Читать книгу Comedies and Errors - Harland Henry - Страница 7

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My dear,” said the elder man, “as I’ve told you a thousand times, what you need is a love-affair with a red-haired woman.”

“Bother women,” said the younger man, “and hang love-affairs. Women are a pack of samenesses, and love-affairs are damnable iterations.”

They were seated at a round table, gay with glass and silver, fruit and wine, in a pretty, rather high-ceiled little grey-and-gold breakfast-room. The French window stood wide open to the soft June day. From the window you could step out upon a small balcony; the balcony overhung a terrace; and a broad flight of steps from the terrace led down into a garden. You could not perceive the boundaries of the garden; in all directions it offered an indefinite perspective, a landscape of green lawns and shadowy alleys, bright parterres of flowers, fountains, and tall bending trees.

I have spoken of the elder man and the younger, though really there could have been but a trifling disparity in their ages: the elder was perhaps thirty, the younger seven- or eight-and-twenty. In other respects, however, they were as unlike as unlike may be. Thirty was plump and rosy and full-blown, with a laughing good-humoured face, and merry big blue eyes; eight-and-twenty, thin, tall, and listless-looking, his face pale and aquiline, his eyes dark, morose. They had finished their coffee, and now the plump man was nibbling sweetmeats, which he selected with much careful discrimination from an assortment in a porcelain dish. The thin man was drinking something green, possibly chartreuse.

“Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-affairs are damnable iterations.”

“Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “I said red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the same.”

“The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young man argued wearily.

“It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired women who are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an altitude.

“In that case,” said he, “I admit there is a difference—they have white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff. “Is all this apropos of boots?” he questioned.

The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s apropos of your immortal soul,” he answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine for a mind diseased. The only thing that will wake you up, and put a little life and human nature in you, is a love-affair with a red-haired woman. Red in the hair means fire in the heart. It means all sorts of things. If you really wish to please me, Uncle, you’ll go and fall in love with a red-haired woman.”

The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged his shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette.

The elder man left the table, and went to the open window. “Heavens, what weather!” he exclaimed fervently. “The day is made of perfumed velvet. The air is a love-philtre. The whole world sings romance. And yet you—insensible monster!—you can sit there torpidly—” But abruptly he fell silent.

His attention had been caught by something below, in the garden. He watched it for an instant from his place by the window; then he stepped forth upon the balcony, still watching. Suddenly, facing halfway round, “By my bauble, Nunky,” he called to his companion, and his voice was tense with surprised exultancy, “she’s got red hair!”

The younger man looked up with vague eyes. “Who? What?” he asked languidly.

“Come here, come here,” his friend urged, beckoning him. “There,” he indicated, when the pale man had joined him, “below there—to the right—picking roses. She’s got red hair. She’s sent by Providence.”

A woman in a white frock was picking roses, in one of the alleys of the garden; rather a tall woman. Her back was turned towards her observers; but she wore only a light scarf of lace over her head, and her hair—dim gold in its shadows—where the sun touched it, showed a soul of red.

The younger man frowned, and asked sharply, “Who the devil is she?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the other. “One of the Queen’s women, probably. But whoever she is, she’s got red hair.”

The younger man frowned more fiercely still. “What is she doing in the King’s private garden? This is a pretty state of things.” He stamped his foot angrily. “Go down and turn her out. And I wish measures to be taken, that such trespassing may not occur again.”

But the elder man laughed. “Hoity-toity! Calm yourself, Uncle. What would you have? The King is at a safe distance, hiding in one of his northern hunting-boxes, sulking, and nursing his spleen, as is his wont. When the King’s away, the palace mice will play—at lèse majesté, the thrilling game. If you wish to stop them, persuade the King to come home and show his face. Otherwise, we’ll gather our rosebuds while we may; and I’m not the man to cross a red-haired woman.”

“You’re the Constable of Bellefontaine,” retorted his friend, “and it’s your business to see that the King’s orders are respected.”

“The King’s orders are so seldom respectable; and then, I’ve a grand talent for neglecting my business. I’m trying to elevate the Constableship of Bellefontaine into a sinecure,” the plump man explained genially. “But I’m pained to see that your sense of humour is not escaping the general decay of your faculties. What you need is a love-affair with a red-haired woman; and yonder’s a red-haired woman, dropped from the skies for your salvation. Go—engage her in talk—and fall in love with her. There’s a dear,” he pleaded.

“Dropped from the skies,” the pale man repeated, with mild scorn. “As if I didn’t know my Hilary! Of course, you’ve had her up your sleeve the whole time.”

“Upon my soul and honour, you are utterly mistaken. Upon my soul and honour, I’ve never set eyes on her before,” Hilary asseverated warmly.

“Ah, well, if that’s the case,” suggested the pale man, turning back into the room, “let us make an earnest endeavour to talk of something else.”