Читать книгу The Masterfolk - Haldane MacFall - Страница 12

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Wherein Master Oliver is convinced that it is Difficult to play the Man’s Part on a Weak Stomach

In a large attic the glow of a stove, that roared of warmth, gave a sense of comfort to the spacious, rambling, rather bare room; and from its opened iron door the ruddy light of its furnace flared cheerily upon the floor.

Near by sat Caroline Baddlesmere at a small table, where a shaded lamp flung down a golden glory upon the white pages of the printer’s proofs she was correcting, reflecting little amber lights that played about her handsome eye-pits and nostrils and mouth and chin.

Along the low walls, almost to where the steep roof met them, books were piled for lack of shelves; and the largeness of the room and the atmosphere of the books gave the suggestion of a library that was strangely at variance with a small bed in the far end of the large place, where a candle dimly showed the boy Oliver lying amongst his pillows, watching Netherby Gomme and Julia as they whispered their confidences seated on chairs hard by him. The candle’s light painted their faces picturesquely against the black hollow of an open doorway that led to a smaller attic which was the Baddlesmeres’ sleeping-room. Eyes grown accustomed to this gloom might have seen that a thin line of blue smoke curled upwards from the bed, for Noll was colouring the wedding-present—keeping a sharp look-out lest anyone should see him, and raising a screen of bedclothes with his knees, between himself and detection....

Caroline roused from her work, disturbed by the loud sniff of a shabby little maid-of-all-work who entered the room, a dusting-brush under her arm and a dusting-rag in her hand.

“Please, lidy,” said the girl, “may I finish a bit of work by the light of the stove?—I won’t be more than four-and-twenty shakes, and I’ll be very quiet.”

Caroline nodded good-humouredly.

The lank child—she was little more—stooped down by the blaze of warm light that came from the stove’s open door, and lugging a battered periodical out of her pocket, smoothed it out and began to read....

“What are you doing, Victoria May Alice?” asked Caroline, after a while, smiling at the calm effrontery of the girl.

Victoria May Alice uttered a loud sniff:

“I was just a-finishing this here chapter, lidy—it’s so blamey dark on the landing. I’d got to such a beautiful part—where Sir ’Enery Marjorrybanks is a-telling of the lady’s-maid as her eyes is so magical and is just a-seein’ of poems in their liquid depths, and all that.... It give me a kind of nice hump the way they was a-goin’ hon——”

“What are you reading, Victoria May Alice?” Caroline held out her hand. “Let me see it.”

The smudgy little maid handed her the periodical:

“It’s Bow Bells, marm—what that rummy gent brings me—him what they calls Lovegood.”

She went and stood beside her chair as Caroline looked at the paper; and with long bony fingers, not very clean, the girl proceeded to do the honours:

“That’s the picture of Sir ’Enery a-kissin’ of the girl hunder the hoak-tree. She’s purtendin’ she don’t like it. I wonder why they always does that in high-class society. I kissed a ’airdresser once, and it was better than a lobster salad—but (sniff) that’s neither ’ere nor there.... I like them wonderful whiskers of Sir’’Enery Marjorrybanks—I like ’is name, too, it’s like crackin’ nuts—Marjorrybanks.”

“Marchbanks, Victoria!”

Victoria May Alice looked hard at the handsome lady before her, suspiciously:

“Garn, mem!” said she—“you’re coddin’.”

A smile flickered about the corners of Caroline’s mouth:

“No,” she said severely—“you must believe me, Victoria.”

“Well,” said Victoria May Alice—“I’ll allow I most generally does. But if that there don’t spell Marjorrybanks I’ll darn my stockings.”

Caroline Baddlesmere nodded:

“Then,” said she, “Victoria May Alice will have to darn her stockings.”

Victoria May Alice considered:

“No, mem,” said she—“I takes back the stockin’s. I dessay you’re right.” She put her head on one side and surveyed the difficulty with one eye half shut.... She sighed: “All I can say is that it ain’t the way we was taught to spell at the board-school. But I suppose it’s all right. I reckon it’s high-toned and hupper-class to spell things as they ain’t got no reason to be spelled. There was a lady here quite recent as was callin’ on the first floor as is given to indulgence” She tippled with an imaginary glass of wine. “And this party as was callin’ on the one as is given to——”

“Hush, Victoria,” said Caroline.

“Yes, you know—well, she was a-doin’ of the thing regular formal and in style, I can tell you, powdered footman and a red-nosed geezer with white leather breeches a-sittin’ on the coachman’s box, and all—well, she rings the bell in the old party’s room as—you know—and in I hustles, a-doin’ up my bun on the back of my ’ead with my ’and as I stood at the door. She asked for her broom. ‘Yes, lidy,’ says I, and takes her one up from the kitchen. But she was that short, you’d think I’d hit her on the bonnet!... What d’you think she was gettin’ at?... Why—her bloomin’ brow-ham!”

Victoria May Alice, in the attitude of a coachman on his box, and with mighty clucks and “gees” and “whoas,” whipped up imaginary horses.

A shrill voice called from far below:

“Victoria—May—Yall—liss!”

The little maid-of-all-work went out of the door, and, leaning over the balustrade, she called down the stairs at the top pitch of her shrill voice, standing a-tiptoe to give her lean lungs full play:

“Yes—marm! I’m a-com—ing!”

She came back into the room, and added placidly:

“I ’ate ’er voice. It goes through yer like a gimlet.... But (sniff) she ain’t bad—not all through—when you knows ’er.” She sniffed.

The shrill voice came mounting up the stairs:

“Victoria—May—Yall—liss!”

The untidy child stepped quickly back to the door, and putting out her head through the cranny, yelled, with sing-song delivery:

“Yes—marm!—I’m a-comin’—I’m—a-coming! The top floor’s a-wantin’ coals hasty, marm; and a-gettin’ nasty about the size of the scuttles!”

She came blithely into the room, and, screwing up her mouth, said, with a wise nod of the head:

“That’s one on the tender for ’er!”

Caroline suppressed a smile, and said reprovingly:

“I made no complaint about the size of the coal-scuttles, Victoria.”

Victoria May Alice sniffed:

“Lor bless yer, no,” said she; “but them coal-scuttles is what I calls a vegitable halloocination.... You ain’t one to complain; but it’s about time some one did it for yer.... My word, she do run it fine with them egg-cups o’ coal! She don’t dare let me fill the bucket—so I gets off that job!” Sniff.

Caroline sighed:

“Ah, Victoria, she has to practise economy.”

Victoria May Alice nodded her head seriously:

“There’s some kinds of economy as is religion, and some kinds as is against religion, mem,” said she. “She’s always talking of savin’ for that blackguard son of hers in Australia.” She came near to Caroline Baddlesmere and added in a hoarse whisper—“My solemn opinion is the feller is doin’ his five years’ hard.”

“Now, now, Victoria—you are descending to scandal!”

“Perhaps I am—and again, perhaps I ain’t. Who’d be writing to her from Wormwood Scrubbs Prison but her own relations—garn! D’yer think——”

“Now, now, Victoria!”

Victoria prepared to depart, but hesitated at the door:

“If Master Oliver’s a-wantin’ of anythink, lady, jest you put yer ’ead over the rail and ’owl for it,” said she. Loud sniff. “It’s no good being backward and modest in this ’ouse—nor, for that, in this dirty city.... They——”

There was a furious ringing of a bell below, and the racket was followed by an irritable yell:

“Victoria—May—Yall—liss!”

Victoria May Alice sniffed:

“My eye!” said she—“she’ll thump my ’ed when I go down!” And yelling where she stood: “Yes—marm—I’m a-coming!” she turned to Caroline and added in a confidential whisper: “No, lidy—it’s no gain being backward and modest. She don’t understand it, bless yer. Thinks you’re weak—or can’t pay yer bill. And, bless yer, lidy, I don’t a-mind a-carryin’ up of the scuttles—not to this floor.”

Caroline nodded anxiously:

“Run along, Victoria, like a good girl.”

“Yes, lidy,” said she. Loud sniff.

As she turned to go she caught sight of Noll smoking in bed. She smuggled a laugh into her hand:

“The ridic’lous little creature,” said she, and disappeared. The door softly shut after her, and her weary young feet could be heard shuffling down the stairs.

“I say, Julia,” said Noll, from his bed—“ain’t it time we had a meal?”

Caroline Baddlesmere looked up:

“There’s some bread soaked in milk for you, Noll—on the table. I will heat it for you.”

The boy’s stomach turned against it. He shook his head:

“I’m afraid, mother, I can’t eat it,” he said.... “I’m sorry.”

Caroline, rising calmly, put on her cloak and hat and let herself out of the room. She said she would soon be back....

Netherby leaned forward, chin in hand, and gazed at Julia.

“Julia,” he said, in a low whisper, “look how these people face poverty and neglect—just because they have each other to work for. Why cannot we, you and I, start life together—now—to-morrow?”

“But, Netherby——”

He took her slender fingers in his hand:

“My dear girl,” said he—“I am now known a little. The money will be coming in soon. What more would you wait for?... Must I bring you the moon?”

“But supposing I drag you down, Netherby——”

“My dear Julia—you talk as if you were sixteen stone, and I swimming in a duck-pond. We can never be in want from now—not more than we are.”

“How can you be sure, Netherby?”

His stern face smiled:

“I can amuse the world. And the world cheerfully flings its pence to its jesters. On the blackest night the court fool may warm his hands at the hearth of the world. And I once heard the greatest ass in London confess that it takes a clever fellow to be reckoned a remarkable fool in these days, Julia.”

“This disaster to Caroline and Mr. Anthony has frightened me,” she sighed.

“It has strengthened me,” he said—“given me courage. Here are gently nurtured people, used to the luxuries of life, whose womenfolk wear the bonnet of fashion without a strut, for they have never known any other; here they are, living all hugger-mugger in a “spacious upper floor” where even I, from the ranks, would be everlastingly seeing only the faults—yet never so much as a whimper from them. They are as cheery as though they had come into the family estates. Until the boy went sick, Baddlesmere was never more amusing——”

She sighed:

“Ah, yes—they laugh to keep the tears away,” she said.

“But, my Julia, you would not have them live their life in one long-drawn-out fear lest the world be full of fears!”

“But—how do you know your next book will be a success, Netherby?”

“I don’t know, dear. I once knew a man who was so afraid of getting a chill that he wore goloshes after sunset—he died of heat-apoplexy.”

The boy Noll yawned:

“I say, Netherby,” he grumbled from the bed peevishly: “come here, you and Julia, and sit on the bed—I can’t hear a word you say—it’s so beastly dull seeing you billing and cooing there and missing all the letterpress.”

Netherby chuckled hugely; and they both got up, he chuckling, and she blushing, and came to the boy’s bedside. Noll was looking very sickly:

“Oh, Noll,” said Julia in alarm—“I’m sure you ought not to be smoking. You are looking so pale.”

Noll coughed:

“Shush!” said he—“or mother’ll hear you.... I got back the pipe from that sailor fellow—I told him I couldn’t pay him because I had had money losses. He waived the fee—he said that though he commanded a barge he’d colour a dozen meerschaum pipes for a good un like me, free of cost—I had only to send along the pipes and the tobacco. Such a gentlemanly fellow, he was! Though a bit dirty.... Thames sailors are such warm-hearted johnnies—but they don’t keep their nails very nice.”

“But, Noll,” she said—“you ought not to be sitting up in bed without your jacket on.”

She brought the lad his short black jacket, and he submitted to putting it on graciously enough.

“Noll,” she said—“surely you cannot get any pleasure from smoking?”

“My dear Julia,” he said limply—“I shall never get the pipe coloured in time for your wedding if you go on like this.... Unless you put it off for a little.... You see, I’m not very used to a pipe—and I don’t mind telling you it does make my head go round a bit. But—hullo! I say, hold my pipe, Julia—there’s a whopping great moth!”

He handed the pipe to Julia, who took it reluctantly enough; he jumped up, and, seizing a butterfly net which hung over a chest of drawers by his bed-head, he leaped about on his tumbled bed in his night-shirt, Eton jacket, and black stockings, making frantic sweeps at the fluttering moth, which swerved aside, escaped the net, and fluttered through the dark doorway into the next room. Noll leaped from his bed and made after it, in hot pursuit, chasing it into the gloom of the dark room beyond.

Julia sighed—put aside the pipe with dainty fingers of disgust—and sat down again.

They could hear Noll fumbling about in the next room.

Netherby went and sat beside her.

He watched her in silence for awhile:

“Julia,” he said—“promise. You must promise. Promise—promise—promise——”

They both started.

Through the open doorway came the boy, looking like misery, deathly pale, and dragging the butterfly-net limply after him.

“O lor!” he said.

“My dear Noll!” said Julia—“what on earth have you been doing now?”

Noll halted wearily before them:

“It’s that sailor-man’s tobacco,” he said gloomily. “It was—too much—for—my strength. I don’t think I’m a man—yet.... Netherby, you and Julia can get married as soon as you like—I shall never smoke again.”

He laid the butterfly-net on Gomme’s knees, and added, with a wan smile:

“I say, Netherby, let’s change places—you go and catch butterflies whilst I kiss Julia.”

Julia jumped and uttered a little scream:

“Oh, Noll, you cruel boy—you’ve caught the moth!” she cried.

She put her deft fingers into the net, caught the struggling thing, and, taking it out carefully, carried it to the window and let it fly out into the darkness.

Noll smiled gloomily at Netherby:

“It’s very cruel of Julia,” said he. “It’s a beastly night—that moth’ll get an awful cold in its chest—accompanied by sore throat, fever, and chills, and violent perspiration—and developing into a nasty hacking cough.”