Читать книгу Tracked to Doom - James Edward Muddock - Страница 5

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IN one of the most beautiful parts of Richmond, Surrey, and commanding a view of that really wonderful panorama of the Thames, which even prejudiced foreigners have admitted to be unique of its kind, stood The Priory. It was an old house that had undergone restoration at the hands of a modern architect, who, being less of a vandal than most of his contemporaries, had preserved all the picturesque features of a bygone age.

The building itself was spacious and commodious, and its external walls in places were covered with mantling ivy; while over the main entrance a magnificent specimen of wistaria had been carefully trained, and in the season of its blossoming it was a feast of beauty for the eye capable of appreciating the glory of nature as displayed in flowers.

The house stood in about eight acres of ground, where nature, in unkempt wildness, had been allowed to blend so cunningly with the primness of art as to produce an effect that was at once charming and delightful. In one part was a miniature lake, on which floated a genuine Venetian gondola; and in another was a sylvan glade, where, beneath the deep umbrageous shadow of the tall trees, one could wander knee-deep in ferns and flowers, and, in the silence and seclusion that reigned, find it difficult to realise that he was within a few miles of the roar and passion of the world's mightiest city.

Everything connected with The Priory seemed to have been ordered and arranged with an exquisite taste, in which the keen observer might have detected the feminine mind—the mind of a woman of culture, but with the instinctive eye for beauty. Internally the same influence was made manifest even in a more marked degree: colour and harmony were there blended with faultless taste. Wealth displayed itself with a lavish hand; but it was not with the vulgar obtrusiveness that is often a marked feature in the expenditure of your rich parvenu.

Most certainly vulgarity found no abiding-place in The Priory. There was nothing there suggestive of "sweet bells jangled, harsh and out of tune." And with such a home it seemed difficult in the extreme to disassociate human happiness in its most exalted aspect. Surely under that favoured roof sorrow could find no resting-place, save such sorrow as kindly hearts and generous natures must ever feel for those on whom fortune smiles not, and to whom the way of life is a Via Dolorosa, thorny and sad with the moans of suffering.

But as the fairest fruit has oft a canker at its core, so in the heart, as it were, of this beautiful home lay a gnawing worm, and over the roof-tree hung a dark and impenetrable cloud of sorrow. But that sorrow, whatever it might be, does not seem to have touched as yet the fair, sweet girl, who, with beaming eyes and expectant face, stands in the threshold of the main doorway, watching with undisguised eagerness the approach of a young man who, with elastic step, is hurrying along the carriage-drive, which extends from the doorway in a straight line for over a hundred yards, through an avenue of superb chestnuts.

It is summer-time, and summer's many voices fill the air, while the brilliant sunshine falls from an all but unclouded sky, and throws a coruscant splendour over the landscape.

The young man wears a light suit, and he carries over his arm a dust-coat, which seems to indicate he has come off a journey. He hurries up the steps of the doorway, and in another moment he and the young lady embrace each other tenderly, and that embrace declares them lovers.

She is the daughter of the house—Muriel Glindon, upon whom life sits very lightly yet, although her twenty-fifth year has almost drawn to its close. A gown of soft, diaphanous material clings in graceful folds to her slim but well-shaped figure.

From her gloved arm depends, by its ribbons, a large garden- hat, which she has just removed for coolness' sake. A mass of nut-brown hair is coiled gracefully about her head, and its rich, warm colour throws into relief, and contrasts pleasantly with, the decided blue of her eyes and the clear red-and-white complexion, which is so suggestive of healthy open-air life. Even a cynic who had vowed to hate all his kind must in common honesty have pronounced Muriel Glindon a charming woman.

Her lover, Raymond Penoyre—for lover he was—could give her some months, perhaps—not more—in seniority, for he was as yet in his twenty-sixth year. He was a graceful, gentlemanly fellow, well set up, with a manly bearing and a sapient expression beaming from his dark face. In striking contrast to her, he was as dark as a raven.

"Why, Raymond dear, whatever has made you so late?" Muriel exclaimed, when they had embraced each other with unconventional heartiness. "We have waited luncheon, and I have been on the look-out for you so long that I had quite begun to despair."

"Poor little woman!" he said laughingly, as arm-in-arm they entered the hall. "The fact is, Muriel, I missed the first train, and had to wait an hour."

"Oh, you naughty boy! But there, I forgive you," she said sweetly, as she relieved him of his coat, hat, and stick. "And now let us go in to luncheon, or aunt will be quite cross."

They proceeded down the passage, and entered a charming room, the long French window of which commanded a view of a splendid lawn, that was bounded by a bank of rhododendrons, now a blaze of variegated colour. In this room luncheon was set, and as the young couple entered, a sedate, matronly lady rose and warmly shook Penoyre's hand.

"Come, young gentleman," she said pleasantly, "we shall have to take you to task."

"You must forgive me, Mrs. Romanoff," he answered. "I have already explained to Muriel that I missed the train and had to wait an hour."

"What! a lover and miss a train! Oh, fie, fie!"

"Nay, do not be too hard upon me," he laughed. "My sisters are to blame; they would insist on my trying over some new duets with them."

"There, there!" said the lady, "make no excuses;" and ringing the bell, she bade the servant serve the luncheon.

Mrs. Romanoff was a childless widow, her husband, a Russian, having been dead about fifteen years; and since then she had lived with her brother—Muriel's father and a widower—as the mistress of his house. She was dependent upon him, for her husband had left her penniless. She was a lady- like, cultured woman, verging on sixty, with a pensive expression of face and a certain sadness in her voice, as if in her heart she had some stifled regret for something missed and lost for ever.

But whatever her feelings were, she uttered no complaint, and, outwardly, was contented and cheerful. When the luncheon was ended, and after a brief chat, she said, as she rose—

"Now I must leave you young people to look after yourselves, for I have some housekeeping affairs to attend to. I know you will excuse me."

Of course, the young people were quite willing to do this, and Muriel suggested they should spend an hour in the gondola on the lake, to which Raymond readily assented. As they went forth into the hall a young woman was just descending the stairs. She stopped and spoke to Muriel.

"You are going out, Miss?" she asked in English, but with a pronounced foreign accent.

"Yes, Ita. I shall not take my lesson this afternoon;" and having secured her hat and sunshade, Muriel, beaming with happiness, tripped down the steps followed by Raymond, who had paused to light a cigar.

The young woman addressed as Ita—Ita Prokop was her name—was a Russian. She had been in Mr. Glindon's service close on two years in the capacity of a teacher of languages for Muriel. She was a short and stout young woman, about her pupil's own age; not good-looking by any means, but with a strongly marked face, a sallow complexion, a suspicion of a moustache on her upper lip, and eyes that were keen as an eagle's, as dark as sloes, and which seemed to watch one from under overhanging brows with an apparent innate fierceness.

The "hour" on the lake stretched to nearly three before Muriel and Raymond thought of returning. It was very pleasant there, dreaming and drifting; watching the many birds, if they had eyes for aught but themselves, that had their haunts among the sedges; and listening, if they were not deaf to all other sounds save their own voices, to the whispering wind as it seemed to woo the trees lining the banks.

At first Raymond assumed the character of the gondolier, and he sang a stave or two, in a cultivate musical voice, of a Venetian love-song. But presently he found the heat too oppressive, or the sculling too laborious, or Muriel's person too irresistibly magnetic for he took his place beside her, and his hand found her hand, and ever and anon his lips met hers.

It was a pretty picture—an idyll—a summer poem that told of human poetic bliss. But as in the garden of Eden the serpent lurked, so in the future happiness which these two mortals pictured for themselves was to come a serpent, whose name was Sorrow.