Читать книгу A Son of Ishmael - L. T. Meade - Страница 7

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Instead of replying indignantly to her excited words, Rowton gave Nancy a long, attentive and very searching glance.

“When did your father die?” he asked at last.

“Towards morning. He had gone through a terrible night, but towards morning he dozed off and the nurse who was with him said he passed away in his sleep. He looked quite peaceful in the end; I think he trusted me fully.”

“With his secret?” said Rowton.

“Yes,” replied Nancy, “with his secret.”

“And you think,” continued the young man, again favouring her with a queer glance, “that because you have a secret, you and I are to part?”

“Yes; I can be no fit wife for you—it breaks my heart to have to say it. I love you more than I have any words to express, but I have got a dreadful thing to do, Adrian, and I can be no fit wife for any man until it is accomplished.”

“You think so now, of course,” said Rowton, “but by-and-by you will change your mind. You forget that you are young. Whatever burden your father has laid upon you he cannot crush your youth. I am also young. Dark things have happened in my life, but do you think they have crushed the youth out of me? Assuredly not, at least they have not when I look at you. I am here and you are my wild bird. I have lured you into my cage, and you are never going out again, Nancy, so you need not think it.”

As he spoke Rowton clasped her again in his arms; he pressed her close to him and kissed her on her brow and lips.

“Ah!” he said, “you cease to struggle; you are content with your cage.”

“And with my master,” she said, bowing her head until it rested on his broad breast.

“Yes, that’s right; it is folly to talk of parting lovers such as we are. Now, my little Nancy, you must cheer up. I’ll soon teach you a sweet new song. You won’t know yourself when I take you from all these dismal surroundings.”

“What was I dreaming of?” said Nancy. “Your love is so sweet to me that for a moment I yielded. I cannot marry you, Adrian. It is impossible.”

“You must give me a better reason than you have yet given, before I agree to any such nonsense.”

“Adrian, do you think I would say a thing of this sort without very grave reason? It is not only the death of my father. Fathers and mothers die in the course of nature, but children still live on. No, it is not that. The burden laid upon me is of such a character that I must part from you. I must, Adrian, I must; the thought drives me mad. I wish I had never been born.”

All Nancy’s apparent composure gave way at this juncture. Dry, tearless sobs shook her from head to foot; she tottered as if a storm had really blown over her, and but for Rowton’s protecting arms would have fallen.

“Don’t hold me so close to you,” she panted at last, when she could find her voice; “don’t make it any harder. You guess, don’t you, how much I love you? Oh, why did God give me such passions, why did He give me the love I feel in my heart, and then crush me with such a fearful doom? Oh! I shall go mad, I shall go mad.”

“No, Nancy, you will do nothing of the kind,” said Rowton. He spoke, on purpose, in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “You are over excited now and very much upset. Put on your hat, darling, and let us go outside. It is not so gloomy out as in; this tumble-down old Grange is enough to give the blues to anyone. You don’t live another week in such a hole. Wait, my angel, until you know what life really is, and life with me. I’ll show you what it is to live. Why, you won’t know yourself—no more dull days, no more cold and starvation. You shall have the softest of homes, the most luxurious of lives, the most tempting delicacies to eat, the most beautiful dresses to wear. You shall listen to music, you shall sing yourself, you shall see laughing faces around you, amusements of every sort shall but await your orders, and above and beyond all these things, sweetheart, there will be love. The mighty love of my heart will surround you.”

Rowton had by no means a tender face—his bold black eyes, his stalwart frame, his swarthy complexion, his ringing voice, were all made to command—but when he chose, no man could be more tender; his deep voice could thrill to the very depths of the soul, his eyes could speak volumes of passionate adoration.

Nancy shivered as she looked at him.

“How much I love you,” she repeated, twining and untwining her slender hands as she spoke, “and yet, Adrian, I must part from you.”

“Not a bit of it, wild bird,” was the reply. “You and I are never going to part again in this world—we shall be man and wife before a week is out. Now, Nancy, do you really believe that a slender bit of a girl like you can oppose a man of my sort, more particularly when you confess how much you love me? Why, the last obstacle to our marriage was withdrawn last night, and now you talk about a secret, as if any secret that ever existed can come between us. After all, Nance, that old father of yours was a very crabbed nut to crack—well, he is out of the way, now.”

“He was my father—do not speak against him.”

“I won’t, child; far be it from me to hurt you by disparaging the dead. Your father is dead now and you are alone. I whistle and you come to me, my pretty bird. I lure you to my side and you stay with me always. We’ll be married next week. Hullo! what are you trying to say, sweetheart? You had a terrible night, forsooth, and you speak of an awful doom which you say hangs over you. Faith! Nancy, there is no doom which ever yet hung over a girl’s head that can part you from me. Now, look me full in the eyes. Jove! child, you have almost wept your pretty eyes out of your head. Well, look full at me if you can. Dare to say ‘no’ when you look me full in the eyes.”

“I am overpowered by a terrible fate,” said Nancy slowly. “You know what a strange man my father was. You must have guessed that we, he and I, always carried a secret with us. It was a terrible secret and it ruined my father’s life—it ruined my life also. For six long years I have been a miserable girl.”

“You shall be a happy woman for the rest of your days, to make up for those six years of misery.”

“Adrian, you must hear me out.”

“Walk up and down with me, sweetheart; you’ll catch cold if you stand still.”

Rowton stole his strong arm round Nancy’s waist; they walked in front of the old Grange. Nancy soon found her head resting against her lover’s shoulder.

“Now we can talk,” he said, “but I defy you to say much about parting while I am as near to you as I am now; out with your secret, my wild bird, we’ll share it.”

“That’s just it—I cannot tell it to you.”

“What! not even to your husband?”

“You are not my husband yet.”

“I shall be in a week; won’t you tell me your secret then?”

“Never—never on this side eternity.”

“Is it so bad as all that?”

“Yes, it is ghastly, terrible.”

Rowton gave vent to a long, significant whistle.

“Tell me what you can,” he said after a pause.

“I cannot say much, Adrian. After you left me last night, father sent for me. He made me promise to do something terrible. He bound me down on pain of his curse to carry on the work which he had not time to finish. I struggled to refuse, but he frightened me into compliance. He even threatened to return as a ghost to haunt me if I would not yield to his wishes.”

“The man must have been raving mad,” interrupted Rowton.

“Mad or not, his words had power over me,” said Nancy. “He terrified me into submission. I promised him that I would keep his secret and would carry on his life work. Then, Adrian, he asked me not to marry—not to think of the lighter things of life until my task was accomplished.”

“And you promised?”

“No, I hesitated.”

“You did well, for if you had promised fifty times you would have found yourself my wife before many days had gone by.”

“Adrian, why are you so overmastering? You overpower me—you subdue me. Your power over me is greater even than my father’s was.”

“That is as it should be,” said Rowton. “Now then, Nancy, let us to commonplace. I am truly sorry you are burdened with a secret, but if you think that secret is to keep us asunder you do not yet know your man. Listen, my child; I am going to tell you something strange. It so happens, my pretty wild bird, that your having a secret does not matter so terribly to me as it would to other men. I also, sweetheart, am the owner of a secret care. Nancy, my pretty child, I am not what I seem. I look one thing, but I am in reality something different. There, now, I have startled you, have I not? It would be comical to hear what you really think of me, from those red lips. What sort of a man do I seem, Nancy mine?”

“The best, the bravest, the noblest in the world,” she answered. “You are an honourable English gentleman; a man whose word is as good as his bond. You are a true man in heart and in soul.”

“Faith! child, do not say any more or you’ll crush me to the earth. Why, you poor little girl, I am not a bit like that in reality. Do you think I have no wild blood in me. Don’t I look at times, at times—the truth now, Nancy—don’t I look at times a very Ishmaelite, a man whose hand might be against every other man? Has not my eye a wild gleam in it? Look at me now, Nance, and say truly what you think.”

“You never appear anything to me but what I have just said,” she answered, giving him a somewhat timid glance, “but it is true that others have told me——”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Rowton, “I thought that whisper would get about. You see, my fair Nancy, I am not exactly what I seem. To you, my darling, I am all that is true, all that is honourable, but to the world at large—I will whisper it to you, Nancy—the world and I, the world and Adrian Rowton, are at daggers drawn. Now, my love, will you marry me, knowing this?”

“You mean that you have a secret?” said Nancy.

“I have.”

“A real grave secret?”

“Yes, the gravity of the thing cannot be exaggerated.”

“And you won’t tell me?”

“No, never. Are you curious? Curiosity, thy name is woman.”

“I will crush my curiosity, Adrian, if you think I had better not know.”

“Dear little Nance, you must never know. You shall be my wife, but you must respect my secret, and if you see things which you do not understand, you must be a good child and ask no questions; and I on my part, will promise to respect your secret and not to worry you with questions, even when your conduct surprises me—even when the desire to know bubbles to the tip of my tongue. Why, Nancy, the fact of our both having a secret makes the whole arrangement fair and above board.”

“It seems so,” said Nancy; “in one sense it seems fair, and yet in another, dreadful. This is not my idea of a happy married life.”

“Never mind what your idea is; a happier husband and wife than you and I will never be found. Well, that is settled; we will be married by special licence next week.”

“So soon!” said Nancy.

“So late, you mean,” he answered, and stooping he pressed his lips to hers. “I hunger for you,” he said. “I cannot live any longer without you. We’ll be married next week by special licence. You have only a few more days to live in this horrid old Grange.”

“And you take me to the Bungalow?” she asked.

“To the Bungalow!” he repeated—he laughed. “Jove! child,” he said, “do you think that a comfortable home?—have I nothing better than that to offer my little girl?”

“I do not know,” she replied. “I shall be quite satisfied with any home with you—you are poor, are you not, Adrian?”

“Ah! now I shall surprise you,” he said. “I have a secret, after all, which I can confide to my little girl.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“I am a rich man, Nancy Follett; your betrothed is a gentleman of means.”

“Indeed!” she said in surprise.

“Yes; I have heaps of money. I am a landed proprietor. In another part of England, a long way from here, there is a beautiful mansion which belongs to your humble servant, Adrian Rowton—it is furnished richly, softly, luxuriously. In short, I have a nest of down for my wild bird, and I can deck her with jewels. Oh! child, how lovely you will look when you wear your husband’s diamonds.”