then you shall, dear. We’ll go up the east glen to the fall, and then cross over the hill and come back by the west glen, and you shall tease me as much as you like.”

“I don’t want to tease you.”

Mary made a grimace as she looked sidewise at herself, but she coloured a little, and was silent for a time.

They were already some hundred yards from the great, grey granite mansion, which stood upon a bald bluff of cliff, built within the past thirty years, and by the fancy of its architect made to resemble a stronghold of the Norman times, with its battlements, towers, frowning gateway, moat and drawbridge crossing the deep channel, kept well filled by a spring far up in one of the glens at the back, while the front of the solid-looking, impregnable edifice frowned down upon the glittering sea.

“See how grand Castle Dangerous looks from here,” said Mary Dillon, as they were about to turn up the glen. “Don’t you often feel as if we were two forlorn maidens—I mean,” she cried merrily, “a forlorn maiden and a half—shut up in that terrible place waiting for a gallant knight and a half to come and rescue us from the clutches of ogre-like Uncle Gartram?”

“Mary, darling,” said Claude affectionately, “if you knew how you hurt me, you would cease these mocking allusions to your affliction.”

“Then I will not hurt you any more, pet. But I am such a sight.”

“No, you are not. You have, when in repose, the sweetest, cleverest face I ever saw.”

“Let’s be in repose, then.”

“And you know you are brilliant in intellect, where I am stupid.”

“Oh! if I could be as stupid!”

“And you have the sweetest voice possible. See what gifts these are.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so, Claudie, but I don’t care for them a bit—not a millionth part as much as having your love. There, don’t let’s talk nonsense. Come along.”

She hurried her companion over a bridge and towards a path roughly made beside the babbling stream which supplied the moat at the Fort, and then in and out among the rocks, and beneath the pensile birches which shed a dappled shade over the path, while every here and there in gardens great clumps of fuchsias and hydrangeas showed the moist warmth of the sheltered nook.

They walked quickly, Claude urged on by her companion, who climbed the steep path with the agility of a goat, till they reached a fall, where the water came tumbling over the hoary, weather-stained rocks, and the path forked, one track going over the stream behind the fall, and the other becoming a rough stairway right up the side of the glen.

“Hadn’t we better go this way?” said Claude timidly, indicating the route to the left.

“No; too far round,” said Mary peremptorily. “Come along,” and she began to skip from rock to rock and rough step to step, up the side of the glen, Claude following her with more effort till they reached the rugged top of the cliff, and continued their walk onward among heather bloom and patches of beautifully fine grass, with here and there broken banks, where the wild thyme made the air fragrant with its scent.

“This is ten times as nice as going through the woods,” cried Mary. “You seem to get such delicious puffs of the sea breeze. Vorwarts!”

She hurried her companion on for about a mile, when the track turned sharply off to the right, and a steep descent led them to the banks of another stream which was gradually converging towards the one they had left, so that the two nearly joined where they swept down their rocky channels into the sea.

“This is ten times as good a way, Claudie. I always think it is the prettiest walk we have. Look what a colour the fir trees are turning, with those pale green tassels at the tips; and how beautiful those patches of gorse are. I wish one could get such a colour in paintings.”

She chatted on merrily as they descended the stream, with its many turns and zigzags, through the deep chasm along which it ran; and whenever Claude appeared disposed to speak, Mary always had some familiar object to which she could draw her companion’s attention. In fact, it seemed as if she would not give her time to think, as she noted that a quick, nervous look was directed at the stream from time to time.

A stranger might have thought Claude was nervous about the risks of the path as it went round some pool, with the rocks coming down perpendicularly to the deep, dark water. Or that she was in dread of encountering graver difficulties in the lonely ravine, whose almost perpendicular sides were clothed with growth of a hundred tints. Far beneath them, flashing, foaming, and hurrying on with a deep, murmuring sound, ran the little river, from rapid to fall, and from fall to deep, dark, sluggish-looking hole; while in places the trees, which had contrived to get a footing in some crevice of the rock, overhung the river, and threw the water beneath into the deepest shade.

They reached, at length, a more open part, where the sun shone down brightly, and their way lay through a patch of moss-grown hazel stubbs, which after a few steps made a complete screen from the sun’s rays, and they walked over a verdant carpet which silenced every footfall.

“We shall have plenty of time,” said Mary, as they reached the farther edge of the hazel clump, “and we may as well sit down on the rocks and read.”

“No, not now,” said Claude hastily. Then in an agitated whisper, as a peculiar whizzing noise was heard: “Oh, Mary, this is too cruel. Why have you brought me here?”

“Because it was not considered good for Adam to live alone in Paradise. There’s poor Adam alone and disconsolate, fishing to pass time away. Paradise in the glen is very pretty, but dull. Enter Eve. Now, Claude, dear, show yourself worthy of the name of woman. Go on!”