Читать книгу Ferriby - Marjorie Bown - Страница 5

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The apparition was a girl—a woman. Vision, apparition, either word conveyed without extravagance the effect of Daphne Estorel as she stood in the grey light of the stone passage looking down on the grim little drama at the foot of the buttery steps.

There seemed a grace and brightness about the whole figure savouring at that moment of the unearthly.

A full and straight grey gown fell round Daphne's ankles, and across her shoulders lay a muslin kerchief; in the knot of it, upon her bosom, a bunch of autumn flowers. Her hair was like a saint's halo, of the purest and palest gold. Grave blue eyes looked from an oval face of the same strange purity of colour.

Irene stared with all her eyes. Devil Ferriby's hand falling to his side, he stared too, then hailed the newcomer with his rough laugh—in it, perhaps, a note of apology for what he had been caught at.

Paul alone kept his bleeding face turned stolidly away.

'You, Daphne?' said Ferriby. 'When did you get back?'

'Ten minutes since—just long enough to take off my things.' Daphne's voice was bright and pleasant-cordial even. She took no notice of Irene or of the boy. 'Aunt Skidfell sent me to show you that I'm here again, and to tell you tea is ready and the cakes spoiling.'

'Why didn't Jane tell me she was expecting you?' growled Ferriby.—' You've grown into a fine young lady, I suppose.' He mounted the steps.—' Did Scarside bring you from Pet sham?'

'Yes.' A laugh broke from the girl's lips. 'Scarside has not changed in these three years, Mr. John. He opened his lips twice in seven miles.'

'Ah!' answered Ferriby, 'these Yorkshire moors don't breed chatterers.'

Without a backward glance, Daphne moving away lightly before him, the young man, doubling the lash of his whip into his hand—it was sticky—followed into the passage, closing the door upon the boy and girl.

Irene remained where she was, too absorbed in astonishment to make resistance. Paul, his back to the interruption, had not stirred, did not now.

'Whoever can she be?' exclaimed Irene in an utter amazement. 'She called old Skinflint "aunt." I wonder if she's a servant? She said "Mr. John." She hadn't any cap or apron on. Her hair is golden. Did you like it, Paul? I wonder if I should look better with fair hair?' Irene took her red-brown curls between her fingers...' Paul, did you think she was pretty?'

There was no answer. Irene crept up the steps, and, as she sniffed through the huge keyhole, there came a sense of warmth and fragrance down the passage.

'Oven-bottoms and potato-cakes,' said Irene. 'Oh! I wonder if she'd give me some if I said I was sorry.' She cautiously tried the massive, circular handle. 'Paul!' she called in an excited whisper. 'Paul! The door isn't locked. Let's go, and I'll say I am sorry.'

There was no answer. Irene, looking round, surveyed the still motionless figure of the boy a little dubiously. Descending the steps, she approached him with a touch of timidity; then, peeping round at his averted face, she started back with an exclamation of aversion and horror.

'Oh, I say, your cheek is bleeding, Paul! Does it hurt?'

Paul sharply turned his shoulder.

'You needn't be so cross,' pouted the girl. 'It wasn't my fault. He'd have hit you a second time if it hadn't been for me.'

'If it hadn't been for you he'd never have hit me at all!' cried Paul, his full heart breaking into speech.

'You are always dragging me into your scrapes. And you'd nothing to do with his not hitting me a second time—it was that woman opening the door.'

'It wasn't a woman!' cried Irene—'only a girl not much older than I am.'

'Well, I don't care who it was!' The boy stamped savagely, fighting fiercely with the passion swelling in his throat. 'I wish I was dead! He struck me like a dog. I...I...I'd like to kill him!'

'Oh, I don't mind Cousin John so much,' said Irene glibly. 'It's old Skinflint: I wish someone would kill her! Don't cry, Paul.'

Paul shook her off. 'I'm not crying. Go away! I don't want you—you only get me into rows. Make up to Cousin John.'

The girl came and laid an arm against his shoulder and her lovely face coaxingly against his sleeve.

'Don't be cross, Paul—dear old Paul!' she murmured caressingly. 'I like you so awfully, Paul. If it weren't for you I'd run away.'

'There's no "if" about my doing it,' said the boy. 'I'm going to-night.'

Irene's eyes dilated. Her face went white. She clung to him in a terror most unmistakably real.

'Oh no, Paul; you mustn't. I couldn't stay here without you. You knew mamma, you know, and she'd beg you not to leave me, I know. Promise me you won't go! Besides, you're so brave. Cousin John will never touch you again. Say you won't go. If you do I shall follow, and I shall die on the moor, and you'll be sorry then. You won't go, will you? Say you won't, for my sake—poor little Irene, who loves you so. Paul, say you won't run away.'

She had forgotten the shudder his bleeding cheek inspired. She clung both arms about his neck. Her breath was as sweet as flowers. Her warm lips touched his throat in eager caresses. Paul did not move. He stood erect with down-thrust hands and fingers clenched, his head high; but when he spoke the first bitterness of tone was mollified.

'Well, I don't believe you do care,' he said; 'but I'll see.'

Irene looked up into his face. 'You won't go? Promise me, Paul.'

Again she kissed him. The boy stirred suddenly beneath her lips. 'Dear Paul, you couldn't leave Irene, could you?'

'All right,' he said, putting her away from him, 'you needn't bother. I shan't go to-night, at any rate.'

'You must never go.' Irene spoke with satisfaction—the tone of one who has gained her point and fancies she always can. 'When we're grown up quite I'll marry you. Then we'll go away together, and we'll make Cousin John give us some money, and we'll travel...Oh, your poor, poor cheek! He has cut it. Sit down and let me wipe it with my handkerchief.'

'No,' said Paul, rousing himself to a sudden practical decision, 'don't wipe it...Is it bleeding much?' he asked.

'Awfully!'

Paul dabbed at the cut an instant with his hand, then looked round as if in search of something. On the shelf inside the door, at the head of the steps from which Ferriby had brought the candle, stood an old-fashioned schoolroom inkstand, a pen upright in one of the holes, and beside it the account-book Irene had noticed in which Jane set down her firkins of butter and her gallons of milk.

The boy's eyes lit on these items with satisfaction. He resumed his dictatorship. 'Get me down that book and the pen, Irene!' he commanded.—' I don't want the ink.'

Irene went and came obediently. 'What are you going to do?' she asked curiously.

'Write a vow of vengeance in my blood,' said Paul. 'I saw a fellow do it once at school.' He tore a leaf as he spoke from the account-book.—' There, put that back, Irene.'

Irene hastened to obey and to return to watch with eager eyes. Paul spread the piece of paper on the buttery shelf and tried to fill the pen with blood.

'Bring the candle, Irene,' he commanded. 'The wretched stuff's got thick.'

Irene brought it. 'Oh, I say, Paul,' she giggled, 'isn't it wicked?'

'I don't care. I'd rather be wicked than a coward.' He tried the pen again. 'No, it's got too thick.' He set the pen down and gingerly pulled the weal open so that fresh blood flowed.

Irene stepped back with a fastidious shudder. 'Oh, how can you!' she said with disgust; but Paul thought it was sympathy.

'That doesn't hurt,' he said proudly. 'It was his doing it. Now, here we are.' He filled the pen with some trouble and began to write, stopping almost after every letter to laboriously refill. Irene tiptoed to see over his shoulder and read the words aloud as they shaped themselves under Paul's fingers.

'I, Paul Ferriby, do hereby vow—' ('That's how the other fellow began,' interpolated Paul) 'the most deadly vengeance—You've not spelt "vengeance" right,' she broke off.

'Oh, bother! it's spelt in blood. That's near enough.'

'Vengeance,' read Irene, 'on my cousin Devil Ferriby. Oh, Paul,' she said, 'dare you write "devil" in blood? Something might happen, mightn't it?'

'It wouldn't matter if it did—to him,' answered Paul. 'The fellow whose blood it is stands all right, you know,' he added with the confidence of one well versed.

'Oh!' Irene's tone was dubious. She tiptoed again while Paul laboured on. 'Ah!' she cried, shuddering away again, this time with horror, 'the blood's dropping on your collar.'

'Let it!' said Paul. He held the paper up and read from it with appreciation: 'He is a cad and a brute. One day I shall strike him back, and I hope that I shall kill him. Written with my blood (he did it) this—What's the date?' he asked, as he bent again over the document.

'September 14, 18—'

'All right. I know the year. There,' he concluded triumphantly, looking up from the finished work. 'I'd put in something about you only there's no more blood. Golly, it does soon get thick.'

'Something about me,' cried Irene, startled. 'What?'

'Oh, that it's because of you, to stick up for you, and all that sort of thing.'

'How mean!' said the girl, with her delicious pout. 'To put it off on me! You want vengeance on Cousin Ferriby because he struck you.'

'Yes,' answered Paul; 'but you were at the bottom of it.'

At that moment the vision—girl, woman, divine, human—reappeared. The great door was opened, and Daphne Estorel stood a moment, vision-wise, upon the high threshold. 'You were at the bottom of it,' Paul had said. The new-comer must have overheard; almost as if for one second she saw into the future, her hand went to her heart. She came down. Her footfall was lighter than Irene's. In the candlelight her hair seemed to shoot out sparks and spokes of gold. She looked smilingly from one to the other, pausing at the foot of the steps.

Paul, startled, handed his paper hastily to Irene, who concealed it in her pocket, and began to wipe the pen upon his jacket-sleeve.

'Won't you come and have some tea?' said Daphne in her bright voice; and her clear, direct gaze saw nothing but what she bent it on. 'It's rather cold here, isn't it?'

Paul turned his face away; Irene stared silently.

'We don't know who you are,' she said, speaking as she had been taught to speak to her inferiors, a rising inflexion on the last word, her head held up, her well-bred voice pitched clear and high.

'I am Daphne Estorel,' was the answer; and though the speaker glanced at her, Irene was conscious of being overlooked. 'I am Mrs. Skidfell's niece, and I live sometimes here and sometimes with another relative in Devonshire. I have been away for three years, and as this is my first evening home, I'm having a grand tea. Won't you come?'

Irene looked at Paul. 'Come along, Paul. Shall we?' She ignored Daphne as she spoke, turning her shoulder.

'You go if you want to.' Paul did not show his face. 'I'm not hungry.'

And now Irene took a deliberate survey of the newcomer from head to heel. Old Skinflint's niece—a common person. She tossed her head.

'I think it's silly to stay here if one needn't,' she said. 'I shan't.' And she hurried to the door, but there a thought checked her, and she glanced imperiously at Daphne.

'Does old Sk—I mean, does Jane know?'

'Oh yes, Aunt Jane knows. She sent me.'

'Well, and I don't care if she didn't. Cousin Ferriby's there; she can't touch me. Come, Paul. Don't be silly. Come along.'

But the boy made a sullen gesture that he wanted to be left alone. The maddening smell of the frizzling ham touched Irene's delicately eager little nose—and Cousin Ferriby was there!

'Oh, you are a goose!' she cried, and with a laugh she ran lightly away.

There was a moment's pause. Paul was conscious that this new girl still lingered.

'Don't wait,' he said over his shoulder. 'I'd rather you didn't. I don't want any tea. I don't want to ever eat anything in this house again.'

'Your little cousin doesn't seem to mind,' said Daphne gently.

'Irene's a girl!' was the swift answer. 'And—and-he can't strike her.'

And then, because his heart was fuller than he could bear, and because Irene's desertion had stung him-she was always like that, edging a fellow on and then going dancing off—he suddenly turned sharply and completely away, and flinging his arms up against the buttery wall, laid his head down on them, and fought with the beastly lump in his throat that choked him. Daphne picked up the apron, then the pen that had fallen to the ground, set this back in the inkstand, rearranged book and candle, and made a fuss with the pans.

At last Paul turned round.

'I say,' he began—and there was a distinct note of gratitude in the young voice—' look here, you won't tell that I...I...but it's been so jolly lonely since my father died...and...and...it's so beastly, you know, when a fellow has no money...and...and my head's thumping.'

Daphne came up and put a hand upon his shoulder. She looked into his face, his handsome, strong, clear, and noble young face—from hair to chin ran the red brand Devil Ferriby had set there.

'That wicked cut is getting stiff and hurting, isn't it?' she said.

Paul did not try to throw her off. 'Yes, a bit,' he said in half apology. 'He did do it. I say, you saw him, didn't you?'

'Yes. What's your name?' asked Daphne Estorel.

'Paul Ferriby.'

'You're a splendid fellow,' she said.

Paul did not think she chaffed him. He looked into her face, and somehow his spirit was caught back to the summers at home—the 'days that were no more.'

He dashed the back of his hand to his eyes.

'I say,' he stammered...' I—I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm so beastly wretched here, you know—and my father...we were such chums...I...'

Daphne stood silent, enfolding him with her presence.

Then, glancing up, she saw that Irene had stolen noiselessly back to the buttery door. The eyes of the two maidens met, and held each other a long second, the wordless beginning of battle.