Читать книгу Charmian, Lady Vibart - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 4
ОглавлениеCHAPTER II
TELLS HOW CHARMIAN WROTE A LETTER AND WHY
From this pleached walk, demurely trim as were all walks and paths here at Holm Dene, one might enjoy a prospect of the mansion itself, a thing of beauty from pre-Norman foundation stones to Elizabethan chimneys. A noble house of ruddy brick mellowed by weather and time, enriched by carved timbering and barge-boards, roofed mostly with mossy stone, after the Sussex fashion; and yet despite hoary age it smiled rejuvenated and, like the wide, undulating park, the trim lawns, paths and hedges, bore mute though eloquent testimony to its owner’s loving and tender care.
But just now, leaning back on the marble seat that throned her, Lady Vibart was frowning at it. Now presently as she sat thus in peevish contemplation, upon the warm, still air rose a sound, a clink and clank vaguely martial that grew ever louder and more so; a subdued, ringing clash suggestive of meeting swords, bayonets, and foeman’s steel in deadly opposition; which dire sounds heralded the approach of a tall, somewhat angular, very dignified lady, and were explained by the enormous silver chatelaine she bore girt about her person almost as it had been an ancestral claymore or broad-sword, for Miss Janet McFarlane was Scots to her rigid backbone and so proud of the fact that she talked broadly as she knew how, until at all perturbed when her speech became mellifluously English.
“So ’tis there y’are, ma wee birdie!” quoth she, halting with clash of invisible broad-swords. “And my certie, ’tis unco’ fashed ye’ll be, I’m thinkin’. Whaur’s it the noo, Charmian-Sophia?”
“Everything, Janet,—myself, this place—Peter!”
“Then na doot ’twill be y’r liver! A sup o’ my dandelion tea——”
“Janet, don’t be offensive. Sit down! Now,—look about you! The house, these walks, the park—everything ... so detestably orderly and precise! Not a leaf out of place and the house itself as serenely content as—Peter!”
“Fegs, ’tis a richt bonnie hoose——”
“But oh, Janet, was there ever such a house, my dear? And such shaven lawns! Such soft-footed servants! Such outrageously orderly perfection indoors and out! Such persistent, pervading care of everything and everyone! Such overpowering Vibartism! Janet—I could scream!”
“Then do’t, ma dearie! Scream awa’, m’dear soul, whiles I cut your stay-lace. Then a sup o’ my dandelion——”
“Janet, don’t be a fool!”
“Eh? A fule is’t?”
“Oh, Janet, my dear, I——” The soft voice choked, the deep eyes overflowed at last; and swaying to Miss Janet’s ready breast, Charmian pillowed her woeful head there as she had done many a time as a motherless child, to be clasped, kissed and cherished very tenderly in two strong, very capable arms.
“My dear, my dear!” sighed Miss Janet in tone strangely gentle. “My own precious, what troubles you so?”
“P-eter!” sobbed Lady Vibart, giving full vent to her grief.
“But he loves you, dear soul, he loves you dearly.”
“Ah yes, I know this, Janet,—he always will, just as I shall always love him, but ... his love has changed so ... he is become so ... remote!”
“Tush, my dear! The man worships you with his every breath! I’ve seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. You are the very life of him.”
“His life? I wonder! For, Janet, you know how I meant to ... run off with him to our old cottage.... The cottage, Janet! You know how I have planned for it, schemed and lived for it ... well, he can’t find the time, Janet, he ... won’t!”
“Aweel, the man’s only a man, that’s all, m’dearie. Forbye a man canna juist see things from a woman’s angle, ’specially in love.”
“True!” sighed Charmian tearfully. “Quite true, my dear wise Janet. That is why I’m going away.”
“Eh? Going? Away? Where to? What for? When?”
“Yes, my dear. To Cambourne, Janet. To rouse him, wake him, shake him! And I’m going to-day.”
“No, no——”
“Yes! A thousand times—yes! I’m bitterly resolved, hatefully determined and nothing shall stay me.”
“Then I’m coming too!”
“Of course you are.”
“But, Charmian, oh, my dear, have you thought what you are doing ... the possible consequences?”
“Fully! Thoroughly, Janet! Are my eyes swelled? Is my poor nose scarlet? Peter is lost in an apathy of content, submerged in a slough of self-satisfaction ... and there’s forceful alliteration for you! My Peter is utterly bogged in a bovine beatitude and needs being awaked with a shock, Janet,—jogged to a proper realization of all that I am to him. And, Janet, I am about to jog him—violently. So come,—come and pack.”
And because Miss Janet knew argument to be of no avail, she went, clashing remonstrance at every step. Thereafter, while she busied herself, with my lady’s chattering maids, packing trunks, hat-boxes, etc., Charmian sat down and indited this letter.
“Dear Peter,
“Acting on your admirable precept that a landlord’s first thought should be the welfare of his tenantry I have hastened to Cambourne, fired with zeal for mine.
“How long it will take you to thatch and tile all your cottages, build your schools and stare at cattle and things, this humble person cannot hope to even surmise. But when all such tremendous matters are settled to your entire satisfaction (if ever!) pray come and find again your
“Solitary wife, lowly subject and
“Faithful consort,
“Charmian.
“PS.—I shall be at Cambourne in my dear, loved Kent.”
“There, Sir Peter!” quoth she, folding and sealing this epistle. “Let that stir your dignity! Rouse, sneeze, yawn, but—wake! Oh, Peter, wake, wake and know—or—dear heaven, what shall become of me?”
