Читать книгу Rosalind at Red Gate - Meredith Nicholson - Страница 7

"Does no one know where you are?" I inquired of Miss Patricia.

"My lawyer, in New York, has the name of this place, sealed; and he put it away in a safety box and promised not to open it unless something of very great importance happened."

"It is best to take no chances," I said; "so I should answer your question in the negative, Miss Holbrook. In the course of a few weeks everything may seem much clearer; and in the meantime it will be wiser not to communicate with the outer world."

"They deliver mail through the country here, don't they?" asked Helen. "It must be a great luxury for the farmers to have the post-office at their very doors."

"Yes, but the school and Mr. Glenarm always send for their own mail to Annandale."

"Our mail is all going to my lawyer," said Miss Pat, "and it must wait until we can have it sent to us without danger."

"Certainly, Aunt Pat," replied Helen readily. "I didn't mean to give Mr. Donovan the impression that my correspondence was enormous; but it is odd to be shut up in this way and not to be able to do as one likes in such little matters."

The wind blew in keenly from the lake as the sun declined and Helen went unasked and brought an India shawl and put it about Miss Pat's shoulders. The girl's thoughtfulness for her aunt's comfort pleased me, and I found myself liking her better.

It was time for me to leave and I picked up my hat and stick. As I started away I was aware that Helen Holbrook detained me without in the least appearing to do so, following a few steps to gain, as she said, a certain view of the lake that was particularly charming.

"There is nothing rugged in this landscape, but it is delightful in its very tranquillity," she said, as we loitered on, the shimmering lake before us, the wood behind ablaze with the splendor of the sun. She spoke of the beauty of the beeches, which are of noble girth in this region, and paused to indicate a group of them whose smooth trunks were like massive pillars. As we looked back I saw that Miss Pat had gone into the house, driven no doubt by the persistency of the west wind that crisped the lake. Helen's manner changed abruptly, and she said:

"If any difficulty should arise here, if my poor father should find out where we are, I trust that you may be able to save my aunt anxiety and pain. That is what I wished to say to you, Mr. Donovan."

"Certainly," I replied, meeting her eyes, and noting a quiver of the lips that was eloquent of deep feeling and loyalty. She continued beside me, her head erect as though by a supreme effort of self-control, and with I knew not what emotions shaking her heart. She continued silent as we marched on and I felt that there was the least defiance in her air; then she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve, touched it lightly to her eyes, and smiled.

"I had not thought of quite following you home! Here is Glenarm gate—and there lie your battlements and towers."

"Rather they belong to my old friend, John Glenarm. In his goodness of heart he gave me the use of the place for the summer; and as generosity with another's property is very easy, I hereby tender you our fleet—canoes, boats, steam launch—and the stable, which contains a variety of traps and a good riding-horse or two. They are all at your service. I hope that you and your aunt will not fail to avail yourselves of each and all. Do you ride? I was specially charged to give the horses exercise."

"Thank you very much," she said. "When we are well settled, and feel more secure, we shall be glad to call on you. Father Stoddard certainly served us well in sending us to you, Mr. Donovan."

In a moment she spoke again, quite slowly, and with, I thought, a very pretty embarrassment.

"Aunt Pat may have spoken of another difficulty—a mere annoyance, really," and she smiled at me gravely.

"Oh, yes; of the youngster who has been troubling you. Your father and he have, of course, no connection."

"No; decidedly not. But he is a very offensive person, Mr. Donovan. It would be a matter of great distress to me if he should pursue us to this place."

"It is inconceivable that a gentleman—if he is a gentleman—should follow you merely for the purpose of annoying you. I have heard that young ladies usually know how to get rid of importunate suitors."

"I have heard that they have that reputation," she laughed back. "But Mr. Gillespie—"

"That's the name, is it? Your aunt did not mention it."

"Yes; he lives quite near us at Stamford. Aunt Pat disliked his father before him, and now that he is dead she visits her displeasure on the son; but she is quite right about it. He is a singularly unattractive and uninteresting person, and I trust that he will not find us."

"That is quite unlikely. You will do well to forget all about him—forget all your troubles and enjoy the beauty of these June days."

We had reached Glenarm gate, and St. Agatha's was now hidden by the foliage along the winding path. I was annoyed to realize how much I enjoyed this idling. I felt my pulse quicken when our eyes met. Her dark oval face was beautiful with the loveliness of noble Italian women I had seen on great occasions in Rome. I had not known that hair could be so black, and it was fine and soft; the widow's peak was as sharply defined on her smooth forehead as though done with crayon. Dark women should always wear white, I reflected, as she paused and lifted her head to listen to the chime in the tower of the little Gothic chapel—a miniature affair that stood by the wall—a chime that flung its melody on the soft summer air like a handful of rose-leaves. She picked up a twig and broke it in her fingers; and looking down I saw that she wore on her left hand an emerald ring identical with the one worn by her aunt. It was so like that I should have believed it the same, had I not noted Miss Pat's ring but a few minutes before. Helen threw away the bits of twig when we came to the wall, and, as I swung the gate open, paused mockingly with clasped hands and peered inside.

"I must go back," she said. Then, her manner changing, she dropped her hands at her side and faced me.

"You will warn me, Mr. Donovan, of the first approach of trouble. I wish to save my aunt in every way possible—she means so much to me; she has made life easy for me where it would have been hard."

"There will be no trouble, Miss Holbrook. You are as safe as though you were hidden in a cave in the Apennines; but I shall give you warning at the first sign of danger."

"My father is—is quite relentless," she murmured, averting her eyes.

I turned to retrace the path with her; but she forbade me and was gone swiftly—a flash of white through the trees—before I could parley with her. I stared after her as long as I could hear her light tread in the path. And when she had vanished a feeling of loneliness possessed me and the country quiet mocked me with its peace.

I clanged the Glenarm gates together sharply and went in to dinner; but I pondered long as I smoked on the star-hung terrace. Through the wood directly before me I saw lights flash from the small craft of the lake, and the sharp tum-tum of a naphtha launch rang upon the summer night. Insects made a blur of sound in the dark and the chant of the katydids rose and fell monotonously.

I flung away a half-smoked cigar and lighted my pipe. There was no disguising the truth that the coming of the Holbrooks had got on my nerves—at least that was my phrase for it. Now that I thought of it, they were impudent intruders and Paul Stoddard had gone too far in turning them over to me. There was nothing in their story, anyhow; it was preposterous, and I resolved to let them severely alone. But even as these thoughts ran through my mind I turned toward St. Agatha's, whose lights were visible through the trees, and I knew that there was nothing honest in my impatience. Helen Holbrook's eyes were upon me and her voice called from the dark; and when the clock chimed nine in the tower beyond the wall memory brought back the graceful turn of her dark head, the firm curve of her throat as she had listened to the mellow fling of the bells.

And here, for the better instruction of those friends who amuse themselves with the idea that I am unusually susceptible, as they say, to the charms of woman, I beg my reader's indulgence while I state, quite honestly, the flimsy basis of this charge. Once, in my twentieth year, while I was still an undergraduate at Trinity, Dublin, I went to the Killarney Lakes for a week's end. My host—a fellow student—had taken me home to see his horses; but it was not his stable, but his blue-eyed sister, that captivated my fancy. I had not known that anything could be so beautiful as she was, and I feel and shall always feel that it was greatly to my credit that I fell madly in love with her. Our affair was fast and furious, and lamentably detrimental to my standing at Trinity. I wrote some pretty bad verses in her praise, and I am not in the least ashamed of that weakness, or that the best florist in Ireland prospered at the expense of my tailor and laundress. It lasted a year, and to say that it was like a beautiful dream is merely to betray my poor command of language. The end, too, was fitting enough, and not without its compensations: I kissed her one night—she will not, I am sure, begrudge me the confession; it was a moonlight night in May; and thereafter within two months she married a Belfast brewer's son who could not have rhymed eyes with skies to save his malted soul.

Embittered by this experience I kept out of trouble for two years, and my next affair was with a widow, two years my senior, whom I met at a house in Scotland where I was staying for the shooting. She was a bit mournful, and lavender became her well. I forgot the grouse after my first day, and gave myself up to consoling her. She had, as no other woman I have known has had, a genius—it was nothing less—for graceful attitudes. To surprise her before an open fire, her prettily curved chin resting on her pink little palm, her eyes bright with lurking tears, and to see her lips twitch with the effort to restrain a sob when one came suddenly upon her—but the picture is not for my clumsy hand! I have never known whether she suffered me to make love to her merely as a distraction, or whether she was briefly amused by my ardor and entertained by the new phrases of adoration I contrived for her. I loved her quite sincerely; I am glad to have experienced the tumult she stirred in me—glad that the folding of her little hands upon her knees, as she bent toward the lighted hearth in that old Scotch manor, and her low, murmuring, mournful voice, made my heart jump. I told her—and recall it without shame—that her eyes were adorable islands aswim in brimming seas, and that her hands were fluttering white doves of peace. I found that I could maintain that sort of thing without much trouble for an hour at a time.

I did not know it was the last good-by when I packed my bags and gun-cases and left one frosty morning. I regret nothing, but am glad it all happened just so. Her marriage to a clergyman in the Establishment—a duke's second son in holy orders who enjoyed considerable reputation as a cricketer—followed quickly, and I have never seen her since. I was in love with that girl for at least a month. It did me no harm, and I think she liked it herself.

I next went down before the slang of an American girl with teasing eyes and amazing skill at tennis, whom I met at Oxford when she was a student in Lady Margaret. Her name was Iris and she was possessed by the spirit of Mischief. If you know aught of the English, you know that the average peaches-and-cream English girl is not, to put it squarely, exciting. Iris understood this perfectly and delighted in doing things no girl had ever done before in that venerable town. She lived at home—her family had taken a house out beyond Magdalen; and she went to and from the classic halls of Lady Margaret in a dog-cart, sometimes with a groom, sometimes without. When alone she dashed through the High at a gait which caused sedate matrons to stare and sober-minded fellows of the university to swear, and admiring undergraduates to chuckle with delight. I had gone to Oxford to consult a certain book in the Bodleian—a day's business only; but it fell about that in the post-office, where I had gone on an errand, I came upon Iris struggling for a cable-blank, and found one for her. As she stood at the receiving counter, impatiently waiting to file her message, she remarked, for the benefit, I believed, of a gaitered bishop at her elbow: "How perfectly rotten this place is!"—and winked at me. She was seventeen, and I was old enough to know better, but we had some talk, and the next day she bowed to me in front of St. Mary's and, the day after, picked me up out near Keble and drove me all over town, and past Lady Margaret, and dropped me quite boldly at the door of the Mitre. Shameful! It was; but at the end of a week I knew all her family, including her father, who was bored to death, and her mother, who had thought it a fine thing to move from Zanesville, Ohio, to live in a noble old academic center like Oxford—that was what too much home-study and literary club had done for her.

Iris kept the cables hot with orders for clothes, caramels and shoes, while I lingered and hung upon her lightest slang and encouraged her in the idea that education in her case was a sinful waste of time; and I comforted her father for the loss of his native buckwheat cakes and consoled her mother, who found that seven of the perfect English servants of the story-books did less than the three she had maintained at Zanesville. I lingered in Oxford two months, and helped them get out of town when Iris was dropped from college for telling the principal that the Zanesville High School had Lady Margaret over the ropes for general educational efficiency, and that, moreover, she would not go to the Established Church because the litany bored her. Whereupon—their dependence on me having steadily increased—I got them out of Oxford and over to Dresden, and Iris and I became engaged. Then I went to Ireland on a matter of business, made an incendiary speech in Galway, smashed a couple of policemen and landed in jail. Before my father, with, I fear, some reluctance, bailed me out, Iris had eloped with a lieutenant in the German army and her family had gone sadly back to Zanesville.

This is the truth, and the whole truth, and I plead guilty to every count of the indictment. Thereafter my pulses cooled and I sought the peace of jungles; and the eyes of woman charmed me no more. When I landed at Annandale and opened my portfolio to write Russian Rivers my last affair was half a dozen years behind me.

Sobered by these reflections, I left the terrace shortly after eleven and walked through the strip of wood that lay between the house and the lake to the Glenarm pier; and at once matters took a turn that put the love of woman quite out of the reckoning.