Читать книгу Our Admirable Betty - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 4
ОглавлениеINTRODUCING THE RAVISHER OF THE SAME
Major John D'Arcy was hard at work on his book (that is to say, he had been, for divers plans and papers littered the table before him) but just now he leaned far back in his elbow-chair, long legs stretched out, deep-plunged in balmy slumber; perceiving which the Sergeant halted suddenly, stood at ease and stared.
The Major's great black peruke dangled from the chair-back, and his close-cropped head (already something grizzled at the temples) was bowed upon his broad chest, wherefore, ever and anon, he snored gently. The Major was forty-one but just now as he sat lost in the oblivion of sleep he looked thirty; but then again when he strode gravely to and fro in his old service coat (limping a little by reason of an old wound) and with black brows wrinkled in sober thought he looked fifty at the least.
Thus he continued to sleep and the Sergeant to stare until presently, choking upon a snore, the Major opened his eyes and sat up briskly, whereupon the Sergeant immediately came to attention.
"Ha, Zeb!" exclaimed the Major in mild wonder, "what is it, Sergeant Zeb?"
"Your honour 'tis the cherries——"
"Cherries?" yawned the Major, "the cherries are doing very well, thanks to your unremitting care, Sergeant, and of all fruits commend me to cherries. Now had it been cherries that led our common mother Eve into—ha—difficulties, Sergeant, I could have sympathised more deeply with her lamentable—ha—I say with her very deplorable—ha——"
"Reverse, sir?"
"Reverse?" mused the Major, rubbing his chin. "Aye, reverse will serve, Zeb, 'twill serve!"
"And three more squads of 'em missing, sir—looted, your honour's arternoon by means of escalade t'other side party-wall. Said cherries believed to have been took by parties unknown lately from London, sir, not sixty minutes since and therefore suspected to be not far off."
"Why, this must be looked to, Zeb!" said the Major, rising. "So, Sergeant, let us look—forthwith."
"Wig, sir!" suggested the Sergeant, holding it out.
"Aye, to be sure!" nodded the Major, taking and clapping it on somewhat askew. "Now—Sergeant—forward!"
"Stick, sir!" said the Sergeant, proffering a stout crab-tree staff.
"Aye!" smiled the Major, twirling it in a sinewy hand, "'twill be useful like as not."
So saying (being ever a man of action) the Major sallied forth carrying the stick very much as if it had been a small-sword; along the terrace he went and down the steps (two at a time) and so across the wide sweep of velvety lawn with prodigious strides albeit limping a little by reason of one of his many wounds, the tails of his war-worn Ramillie coat fluttering behind. Reaching the orchard he crossed to a particular corner and halted before a certain part of the red brick wall where grew the cherry tree in question.
"Sir," said the Sergeant, squaring his shoulders, "you'll note as all cherries has been looted from top branch—only ones as was ripe——"
"A thousand devils!" exclaimed the Major.
"Also," continued the Sergeant, "said branch has been broke sir."
"Ten thousand——" The Major stopped suddenly and shutting his mouth very tight opened his grey eyes very wide and stared into two other eyes which had risen into view on the opposite side of the wall, a pair of eyes that looked serenely down at him, long, heavy-lashed, deeply blue beneath the curve of their long, black lashes; he was conscious also of a nose, neither straight nor aquiline, of a mouth scarlet and full-lipped, of a chin round, white, dimpled but combative and of a faded sun-bonnet beneath whose crumpled brim peeped a tress of glossy, black hair.
"Now God—bless—my soul!" exclaimed the Major.
"'Tis to be hoped so, sir," said the apparition gravely, "you were swearing, I think?"
The Major flushed.
"Young woman——" he began.
"Ancient man!"
"Madam!"
"Sir!"
The Major stood silent awhile, staring up into the grave blue eyes above the wall.
"Pray," said he at last, "why do you steal my cherries?"
"To speak truth, sir, because I am so extreme fond of cherries."
Here Sergeant Tring gurgled, choked, coughed and finding the Major's eye upon him immediately came to attention, very stiff in the back and red in the face.
The Major stroked his clean-shaven chin and eyed him askance.
"Sergeant, you may—er—go," said he; whereat the Sergeant saluted, wheeled sharply and marched swiftly away.
"And pray," questioned the Major again, "who might you be?"
"A maid, sir."
"Hum!" said he, "and what would your mistress say if she knew you habitually stole and ate my cherries?"
"My mistress?" The grave blue eyes opened wider.
"Aye," nodded the Major, "the fine London lady. You are her maid, I take it?"
"Indeed, sir, her very own."
"Well, suppose I inform her of your conduct, how then?"
"She'd swear at me, sir."
"Egad, and would she so?"
"O, sir, she often doth and stamps at and reviles and rails at me morning, noon and night!"
"Poor child!" said the Major.
"Truly, sir, I do think she'd do me an injury if she didn't care for me so much."
"Then she cares for you?"
"More than anyone in the world beside! Indeed she loveth me as herself, sir!"
"Women be mysterious creatures!" said the Major, sententiously.
"But you know my lady belike by repute, sir?"
"Not even her name."
"Not know of the Lady Elizabeth Carlyon!" and up went a pair of delicate black brows in scornful amaze.
"I have known but three women in my life, and one of them my mother," he answered.
"You sound rather dismal, methinks. But you must have remarked my lady in the Mall, sir?"
"I seldom go to London."
"Now, sir, you sound infinite dismal and plaguily dull!"
"Dull?" repeated the Major thoughtfully, "aye perhaps I am, and 'tis but natural—ancient men often are, I believe."
"And your peruke is all askew!"
"Alack, it generally is!" sighed the Major.
"And you wear a vile old coat!"
"Truly I fear it hath seen its best days!" sighed the Major, glancing down wistfully at the war-worn garment in question.
"O, man," she cried, shaking her head at him, "for love of Heaven don't be so pestilent humble—I despise humility in horse or man!"
"Humble? Am I?" queried the Major and fell to pondering the question, chin in hand.
"Aye, truly," she answered, nodding aggressively, "your humility nauseates me, positively!"
"Child," he answered smiling, "what manner of man would you have?"
"Grandad," she answered, "I would have him tall and strong and brave, but—above all—masterful!"
"In a word, a blustering bully!" he answered gently, grey eyes a-twinkle.
"Aye," she nodded vehemently, "even that, rather than—than a—a——"
"An ancient man, ill-dressed and humble," he suggested and laughed; whereat she frowned and bit her bonnet-string in strong, white teeth, then:
"'Tis a very beast of a coat!" she exclaimed, "stained, spotted, tarnished, tattered and torn!"
"Torn!" exclaimed the Major, glancing down at himself again. "Egad and Sergeant Zebedee mended it but a week since——"
"And the buttons are scratched and hanging by threads!"
"Aye, but they'll not come off," said the Major confidently, "I sewed 'em on myself."
"You sewed them—you!" and she laughed in fine scorn. "Indeed, sir, I marvel they don't drop off under my very eyes!"
"Madam," said he gravely, "among few accomplishments, permit me to say I am a somewhat expert—er—needles-man."
Hereupon the apparition seated herself dexterously on the broad coping of the wall and from that vantage surveyed him with eyes of cold disparagement. And after she had regarded him thus for a long moment she spoke 'twixt curling red lips:
"O, Gemini—I might have known it!"
At this the Major ruffled the curls of his great wig and regarded her with some apprehension. At last he ventured a question:
"And pray madam, what might you have known concerning me?"
"A man who sews on his own buttons is a disgrace to his sex," she answered.
"But how if he have no woman to do it for him?"
"He should be a man and—get one."
"Hum!" said the Major thoughtfully, "a needle is a sharp engine and apt to prick one occasionally 'tis true, and yet a man may prefer it to a woman."
"And you," she exclaimed, drooping disdainful lashes, "you—are a—soldier!"
"I was!" he answered.
"Soldiers are gallant, they say."
"They are kind!" bowed the Major.
"You are, I think, the poor, old, wounded soldier Major d'Arcy who lives at the Manor yonder?" she questioned.
"I am that shattered wreck, madam, and what remains of me is very humbly at your service!" and setting hand to bosom of war-worn coat he bowed with a prodigious flourish.
"And you have never been so extreme fortunate as to behold my Lady Elizabeth Carlyon?"
"Hum!" said the Major, pondering, "what like is she?"
At this slender hands clasped each other, dark eyes upturned themselves to translucent heaven and rounded bosom heaved ecstatic:
"O sir, she is extreme beautiful, 'tis said! She is a toast adored! She is seen but to be worshipped! She hath wit, beauty and a thousand accomplishments! She hath such an air! Such a killing droop of the eyelash! She is—O, she is irresistible!"
"Indeed," said the Major, glancing up into the beautiful face above, "the description is just, though something too limited, perhaps."
The eyes came back to earth and the Major in a flash:
"Then you have seen her, sir?"
"I'm sure of it."
"Then describe her—come!"
"Why, she is, I judge, neither too short nor too tall!"
"True!" nodded the apparition, gently acquiescent.
"Of a delicate slimness——"
"True—O, most true, sir!"
"Yet sufficiently—er—full and rounded!"
The dark eyes were veiled suddenly by down-drooping lashes:
"You think so, sir?"
"Hair night-black, a chin well-determined and bravely dimpled—
"It hath been remarked before, sir!"
"Rosy lips——"
"Fie, sir, 'tis a vulgar phrase and trite. I suggest instead rose-petals steeped in dew."
"A nose——"
"Indeed, sir?"
"Neither arched nor straight and eyes—eyes——" the Major hesitated, stammered and came to an abrupt pause.
"And what of her eyes, sir? I have heard them called dreamy lakes, starry pools and unfathomable deeps, ere now. What d'you make of them?"
But the Major's own eyes were lowered, his bronzed cheek showed an unwonted flush and his sinewy fingers were fumbling with one of his loose coat-buttons.
"Nought!" said he at last, "others methinks have described 'em better than ever I could."
"Major d'Arcy," said the voice softer and sweeter than ever, "I grieve to tell you your wig is more over one eye than ever. And as for your old coat, some fine day, sir, an you chance to walk hereabouts I may possibly trouble to show you how a woman sews a button on!"
Saying which the apparition vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
The Major stood awhile deep-plunged in reverie, then setting the crabtree staff beneath his arm he wended his way slowly towards the house, limping a little more than usual as he always did when much preoccupied.
On his way he chanced upon the Sergeant wandering somewhat aimlessly with a hammer in his hand.
"Sergeant," said he slowly, "er—Zebedee—if any more cherries—should happen to—er—go astray—vanish——"
"Or be stole, sir!" added the Sergeant.
"Exactly, Zeb, precisely,—if such a contingency should arise you will—er——"
"Challenge three times, sir and then—"
"Er—no, Sergeant, no! I think, under the circumstances, Zeb, we'll just—er—let 'em—ah—vanish, d'ye see!"
Then the Major limped slowly and serenely into the house and left the Sergeant staring at the hammer in his hand with eyes very wide and round.
"Ventre bleu! Sacré bleu! Zookers!" said he.
