Читать книгу A Gilded Serpent - James Edward Muddock - Страница 4

Table of Contents

SOON after leaving the pleasantly situated country town of Ministerfield, by the high road running North, the traveller used to catch sight of the tower and turrets and upper windows of Runnell Hall, a fine old mansion, a portion of it dating back to Henry VIII's time. It was conspicuously perched on a wooded eminence, and formed a very picturesque object in the landscape. At the present day it is no longer noticeable, as some years ago it was almost entirely destroyed by fire, and seems to have been rebuilt with little regard for taste, and none for picturesqueness. The place could be reached from the high road by a narrow field path, at right angles to the road itself. This field path still exists, and skirts and runs parallel to a famous wood covering something like fifty acres, and known as Black Lake Copse. It takes its name from a large, dark, romantic pool, nearly in the centre of the wood, the home of a great variety of water fowl. The wood is separated from the field path by a ditch and hedge bank; and the field, wood, and the land almost as far as the eye can reach was at the period of this story the property of Mr. Roland Lacey who resided at Runnell Hall, and of whom the reader will hear much as this narrative unfolds itself.

Half way between the high road and where the field path ends, there was an oak, five-barred gate, which gave access to the wood from that side. As the wood was a renowned game preserve, it was strictly guarded, and the gate in question was always kept padlocked. But now on a summer afternoon, as the shadows are lengthening over the land, and the westering sunlight turns the windows of Runnell Hall into plates of shining gold, a young and attractive woman stands at the gate which is swung half open. She is plainly attired in a grey canvas gown. A small jewelled brooch fastens a red ribbon at her throat, and a broad-brimmed bonnet, decorated with a few imitation cornstalks and poppies, covered her shapely head. She made a picture, did this simply attired girl, with her fair, fresh face, and deep-set, wistful brown eyes, and wealth of hair of a rich mahogany hue, the hue beloved of painters of old. She strained her eyes anxiously in the direction of the high road, occasionally turning and glancing nervously, as it seemed, towards the Hall. Her face was filled with an unmistakable expression of eager expectancy, while her movements indicated some restlessness and impatience and a certain suppressed nervous excitement. The girl was waiting for, and expecting to meet, a lover; a man against whom her people had set their faces. This sort of thing is common enough in human history, and history was repeating itself there as it did yesterday, as it will do to-morrow. She had come there clandestinely, and dreaded detection. She was the daughter, the only daughter, of the owner of the wood, Mr. Roland Lacey, of Runnell Hall. The absence of her father for a few days had facilitated her plans on this particular day, which was to be a red-letter one in the calendar of her life.

As she stands and gazes wistfully, eagerly, yearningly, towards the high road, from which she evidently expects her lover to appear, she is suddenly startled by the crackling of sticks, the rustling of leaves, which came from the wood. She turns with a half-frightened look on her pretty face, and then a little cry escapes her as she sees her lover approaching rapidly along the grass-grown path that runs through the wood. Like one fleeing towards a refuge from some threatening danger, she literally ran to him, with an exclamation—

"Oh, Jim, how you startled me!"

The next moment she was held fast in his arms and he was kissing her upturned face, dyed now to a vivid scarlet, after the manner of one who had been long separated.

He was a lusty-looking lad was Jim, with dark eyes and almost black hair. He had evidently been in some sun-land for his face was bronzed, until he could almost have passed for an Arab. A well-kept, dark moustache hid the curves of his mouth, but there was character in his face. It was not a face that, so to speak, gave itself away all at once. It was the face of a man of resolution, of one not lacking in courage; of one who might prove a very dangerous enemy, who certainly could be a staunch fiend, for there was honesty in those eyes; a frankness and fearlessness of expression that betokened an outspoken mind.

Norah Lacey was breathless with excitement; he held her and kissed her, and she remained passive.

"Why did you come through the wood, Jim? I expected you would have come by the field," she said when she had somewhat recovered herself.

"I thought it safer to come by the wood, darling, and knowing every inch of it as I do, I felt I could dodge the keepers. Anyway, here I am, after two years' separation from you. Two years! Good Lord, how have I existed? What a time it has been for me. How I have thought of you, longed for you, dreamed of you. And now at last after weary waiting I hold you in my arms."

She released herself. She put her bonnet straight, smoothed back her disarranged hair, and, still panting, said—

"Jim, I am awfully wicked in disobeying my father, but what could I do, what could I do? When you wrote to me and told me you were back in England I could not resist your appeal. But, Jim dear, what is the use of it all? You know the difficulties that lie in the way of my becoming your wife. Oh, Jim, isn't it awful? My father seems to be dead set against you; and I am afraid we shall have to say farewell."

"And yet you love me," he remarked with a touch of sternness.

"Yes, dear, I love you, love you, ah, so much. But you know my father's wishes; you know how bitterly my people are opposed to you. I am an only daughter. I cannot break my father's heart, and set myself in antagonism to the whole of my family. After all, a girl should not forget what she owes to her parents."

"Yes, I admit that," replied Jim thoughtfully. "But if you and I love each other, and you consider me essential to your happiness, then I maintain that parental objections ought to be waived unless they are fully justified. In this case they are not."

Norah Lacey was evidently troubled; her face clearly indicated that. Probably she had some vague notion of being inconsistent, for while confessing her love for this man, she asserted that he and she could never hope for union. In tones of marked agitation she said—

"It's awfully curious, Jim, that we should be here again in the old wood after two years' separation. Tell me, dear, all that you have been doing since you went to Jamaica? Have you thought of me much? Do tell me everything. I'm just dying to know. Oh, Jim, I do wish my father would be more reasonable."

"To tell you of my ups and downs, my hopes and struggles since I saw you last, is a long story. What I am chiefly concerned about now is to know your mind. You ask me if I have thought of you much. I wonder if I have ever forgotten you. I have yearned for you, dreamed of you, prayed for you. The separation has become unbearable, and I came back to England to know if you still loved me, if I might still hope, If not, then my fate is decided."

"Oh, Jim!" she exclaimed with a catch in her breath, and laying her hand on his arm. "Oh, Jim, what do you mean?"

He drew her arm through his, and they walked towards the lovely and romantic lake, looking sombre and weird now in the evening light.

"I scarcely know what I mean," he answered, still in thoughtful mood. "But if you believe that I love you, and you can't help but believe it, imagine what I am likely to become if there is no hope of my obtaining you. A man who fails to get the woman to whom he has given his heart, and upon whom he has set his hopes, is never the same again. It breaks him, sours him, makes him reckless, and unless he has a tremendous amount of self-control, he's apt to go to the devil."

The girl's distress was pitiable. In agreeing to meet him clandestinely she had yielded to an absolutely irresistible impulse. She had known Jim Spedwick nearly all her life. But unhappily differences had arisen between her family and his family, and he himself had fallen into disgrace through an incident which will be explained later on. This had made it desirable that he should leave the country, and his father had sent him to the West Indies, where for some time he had been with an uncle on a coffee plantation in Jamaica. Unknown to any one but his near relatives Jim had stolen back to England for a brief spell, and had written to Norah craving an interview. Hence the clandestine meeting this summer evening in the Black Lake Copse. Norah loved the man; she could not deceive herself on that point. But her father not only desired, but insisted that she should become the wife of one Randolph Pym, youngest son of Sir Yardley Pym, baronet, ex-M.P. and large land-owner, whose estates adjoined Mr. Lacey's.

The situation, as we have admitted, was not a novel one, for human affairs must necessarily run very much in a groove, but it was none the less painful and distressing, for this young girl, as yet an infant in the eyes of the law, had to choose between this man whom she loved and her family. She was far too intelligent not to understand the issues at stake. Her own father and Jim's father were at deadly enmity, and she knew that, as far as Mr. Lacey was concerned, reconciliation was out of the question; over and over again he had declared that he would "rather follow her to her grave than see her the wife of that young blackguard, Jim Spedwick."

The hopelessness, difficulties and painfulness of the situation were only too apparent to the girl as, distressed and agitated she stood leaning on Jim's arm and gazing abstractedly at the dark waters of the lake, as if she hoped to find some solution of the problem there.

A more lonely or romantic spot for a lover's meeting could hardly have been imagined. Here in the tall rushes that fringed the pool the coots—shyest of all water birds—built their nests in security, while wild ducks and teal made the secluded spot their home. It was a strip of primitive nature in the heart of a rural county. The Copse being Mr. Lacey's property, and private, Norah frequently visited the pool in the summer time, for she was fond of painting and working there, it was so quiet and peaceful, so romantic and dreamy that it appealed to her. But now her heart was heavy, and her brain was tortured with many conflicting thoughts. In yielding to the request of her lover to see him once more, she was conscious of having committed a grave error, for all her love for him was revived, but how could she hope to break don the barriers that had been reared between him and her.

"I know you love me, Jim," she said in low, tender and plaintive tones, "and I love you, God knows I do. But, dear one, what am I to do? Think of what it means for me to go against all my family. My father would curse me, I am sure. You know how stern and determined he can be. Do you suppose he would ever forgive me if I went against his wishes? He has strictly forbidden me to hold any communication with you, and yet here I am now. Whatever would he say if he could see us?"

Jim was quite as distressed as she was; for he was neither lightheaded nor frivolous enough to be indifferent to the intricacies of the situation; nor did he underestimate the heaviness of his own responsibility. His position was precarious. His father was a ruined man, having lost a fortune through unwise speculation; and he was practically dependent on his uncle in Jamaica: an old and wealthy West Indian planter, a bachelor but crotchety and irrascible, and subject to ever-changing moods, whims and fancies. Jim hoped that the old man would leave him some, if not all his money; but he mentally asked himself whether on this slender chance he was justified in persuading Norah to give up the peace and luxury of her home; to sacrifice the love of her people and all her brilliant prospects to share with him the uncertain future? And yet he loved her and she loved him, and such a love is a mighty factor in the sum of human affairs.

"It seems to me, Norah," he answered sadly, "that there is nothing for it but to part, and part for ever."

"For ever?" she echoed with a start, and as though she hadn't viewed the situation from that aspect before.

"Yes. The world will be nothing to me without you, and in the delirium of a reckless life I shall try to find forgetfulness, and a speedy ending. Why should I live; why should I desire to live? You are my life, my world, my all."

The girl shuddered, drew a little closer to him and tightened her clasp upon his arm; while unperceived by either of them, two men, each armed with a gun, suddenly appeared behind some bushes at the end of the lake, but quickly withdrew again on perceiving the young couple.

"Jim," said Norah with a decisiveness in her intonation, "I won't give you up without a struggle; but my only hope is in my mother, and I am by no means sure that she will take my part. But come back with me now and see her; father is away from home, as I told you in my letter, and it is now or never. If we can win her to our side all may be well. At any rate it is worth trying."

Jim's face brightened.

"It is worth trying," he said, and he manifested his feeling by taking her to his breast and warmly embracing her. Then arm in arm they moved off towards the gate, and from behind the bushes one of the two armed men stole forth and stealthily followed them. But the young couple were unconscious of this: they were absorbed in themselves, they were thinking of their own affairs, which to them at that crisis of their fate were of graver importance than aught else in the world. They were young, and had not yet come to full understanding of the responsibilities of life. They had looked into each other's eyes and saw their world there. But they had already verified the proverb that the course of true love never did run smooth; and they were full of anxiety about the future. Norah's father was a determined, self-willed egotistical man, and had sternly set his face against his daughter's union with Spedwick. But youth is sanguine, and in their distress the young people hoped that though the father was adamant, the mother would prove to be more sympathetic. Circumstances seemed to be in their favour, for Mr. Lacey's absence from home rendered it comparatively easy to approach Mrs. Lacey, and if she could be won over it might be well. The "if," however, was an all-important factor in the calculation, and a surprise awaited them, upon which they had not counted.