Читать книгу The Jade of Destiny - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 8

Table of Contents

“And so,” said my lady, holding morsel of bread daintily above the lily-pool where plump fish swam, “so you succeeded in this desperate emprise I set you.”

“Madam,” answered the Captain, eyes furtively a-twinkle. “I am Dinwiddie!”

“Which is item I am not like to forget, ’twould seem.”

Here she dropped the crumb, whereupon was swirl and ripple of leaping fish, while the Captain, viewing all the generous shapeliness of her as she leaned thus near, so vivid and quick with young life, became abstracted.

“You also unmasked Riderwood for the villain I knew him. I’m wondering how ’twas done?” Here, finding the Captain silent, she turned on him with arrogance: “Sir, I spoke!”

“And lo,” he answered with meekness, “all nature, entranced, stands,—awed and dumb, e’en as humble I.”

“Shall I not be answered, Captain? I would know how you proved one, so skilful and hatefully assured as lord Riderwood, a cheat so beyond all possibility of doubt or denial?”

“To such as myself, madam, the thing was patent.”

“Howbeit, Richard now scorns and bitterly despises the wretch and for this my thanks.”

“Your ladyship’s gratitude sets me on very pinnacle o’ bliss!” he murmured.

“Richard tells me the vile creature was hurt.”

“ ’Twas his misfortune to break an arm, madam.”

“God be praised!” said my lady fervently. “I could wish him so many arms and legs as a spider and all broke!”

“Your ladyship is gentlewoman of a certain vindictiveness ’twould seem!”

“My ladyship, Sir Captain, detests and abhors all such men as he. So do I rejoice you so exposed him, to his eternal dishonour, and marvel you should do it with such ease, and he so deadly and feared, ’tis my wonder!”

“Madam, I am Din——”

“Yes—widdie! ’Tis known, sir, ’tis fact admitted. And thus, knowing you for Dinwiddie, I would of Dinwiddie ask what Dinwiddie, in the dark profundities of the Dinwiddie mind, thinketh of my dear Richard?” The Captain bowed:

“That heaven hath blessed him in his sister.”

“Sir, his sister humbly thanks your Stateliness and begs the Dinwiddie’s so experienced judgement on her brother, his character.”

“I am honoured that he hath named me friend.”

“And here’s another wonder.”

“Is this, indeed, so marvellous?”

“Sir, ’tis very miracle!”

“How then, madam,” said the Captain, having duly pondered this, “seem I so bitterly dislikeable, of aspect so villainous, so harsh, repellant and altogether unlovely?”

“Nevertheless and notwithstanding,” she answered, still busied with her fish, “I find your new habit well enough; ’tis seemly and of a sombre sobriety in accord with your sober airs, your brooding visage, your mien of portentous gravity and age-old experience of this sorry world. In fine, sir, ’tis sufficiently Dinwiddieish.”

“Howbeit,” sighed he, “within this mine age-worn body, this withered husk, the heart o’ me is vernal yet, my lady Joan.” Now, meeting his whimsical look, she laughed suddenly, then:

“ ‘Joan’, quo’ he!”

“Ay, Joan!” he nodded. “ ’Tis sweetly English and suits thee better than the Greek, God wot!”

“And now, sir,” says she, a little flushed and stooping above the pool again, “there remaineth small matter o’ business betwixt us. The sum I named——”

“Madam!”

“Is methinks too mean for such instant and notable service, therefore I——”

“Lady,” said he, flushing, “pray know that as your brother’s friend——”

“Tush, sir! The labourer is worthy of his hire, a bird——”

“Your ladyship no more o’ this, I beg.”

“Sir, a bargain is a bargain and——”

“Madam, the circumstances are something altered and——”

“Also, Captain, even the Dinwiddie must eat.”

Now at this, receiving no answer, she turned and saw him prodding savagely at the grass with scabbarded sword and frowning so blackly that she instantly frowned also.

“Hoity-toity, sir!” she exclaimed, dimpled chin aloft. “I think you become mighty proud of a sudden!”

“No, madam, you merely anger me. Be pleased to suffer I go!” and he turned away.

“Remain, sir, and be assured your anger affronts me!”

“Why then ’tis not anger in vain, madam.”

“And your money shall be paid you, this moment. Lo here—take it!” So, mutely obedient, he took the heavy purse and dropped it into the lily-pool, meeting the flame of her amazed anger serene of eye and faint-smiling. And his grey eyes were wistful and his smile sad as ever, yet, it is to be thought, he was nowise unhappy.

“My lady Joan,” said he, gently, “be not angered with me, for your brother Richard hath pledged me his friendship and by his earnest desire Mr. Ferndale and I remain here his guests awhile, until——” He glanced from her vivid beauty to the glory of flowers, the winding walks and tall yew-hedges that shut in this fragrant, peaceful haven.

“Well, sir,—until?” she demanded.

“Until Destiny shall spur us hence.”

“And what of your money in the pool, here?”

“It shall be humble offering to the kind genius of this fragrant sanctuary.”

“Art a strange man, Captain Jocelyn, and vastly unexpected!” said she viewing him kinder, and with lovely head aslant.

“I am so!” he answered, shapely mouth a-twitch, “nor shalt ever behold again the like of me.”

“Oh and indeed, sir?”

“Yea, and beyond all peradventure!” he answered gravely. “For in all this world there is but one of me and this one most singular.”

“How, prithee, and wherefore—most meek and humble gentleman?”

“Lady, in me you behold the last o’ my name and this a soul apart, remote and immune from all kinship, the veriest quintessence of every Dinwiddie that ever was, the epitome of my race,—of fortune none, of friends few, of deeds amany but of dreams infinite.”

“Dreams quotha? Now methought thee man of action.”

“And, madam, that am I that dreamer am, for action is thought’s expression, and what be thoughts but dreams?”

“O’ my conscience, Captain Jocelyn, you wax passionately eloquent on yourself.”

“Verily,” he answered, “for are not ourselves unto ourselves of ourselves the chiefest concern?”

“Why, then, walk with me, sir, for i’ faith myself would of thyself learn thyself’s so infinite dreaming o’ thyself,—ay, and moreover, whereof cometh thyself’s so vasty content of thyself?”

“By self-contempt!” he answered as they wandered slowly on together.

“Ah, a paradox!” she nodded. “Prithee expound.”

“As thus, madam,” he answered gravely, his gaze roving yet very conscious of her lovely nearness, “I then, scorning myself heartily within myself, find myself, ever and anon, surprised to prove myself so greatly better than I had deemed myself, that myself taketh therein no small solace. Thus I, that have so little, scorning the much, am with the little content.”

“Why, ’tis a mad philosophy, Master Jocelyn.”

“Lady, ’tis the philosophy of one, Epictetus, that was slave to gentleman o’ Greece and, being in dungeon pent, scorned freedom and thus, in his soul, was free.”

They had reached an arbour deep-bowered in sweet vines and sitting within this fragrant shade she beckoned him beside her.

“Captain Jocelyn,” said she, sitting back the better to survey his comely though saturnine features, “you prove vastly different to my first thought of you.”

“Shall I wear my heart o’ my sleeve, madam?”

“Nay, but to so deceive me! To-day you seem soft-voiced philosopher—you that strutted into my life—a fierce, swaggering, reckless fellow, indeed the veriest bravo of Alsatia, a hireling bully for anybody’s money!”

“Now I protest your ladyship’s blandiloquent adulation and flattery fulsome is sweet incense to my self-esteem, it puffeth my vanity, it——”

“Flattery, sir?” she repeated, opening scornful eyes at him. “Are you so proud to be reckoned vile wretch to spill blood and work villainy for mere gain?”

“Beyond expression, madam! For ’twas such base rogue you sought to your need, so, for the nonce, thine own base rogue was I.”

“You mean,” she demanded, viewing him with her clear level gaze, “that you but played a part?”

“God wot, lady! I was Dick Slash and Cutting Tom, with Sir Petronal Flash thrown in,—i’ faith I was, methinks the impeccable roisterous roarer and bully par excellence!”

“And pray,” said she, eyes still intent but frowning, “what manner of creature are you now?”

“Now,” he answered, his wistful gaze on the peaceful, sunny garden, “I shall study to be all you’d have me.” Here was silence, she tapping slim foot impatiently the while she frowned at his averted face; at last she deigned him another question:

“How an I bid you be—merely yourself, sir?”

“Ay, but—which one, lady?” he sighed.

“Heaven aid me! Art so various, sir?”

“Infinitely, madam.”

“Then be of yourselves the poor best.” Here my lady arose, shook voluminous petticoats about her shapeliness with gesture petulant though gracious and then, seeing the Captain had risen also, sat down again.

“Be seated, sir!” she commanded and, meekly bowing, he obeyed.

“So then you refuse my service, sir?”

“Never in the world!” he answered and with such fervour that she frowned at him.

“Yet in your new-gotten high-mightiness you refuse a just payment—ah, how dared you throw it into the pool?”

“I saw no place so fit, madam.”

“And you will not that I pay this money agreed and earned?”

“Pray believe so.”

“And why? Because I am woman?”

“Because I am your ladyship’s brother’s friend.”

“So then I am done with you, sir.”

“So then,” he sighed, “tottering creation sinks in thunderous ruin——”

“Ha, will you mock? D’you dare flout me, sir?” she stormed.

“Rather do I grieve, madam, and——”

“Tush, sir! With your ‘tottering ruin’, forsooth!”

“Most truly,” he nodded. “For my creation was a noble dream wherein I, that ever dream most daringly, so fearless dreamed, that thou and I won of each other such respect that blossomed to a kindly friendship, a sweet and gentle amity——”

“Oh, never!” she retorted, sitting very stately. “I’ll be friend to no man that holdeth me in his debt,—and in especial—you!”

“And wherefore this distinction, my lady?”

“For that you, sir, are, God bless us,—Dinwiddie!”

“Ay, faith!” he nodded forlornly. “So have I been all my life, but for this I had plucked the moon from heaven and juggled with the stars.”

“Oh?” she mocked. “Are we now humble? Doth humility rule awhile, most mighty, ineffectual gentleman?”

“Ay, truly, truly!” he sighed. “Thirty and seven years I have striven with life, flouted Death, battled with Circumstance, endured the peril and plague o’ divers wars and am to-day dubbed—ineffectual! Lady, I am dumb!”

“God be thanked!” she retorted. “For you stifle me with ocean o’ words. You jibe me, jeer me with solemn look, you confound me with phrases fantastical, and you toss away your money as it stung you! I prove you a man proud to folly, vain to extravagance, disputatious, obstinate, of words too many, of graces too few, overbearing, overweening, yet, over all a man—and so ’tis, Sir Prideful Arrogance, I humbly bid you welcome to Aldrington Chase!” And rising swiftly, she sunk before him, down and down, in slow and gracious reverence while Jocelyn sat there motionless wide-eyed and, for once, bereft of all words.

“Lo, sir,” said she, rising with a stately ease, “for your wordy ocean, my speechful cataract! Come now, let us go seek a gardener shall recover your so despised gold.”

So forth they went into the balmy sunshine, pacing flower-bordered paths awhile in silence. And because of his dumbness she turned aside to smile at a flower and inhale its dewy sweetness, and thereafter hummed to herself softly but very gaily; but presently, glancing askance at him, met his look of perplexity and laughed.

“Prithee, why so strangely silent, so unwonted dumb?” she questioned, with something of malice. “Art drowned in my speechful torrent?”

“God wot, madam, that am I!” he answered, grave and wistful. “I pain to know if your so kind welcome hath in it anything of sincerity.”

“In troth, sir, yes. For did you not promise me, though very lightly, that you would save my dear Richard from—himself? And I dream belike you may—or at the least, something off-set the evil companionship of his latter days. For though methinks ’tis labour for a Hercules, yet as I mind, you are—Dinwiddie! Sir, I would have him learn how a busy life here, in the despised country among his people, may be lived, ay, by even a fine gentleman, to better purpose than wasted upon the wicked town.”

“Hast faith in my powers, my lady Joan?”

“Again, sir, you are Dinwiddie! So needs must my faith be absolute.”

Now when they had paced some while in silence, Jocelyn spoke with tone and look strangely humble:

“Wilt stoop to mine aid in this?”

“With all my heart!” she answered and paused to turn and look at him. And thus stood they a long moment, eyes searching eyes; and presently, when they walked on again, though their words were few, they went in a new communion.