Читать книгу The 'Piping Times' - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 13

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THE Ladies Orrington, seated ’neath shady tree on smooth-shaven lawn before the stately old Manor House, busied with crochet and needlework, were quarrelling as usual. Being twins, they were naturally so devoted to one another that they could not bear to be apart, and yet, though twins, each was the other’s opposite, physically and mentally. For whereas Serena, senior by exactly two and a half minutes, was blonde and plumply ripe as Venus, she was meekly gentle; while Lady Justinia, proud as Juno, was dark, angular and fierce; also, being thirty-seven years of age, they regarded each other as elderly, and bore themselves accordingly.

“... There now,—drat you, Serena!” exclaimed her sister, with the utmost ferocity. “I say drat and confound you, you’ve made me prick my finger!”

“Oh, then suck it, pet!” cooed Lady Serena with tender smile.

“S-s-suck it?” hissed Justinia between large, white teeth, black brows knit above aquiline nose. “Ha—what odious suggestion! Suck it indeed!”

“Yes, darling,” murmured Serena. “I believe the human saliva is extremely good for small wounds and—”

“Dis-gusting!” snapped Justinia, with stamp of large though shapely foot. “But if you must make such horrid, coarse suggestion, be honestly coarse and say—‘spit’!”

“Justinia—my love! as though I could, or would! You know I wouldn’t and couldn’t, and never will, horrors—no! All I said actually was——”

“Never mind what you said, only don’t dare to say it again, shaming yourself and me, or——Oh, my stars—men!”

“Men, Justinia? How ... who ... where?”

“Over there,—there at the end of the drive ... by the carriage gates, silly! Two men ... strangers ... and they approach!”

“So they do, pet, yes—but not strangers, at least—not quite. Surely one of them is Marcus ... I mean Mr. Timkins, of course. There,—he sees us!”

“He would!” snapped Lady Justinia, between shut teeth. “And my bustle all twisted ... quite out of place.”

“Heavens!” gasped Lady Serena. “And I left mine upstairs!”

“And the best place for it, Serena! You need no bustle with your too obtrusively buxom proportions!”

“Ah, my—darling!” said Lady Serena, with dart of threatening needle. “Sometimes I almost feel inclined to scratch you, my pet.”

“Hush, Serena, we shall be overheard! Compose yourself and endeavour at least to appear ladylike!” Saying this, the Lady Justinia, having contrived to push her errant bustle into its proper station or nearly so, she and her twin sister rose with all the stately grace of English gentlewomen backed by the pride of a thousand noble ancestors; but as their visitors drew near this austere dignity gave place to the glad, unaffected welcome of two warm-hearted women.

“Justin!” cried Lady Justinia, reaching him two somewhat bony though white and graceful hands, “I hardly knew you!”

“Oh, my darling, dearest boy!” cooed Serena. “So tall, so vastly grown! Come and embrace me at once!”

Tom, not the least taken aback by the fervour of this welcome, since of old he knew it sincere, clasped a long arm about each Aunt, kissed them heartily, right and left, whereafter they both saluted ‘dear Mr. Timkins’ with curtsies of a deep graciousness quite out of date even in those gracious days.

“Justinia,” said Lady Serena, “they must drink something—instantly!”

“Certainly, Serena, and brandy of course!”

“No, no, Aunt,” laughed Tom, “ale for me, if you please.”

“Ale?” exclaimed Justinia, bridling. “But, my dear Justin, ale is so common and vulgar, so very low and taverny.”

“Try sherry, Justin darling,” Lady Serena pleaded.

“Sister—refrain!” quoth Lady Justinia, in terrible voice. “I was about to suggest port or sherry, since both are gentlemanly and——”

“Or tea?” said Lady Serena, gently though firmly. “Tea with bread and butter cut thin and rolled, cress sandwiches, buttered scones and——”

“Serena, be dumb!”

“Justinia, my love—I will—not!”

“Dearest Aunts,” laughed Tom, clasping arms about each of them again, “tea is the thing! Tea with heaps of bread and butter, loads of cake and what not, here on the lawn, eh, Tim, old fellow?”

“Tim?” exclaimed Lady Serena, opening her blue eyes at Mr. Timkins.

“And I’m ‘Tom’, dear Aunts both, pray remember,” said he.

“Tom?” demanded Lady Justinia, looking at him beneath arching black brows. “So, Justin, you persist in using that extremely commonplace name instead of your own?”

“Yes, Aunt,” he answered, kissing the nearest of her haughty eyebrows, “commonplace ‘Tom’ better suits commonplace me.”

“Just as you used to do when quite a naughty little boy! For shame, Justin,—there has always been a Justin and Justinia in The Family, and there always must or it will vanish, and that will be a woeful day for poor England. However ‘Tom’ is quite absurdly impossible for a Wade-Orrington! ‘Tom’ indeed!”

“And ‘Tim.’ Justin,” said Lady Serena. “You called Mr. Timkins ‘Tim’, which does not suit him either.... Oh no, not in the least.”

“Well ... no,” answered Tom, looking at him now with more knowledge. “I’m inclined to confess it doesn’t. What name do you suggest for him, Aunt Serena?”

Now at this question, and for no apparent reason, she blushed shyly as any girl (of that period) and glancing down at the emerald ring upon her white finger, answered in her gentle voice, soft now as a caress:

“I think, perhaps,—no, I am sure,—a far more suitable name would be ... Marcus, or ... simply ... Mark.”

“By Jingo, Aunt!” exclaimed Tom, kissing her ruddy lips. “By George and Jove—you’ve hit it! You’re right—absolutely! I’ve always imagined a fellow named Mark to be a strong, silent kind of bloke, a patient, much-enduring sort of chap, with dark hair going white at his temples and a fighter’s mouth and chin,—and there he is to a T! So, Tim, old fellow, thanks to my Aunt Serena you’re christened anew, henceforth and forever you are—Mark!”

Now why should Lady Serena blush again more girlishly than ever, and, bowing stately head, show thus for creature glorified by the shy, sweet Spirit of Eternal Youth; a woman beautiful in her richly gracious maturity, a vision of all that was lovely and desirable? So thought one, as, in this raptured moment, dark eyes gazed deep into eyes of blue; a look, a sigh, a fleeting moment, a tender, lasting memory.

“Day-dreaming again, Serena! Justin, pinch her for me! Ha, if you won’t, I will!”

“No need, pet,” said Lady Serena, turning towards her imperious twin. “I am awake ... in a world of ... glory.”

“A glory of fiddlesticks! You’ve been complaining of the heat all day.”

“Oh, I know, sweet pet, but now——!” The speaker’s lovely eyes beamed with a new light, her vivid lips quivered to wistful smile.

“Gracious goodness, Serena, why do you gloat? Suppose you ring for tea, the bell is on the table yonder.”

“Justinia pet,” murmured her sister, tenderly, “my darling, suppose I don’t and you do.”

“Pho!” exclaimed Justinia, snorting contemptuously, and, snatching up the bell, rang it furiously. In answer to which fierce summons, out from the house appeared an aged though dignified personage in fleecy whiskers, striped waistcoat and the more usual habiliments, of course, who, bowing to his ladies solemnly and to the visitors beamingly, murmured deferentially:

“I think I heard your bell, my lady.”

“You are stone deaf if you didn’t!” quoth Justinia. “Judson, of course I rang, and of course for tea, let it appear, and instantly!”

“Yes, my lady.”

“With cake, Juddy, lots of it!” added Tom. “Not forgetting heaps of bread and butter. How are you, Jud, old sportsman? You never seem to change, no—not since my far, far distant schooldays. D’you remember the tricks I used to play you—and once even dared to give those whiskers a tweak to know if they were real? Jove, what a peculiarly scaly brat I must have been! How goes it with you these days, Juddy?”

“My lord,” answered the old man, shaking hands very precisely, but his aged eyes very bright. “Master Justin, I am very well, I thank you, and all the better for seeing your lordship again, and as for——”

“Tea, Judson, tea!” snapped Lady Justinia.

“At once, my dear lady, at once!”

“And don’t attempt it yourself, let the footmen bring it, remember now!”

“I will, my dear lady.”

“He is always attempting too much!” said Justinia, so soon as the old butler was beyond earshot. “Some day he’ll have a fit or something awful, and there will be a nice kettle of fish!”

“Dear old fellow,” said Tom, reminiscently. “How I used to plague him! Once I pinned a back-rapper to his coat-tail! Lord, what a fiendly young urchin and revolting pest I must have been!”

“Indeed you were!” said Justinia, in hearty agreement.

“Though never, ah—never to me!” murmured Serena. “To me, Justinia, he was always a dear, sweet, affectionate, loving lamb!”

“Serena, do not be so false and fulsome! Justin was an impish brat of a boy, forever in mischief or fighting other boys, you know he was!”

“Though gentle as a dove with me, my sweet, whenever you slapped him he came to me to be kissed, you will remember——”

“Serena, sit down and be hushed or go and put on your bustle!”

“Justinia—fie!” gasped her twin, sinking upon the nearest seat, and doing it very gracefully. “Indeed ’tis you now deserve to be slapped, my precious!”

“Aunt Justinia,” laughed Tom, stealing his arm about her, “you do, indeed, so come and let her slap!”

“No—no, silly boy, she’d only kiss me, she ever does, no matter what I do or say. She is so maddeningly, placidly gentle, the poor, silly creature!”

“And yet,” Serena retorted, “you would quite languish without me, my precious, yes, you would fade away and perish.”

“Of course I should!” cried Justinia. “And this is how you trample on and triumph over me—just because you happen to be two and a half minutes older than I am ... and thank heaven here’s the tea at last! Here, Judson, ’neath this tree, in the shade!”

And when the two stalwart footmen, supervised by old Judson and directed by Justinia, had borne the heavy-laden table completely round the massive tree-bole,—into the shade and out of the shade, and finally set it precisely in its original position, they sat down to this peculiarly English meal, sipping and nibbling on the ladies’ part, eating and drinking heartily on Tom’s part while Tim (now and hereafter Mark) sat gazing nowhere in particular, and stirring his tea round and round until—cried Lady Justinia, arrogant nose up-flung:

“For mercy’s sake, George Timkins, do stop dithering, and drink man—do!”

“Now, Sweetness,” murmured Serena, white dimpled finger raised to admonish, “why bully the poor man when you have me? Besides, George being Mark, isn’t George any longer.”

“Stuff and nonsense, Serena,—silence yourself with a sandwich! Now, Justin, my dear, to what happy cause do we owe the pleasure of this most unexpected visit?”

And hereupon glancing from one handsome, stately aunt to the other, Tom replied instantly:

“The hope that you will tell me about my mother—everything, yes, all there is to know.”

Lady Justinia dropped the cake she had been nibbling; Lady Serena choked into her cup; Mark, leaning back in his chair, gazed up into the thick foliage above; and so, for a long moment, was a strange, tense silence.

“Well,” exclaimed Lady Justinia, at last, “well ... I never did!”

“Yes, Aunt, years ago you heard me ask much the same question, and you put me off. But I was only a boy then. To-day I ask you again—as a man.”

“And to-day, Justin, for your own sake I still decline to speak.”

“But to-day, dear Aunt, I am determined, and demand to know ... for her sake and my own. So I ask you again, both of you, all of you,—what is the mystery of my mother?”

“Very well then,” answered Lady Justinia, at her stateliest, “since you demand, I will tell you, in two words: shame and disgrace!”

“No, ah—no!” sighed Lady Serena, gently.

“Yes,” said her sister fiercely, “shame and disgrace brought upon our proud and honourable name, contumely and scorn.”

“How?” Tom enquired, hoarsely, since it seemed his own secret fears were to be realized.

“Your mother fled away, the guilty creature, with her paramour—”

“I will never believe it!” panted Lady Serena. “I did not then, and I will not now.”

“Because you don’t wish to, Serena, being such a silly, sentimental baby. But you know perfectly well——”

“Only what we were told, Justinia.”

“Certainly, but—by brother Gawain himself, remember!”

“But even Gawain may be mistaken and——”

“Not of his own shame, Serena. Remember how he told us ... ah, that dreadful hour! Himself so still, so pale, so quiet ... it was like a dead man speaking to proclaim life ruined, home desolate, his honoured name a by-word ... shamed before the world! I thought to see him sink in death before me ... And all because of ... that woman!”

“My mother!” said Tom, gently. “And called Janice,—a strange, pretty name. How old was she?”

“Old?” repeated Serena, tearfully, “she was little more than a child, a sweet, timid, gentle creature, a mother at seventeen.”

“Ha!” snorted Justinia, contemptuously. “Yet old enough to know good from evil, bold enough to desert her noble husband, her splendid home.”

“Because such splendour frightened her, Justinia, her noble husband neglected her—just when she needed him most, his tender care and sympathy.”

“Nonsense and worse, Serena! Our brother was greatly busied just then with affairs of State, his duty to our Sovereign, Her most Gracious Majesty.”

“What of me?” Tom enquired. “How old was I—then?”

“Not a year, Justin, you were exactly——”

“Did she—desert me too?”

“Well ... no!”

“And ‘No’ indeed!” cried Serena. “You were her darling baby, Justin, the one joy and comfort of her solitude, her very life and soul! So when she fled she bore her baby with her.”

“Stole Gawain’s heir, Serena!”

“Took her babe within her bosom, Justinia!”

“But,” said Tom, “my father ... took me back again ... how?”

“Ah, Justin,” quoth Lady Justinia, “what dreadful, sordid business was your recovery! We dreaded a law-court, the publicity, the odium. What harrowing anxiety before your wronged father won you to his care!”

“So then,” murmured Tom, “she ... wanted me, did she? Did her poor best to keep me?”

“Justin, she fought like a tigress. Oh, viciously.”

“No, dear Justin, like a yearning mother. Oh, desperately!”

“And ... with whom,” enquired Tom, soft and hesitant, “with whom ... did she ... elope?”

“This I ... cannot say,” murmured Serena.

“Because we do not know!” snapped Justinia. “So now, my poor Justin, now that you are informed, what have you to say of this shocking affair?”

“Nothing, Aunt.”

“Oh, Justin ... dear boy!” whispered Serena, reaching white hand to him. “But ... what are you ... going to do?”

“Find her.”

“Her?” demanded Justinia, in awful tone.

“Her?” sighed Serena, clasping Tom’s hand now in both her own, “Oh, you mean ...?”

“My mother.”

“Wrong!” exclaimed Justinia. “Unjust and most unfilial towards your father!”

“Glorious!” cried Serena, reaching out her shapely arms. “And your pious, sacred duty towards your lonely mother! So, Justin, come and be kissed!”

“Pho!” exclaimed Justinia, “such silly, sentimental mawkishness!”

“And pho to you, my fierce pet! Justin, go and kiss her, too, or she’ll claw me for jealousy later on, the poor, passionate darling wretch. And now, Mr. Tim—no, Mark, take me indoors and I will show you my plans for the new cottages. Oh, but, Justinia darling, having regard to our guests, hadn’t you better make——”

But here Lady Justinia gave another vigorous and prolonged performance on the bell until her sister and Mark had vanished, and the old butler presented himself in their place.

“Judson, what have we to offer our gentlemen for dinner?”

“Well, my lady, we’ve soup, oxtail, salmon, sweetbreads or lamb cutlets followed by roast fowl, and breast of veal, stuffed.”

“Goodness gracious, man, is this all?”

“My lady for cold side dishes we can offer beef, roast, spiced and boiled, with ham, tongue and various savouries.”

“No game, Judson?”

“Alas, none, my dear lady, it being——”

“This is quite mortifying, Judson! To-day, as you see, is an occasion.”

“Never you mind, Juddy,” said Tom, “we don’t sound like starving ... Come on, Aunt Justinia, take my arm and let’s toddle along to the stables....”

Later that night, being on their ways to bed, Lady Serena drew Tom aside into a shadowy alcove half-way up the wide, old stair.

“Justin,” she whispered, “tell me, and promise, on your sacred word of honour, to speak truly.”

“I swear!”

“Then ... Oh, Justin, am I ... growing ... fat?”

“Dear Aunt,” he whispered back, “you sweet loveliness, I vow and protest you might show as a perfect Rubens’ Venus!”

“Rubens!” she murmured, pondering. “But all his goddesses are rather ... fleshy, aren’t they?”

“Deliciously so!” whispered Tom, and kissed her again.

“Do you intend to remain with us ... very long, Justin?”

“No, I fancy we leave to-morrow.”

“That is very soon, dear; I shall grieve to lose you, and yet it will be for me a great ... relief!”

“Eh,—relief, Aunt?”

“Yes, my dear, a relief, though quite painful too ... because of ... Mark.”

“Oh?” murmured Tom. “Does this mean you hate or ... love him?”

“Ah, my dear, I have loved him, and he me, oh these many years, and so deeply, so truly, that time but makes us ... yearn the more. So I am glad you leave soon, because I am ... quite ... dreadfully ... human!”

Drawing her near, Tom looked deep into the blue innocence of her gentle eyes; then questioned wonderingly:

“If you so love and need each other, why on earth don’t you marry?”

“Ah, my dear, he is married ... this is what makes everything so ... dreadful! Long and long ago ... before we ever met! Twenty weary years ago ... I was only eighteen! Yes, he had a wife even then.”

“A wife? Mark?”

“Oh yes. He married very young, of course.”

“But good lord, Aunt—where is she?”

“Hopelessly mad, poor creature, and shut away long ago ... and ... Oh, my dear, there is no divorce for insanity!”

“How utterly preposterous!”

“So here is my grief, Justin dear, to wait and wait, knowing myself getting older every day with the haunting dread that I may become ... fat ... repulsive and——”

“Never!” exclaimed Tom. “Never in this world! Whatever else—you can never be repulsive!” And Tom said this with such evident sincerity and fervour that she kissed him with sighing murmur of:

“You comforting darling!”

Then they went on side by side, up the wide old stair: but reaching the door of her bedroom (his boyish haven from vengeful pursuit by some victim of his impishness) Tom paused to enquire:

“What was she like, my mother,—I mean, to look at? Not like me, of course.”

“No, dear, not the least bit like you.”

“Then she must have been pretty?”

“Yes, Justin. Oh very! A shy, lovely creature, born in the country, and should never have been anywhere else; a spirit of woods and leafy solitudes ... no wonder she languished in London and was horrified by her husband’s great houses and hosts of servants.”

“Exactly!” nodded Tom. “Yes,—I know just how she felt. And where was she born?”

“In Cornwall, at a place called Tre—something or other, if it was not Pol or Pen.”

“Trevore!” murmured Tom. “A ruin ... a desolation that some day shall live and bloom again.”