Читать книгу Moonglade - Marguerite Cunliffe-Owen - Страница 6

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Ask; I will not deny, within the strength

Courage and Honor may descry in me.

Ask of my service to the utmost length

And I will give it thee.

Marguerite was sitting on the short salt-grass at the top of the souffleur cliff. Beside her was a large reed basket, half filled with mousserons—those toothsome little pale-yellow mushrooms that grow in perfect circles all over the table-land—perfect circles, from which, however, one mushroom is always missing, because these erratic cryptogams appear only where the Farfadets (elves) have danced during the night, a member of their company lying on watch at full length upon the ground while they merrily disport themselves in an all but complete ronde.

The gray-green sward was still dotted with the quaint formation close to Marguerite, but she had stopped harvesting them, and sat idly—a strange thing for her to do—evidently absorbed in the evolutions of the gulls, which kept plunging headlong down to the blue waves, apparently for no other purpose than to fly immediately up again and preen their plumage in the veiled sunlight of the cliff-top.

There was an indefinite expression in Marguerite’s attitude which had never been there before: not lassitude, not ennui, but a queer lack of that verve and elasticity hitherto one of her greatest charms. Her delicious face, so like the pastel in the boudoir of the volière suite, was much as usual beneath the brim of her sailor-hat, her slim waist as supple, her shoulders as straight and well drilled as ever, and yet, and yet—?

Nobody had noticed any change in her, however, so change assuredly there could not be.

A quick step behind her made her turn and see Basil advancing in long strides from the “castle-path”—as the yard-wide track westward along the falaise is distinguished from the one in the opposite direction.

“Had a pleasant ride?” she queried, as he came up, instinctively making room for him beside her, as though there had not been mile after mile of room on both interminable stretches to east and to west.

“Yes,” he replied, lowering himself to the grass at her side and pushing back his cap to let the strong sea-breeze cool his forehead. “A very nice ride. But why didn’t you come with us, my dear little ‘Gamin’?”

His dear little “Gamin” resumed her contemplation of the whirling gulls, her eyes averted from him.

“Oh,” she replied, lightly, “I didn’t feel like riding to-day. Besides, these mushrooms needed cutting.”

Basil laughed. “A fine excuse!” he declared. “And as to your not feeling like riding, you who, so to speak, have been born on horseback—a little Centauress!”

He bent sideways to see her face, but she petulantly left a mere profile for his inspection.

“Oh, there’s an eagle!” she exclaimed, pointing to a distant crag, where a solitary bird of great size had just alighted.

“An eagle! Yes, I think it must be an eagle,” he amiably corroborated, without troubling to look in that direction. “Let him be; he is well enough there. Can’t you be serious a moment, ‘Gamin’? I want to speak to you.”

His face was grave now, and the tone of his voice made her veer round with a sudden anxiety.

“Anything wrong?” she asked.

“No, of course not ... I only wish to ... ask your advice about a personal matter. You are a very wise little person, sometimes, you know.”

“Am I? It’s the first time I hear of it!” she exclaimed. “It sounds very nice!”

“I’m glad it does, ‘Gamin,’ because it’s the plain truth. And I am sorely in need of wisdom just now, having apparently none left of my own.”

Marguerite laughed, and a quick blush followed the laugh.

“Set forth the case for judgment,” she said, reaching to gather a dewy mousseron and tossing it negligently into the basket; but he suddenly caught her hand and held it tightly in his.

“Look here!” he pleaded. “I cannot speak if you don’t keep quiet. What I have to say is not so awfully easy.”

“It is serious, then?” she questioned, hesitatingly, her fingers remaining his willing prisoners.

“Very serious.”

The “Gamin” slowly shifted her head, and her luminous eyes met his frankly.

“Speak then,” she said in an odd voice, which seemed all at once a little strangled.

“Well!” Basil began. “Well—now supposing you were asked ... would you ... would a young girl like you find me too old to—to marry?”

Marguerite started and drew her hand firmly away. There was a silence during which the clamor of the gulls became enervatingly loud. A hurtling squadron of noisy birds swept over Marguerite’s and Basil’s heads, settled in disorder on the grass ten yards farther on, and instantly ceased shrieking.

“Well?” Basil, who had also fallen into a bird-study, resumed with an effort.

“Well, I told you so before. You are not so very old.” There was a pitiful little attempt at humor and lightness in the words. “I ... you see ... I was teasing you that day.... I was much younger then.”

“Much younger,” he expostulated, “four weeks ago!”

“Four weeks—is that all?” she wondered.

“Yes, just four weeks to-morrow. I remember because ... never mind why.... But you have not really answered me.” He recaptured her hand and pressed it. “Do, ‘Gamin,’ do, please say something encouraging!” he murmured, almost in her ear, and quite unconsciously drawing her toward him.

Her graceful body stiffened, and almost immediately relaxed again. The hand in his was trembling a very little.

“I think you would make a very nice husband,” she said, innocently, not in the least aware of what she was saying.

A quick smile lighted up Basil’s eyes. “You dear child!” he whispered. “You little darling!”

Marguerite sat quite still waiting—waiting for she knew not what; her heart beating so fast that she became afraid he might hear it. Fortunately more gulls were swooping up from below the giddy brink, and the surge of their wings made this improbable.

“Then you would not laugh at me if I were to ask you to—”

He paused, searching for the exact words he wanted, and Marguerite, her lips slightly apart, listened a trifle breathlessly. “To help me?” he concluded with unexpected force.

“Help you? How? What do you mean, Cousin Basil?”

She was desperately trying to conquer some unexplainable emotion.

“You see, I don’t like to ask your father. He would begin by making fun of me!”

“Fun of you!”

“Oh, without a doubt! You know him, Marguerite.” He had never called her Marguerite before, and she wondered why he did so now. “He is barely four years older than I am, you understand, and....”

“What does that matter?” she interrupted, with a happy little smile. “He—”

She checked herself and hastily altered the sentence to a “He likes you very much, you know!” which was extraordinarily meaningless.

“And do you like me very much, too?” Basil asked, looking straight ahead in the eye of the wind. It was a pity he could not see her smile now, or the expression that accompanied the light casualness of her reply, for both were revealing.

“Yes; very much, Cousin Basil.”

“I know you do, my dear little ‘Gamin,’ and that is what emboldened me to ask your advice just now.”

He was still gazing out to sea, wrapped in his own thought, while she waited, a faint tingling in her finger-tips warning her that her patience was really being tried. She moved restlessly once or twice, until finally one slender fawn-suède-shod foot hung directly over the knife-like edge of the cliff. In the offing a fleet of fishing-boats that from that height resembled a mere flight of red-and-white butterflies, were drowsily drifting under slack sails toward the harbor of Kastèllék, behind the crag where still sat enthroned the contemplative eagle.

Absently, mechanically, almost, Marguerite pulled from the rock-border of the salt-grass a fat stem of perce-pierre, and stuck it in her mouth. The juice of that briny plant—eatable only when steeped in vinegar—bit smartly into her tongue, but she did not even notice it, for she was watching Basil intently; his handsome profile, the deep-set gray eyes under their energetic brows, the obstinate chin, and clean-cut mouth by no means concealed by the short, light mustache which contrasted so happily with the red-brown hair faintly limned with silver. Her cousin Basil! She was very proud of him. Was there any other man like him in the whole round world?

“I hesitate to ask you another service,” she heard him say now, and with praiseworthy energy she roused herself.

“Don’t hesitate, Cousin Basil!” she said, with a hint of shyness.

“Do you think you could manage to sound your friend’s ideas on the subject?”

“My friend ... the subject!” she echoed, blankly. Whatever doubt and surprise she might have felt before was transformed into complete puzzlement. She was coming back from so great a distance!

“Yes—your friend Laurence, of course! You see,” he continued, more easily now that he had burned his bridges behind him—“you see, my ‘Gamin,’ ridiculous or not, my whole future life is centered upon her. I fell in love with her the minute I set eyes upon her, and if she refuses to marry me—”

With a wild scramble that all but threw her headlong over the precipice the “Gamin” jumped up. She was ashy white, and as he caught her—as it were in mid-air—he felt that she was shaking, literally from head to foot.

“Are you crazy?” he demanded, holding her tightly in his arms, as if afraid that she would try to escape. “Lord! how you startled me. What do you mean by dancing about like that in such a place!”

She saw that he was badly frightened, for his voice trembled as he spoke, and she disengaged herself quietly, and in a curiously calm tone apologized.

“I am very sorry, mon cousin. I hope you will forgive the scare I gave you,” she said, simply.

“Sacré...!” The rest of the heartfelt string of objurgations rising in his throat bumped against his teeth, and he swallowed it whole, so to speak. She had returned a few paces, and, picking up her basket, was standing cold and pale as a lily, scanning the horizon.

“Plenhöel should hire a keeper for you!” Basil cried, with that vengeful irritation which invariably succeeds great frights. “You are not fit to be trusted out alone!”

“Thank you very much, mon bon cousin!” she said, with a little courtesy in his direction. “Not you, I hope, however. He might find you inadequate—and, besides, if you will now take the trouble to look yonder, behind the menhir, you will see Hortense Gervex dozing over her knitting. She is my keeper.”

“A famous guardian!” Basil deprecated in disgust. “As a matter of fact you have jumbled my ideas so that I scarcely remember what I was talking to you about!”

“I do!” responded Marguerite. “I remember it perfectly, and, acting upon your recent request, I will try to find out what you wish to know, as soon as possible.”

A quick suspicion, as fleet as the flight of an arrow, shot through Basil’s heart. What was this in her voice, her manner, that seemed so queer? He turned and faced her in acute distress; but there she stood, apparently quite unmoved, in a perfectly natural attitude, both little hands clasped upon the handle of her mushroom-basket, and inwardly Basil wrathfully called himself an imbecile. That child—that mere baby—it seemed almost a desecration to have, even for a second, believed her capable of “grown-up” feelings. Ah! Yes, indeed, she was justly named the “Gamin,” with her boyish, reckless ways, her laughter, her merry pranks. Poor dear little “Gamin.”

They were walking side by side, now, in the direction of the menhir, to retrieve Madame Hortense, who, had they known it, was far from “dozing over her knitting,” but wide awake indeed, very watchful, and gleefully imagining that things were going on quite satisfactorily between those two. Marguerite had refused to relinquish her basket to Basil, and was swinging it carelessly by the handle as she advanced toward her governess.

“Wake up! Wake up!” she cried, making a trumpet of both her hands through the basket handle. “Time to go home, Hortense!”

Madame Hortense rose, methodically folded her work, and, coming on to meet them, fell in immediately behind on the narrow track. The grass for yards and yards was now covered with sitting gulls, forming a great restless carpet of living snow, while hovering above them, a host of late-comers violently protested against the pre-emption of what they naturally considered their own particular territory.

Marguerite and Basil, a mere half-head in front of Madame Hortense, were silent. Once she stumbled over a small stone, and laughed at her extraordinary clumsiness when Basil caught her by the elbow. But there must have been something odd in the timbre of that laugh, for Madame Hortense instantly ranged up alongside and gave her a quick, searching glance that Marguerite met with eyes as bright and hard as steel. As to Basil, he was again sunk in his own dreams, and Hortense resumed her former place with a puzzled sigh.

Leaving him on the perron, and Madame Hortense sitting unquietly on one of the terrace benches, Marguerite ran to the stables, ordered her favorite horse, “Gavroche,” to be saddled at once, whispered a few words to the old piqueux, who always accompanied her when she rode without her father, and raced back with nervous speed to put on her habit.

Fifteen minutes later she was cantering across the heather toward the forest, with the ease of those who have begun this sport of sports as soon as they could stand on their feet, but with far from her usual pleasure. As she reached the first pines standing sentinel-wise at the limit of the lande the sun was just beginning its downward course to the ocean-rim, and she realized with a certain joyless satisfaction that earth and sea would still for many hours be bathed in that rose-gold light, which, save on very few occasions, on hard midsummer or midwinter days, is the veiled glory of Brittany.

Nobody at the Castle knew that she had gone out, for she had bidden Ireland, the piqueux, to wait for her in the “yard,” where she had mounted “Gavroche,” and now Ireland was following fifty paces behind on “Méssire-Antoine,” the “worst-minded devil at Plenhöel”—as he was distinguished by his present gray-haired rider from a vast company of mettlesome thoroughbreds housed on three rides of the equine “yard,” very much as the hosts of the château were lodged about the Cour-d’Honneur.

Bending her head beneath the sweeping boughs of the vanguard of trees, Marguerite galloped into a narrow sandy path padded with last year’s pine-needles. She had adopted a pace that suggested flight from some imminent danger, some indeterminate presence that must be avoided at all cost. Her eyes had a fixed, harsh look that certainly had never sojourned there before, and the ungloved hands, tightened on the reins, had a grim expression all their own. “Méssire-Antoine,” fired by the example of “Gavroche,” gave Ireland some trouble to keep him at the regulation distance, so that this worthy began to wonder what ailed his young mistress. He, too, was an ancient servitor, a relic of the late Marquis, who when still a youth had brought him back from a hunting trip in Queen Victoria’s dominions, and ever since then the man had remained at Plenhöel, well satisfied with his lot. It was he, as a matter of fact, who first had put Marguerite on a pony the size of a Newfoundland dog, settled her baby form in the little velvet chair on its back, and gradually taught her how to stick on something less easy. Curbing his evil-tempered mount, he now watched the little figure ahead in the gray linen, close-fitting habit, the thick, fair hair clubbed low on the neck by a flat barret of yellow tortoise-shell, the trim gray sailor-hat tilted forward, and last, but not least, the absurdly small foot with its gleaming golden spur poised in the stirrup, au ras de la jupe. He smiled discreetly as he recalled the winning of that golden spur by “le Chevalier Gamin”—as her father had dubbed her from that day on. It was at a boar-hunt, when, out of a large assembly, she alone had arrived at the finish with the Master. She was only fourteen then, and, as it chanced, on sick-leave from her convent; but the spirit of all the past and present Plenhöels, their contempt of pain, their horror of ever being beaten, had flamed up in her, and the prize of that victory had been the little golden token of knighthood—not only because she had won, but because already then she was bent on always winning, on always being on time to prevent her dogs from being “unsewn” by their fierce quarry, at the kill.

Almost soundlessly the hoofs of “Gavroche” and of “Méssire-Antoine” flew along the felted forest-track, and not once did Marguerite slacken speed until the “Carrefour” of the “Seven Sages” was reached. Why the Seven Sages no one could tell, or had ever known precisely, but here it was at last, a little break of blue sky among the crowding tree-tops, a green island underfoot, luxuriously moss-carpeted all about a lofty throne-like rock indented by seven curious niches, which formed its exact center. Foxgloves in rich profusion proudly swung their chimes of pink bells beneath its craggy sides, and tall ferns of extravagant vigor grew in sturdy clumps here, there, and everywhere. Its towering grandeur made a new idea break upon the painful confusion of the young girl’s thoughts, and she beckoned to Ireland, stopped, and, sliding to earth, stood holding out the reins to him with averted face.

“I’m going to the top of the rock while you walk them about,” she said, shortly, and left him gravely alarmed, for he had never yet seen his gracious lady so very pale, or so abrupt and cold.

The top of the Throne Rock—something of a scramble to reach—was as flat as one’s hand, and to the eye hard as only black basalt can look—and be; but Marguerite flung herself down upon it, nevertheless, and lay flat, her hands crossed behind her head, her eyes searching the pale-blue gulf above for the answer to her riddle, the soothing of her stormy reflections. She kept so still that a robin red-breast adventured himself close to her feet. He bent his head wisely, cocked a wary brilliant eye upon the shining rowel of her spur, advanced yet farther—near enough to peck the hem of her skirt—retreated with an impudent swelling of bright feathers, advanced again, and then with a comically disappointed mien flew up to the topmost branch of a slender birch hard by, and clung there, gazing down at her from that convenient height. Unfortunately, the wide-open eyes, with the faint azure rings beneath them, had no vision just then for the picture he made, with his scarlet breast and fluffy body boldly showing against a trembling spray of purest yellow, such as sapling trees sometimes bear among their summer foliage—a dignity beyond their age and strength, like a silver thread or two amid youthful locks, or a line of pain on a young face; while the sun went slowly on his way and the transparent shadows shifted across the fragrant glade.

For a long time Marguerite lay there motionless. She might have been carved from the rock itself, so little sign of life did she give, and when at length she rose, all of a piece—as was her wont—there was no longer any trace of emotion or chagrin on her charming little face.

“I’ll sound her to-night,” she whispered to the deep heaven above that apparently had given her the answer she sought; and, climbing swiftly down, she rejoined Ireland with a “Let’s gallop home, Irry,” that instantly cheered and comforted her old retainer; for the voice and the manner were once more those of his “Chevalier-Gamin.”