Читать книгу Hathercourt - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 5

The next morning was dull and rainy. It was dull enough at Hathercourt Rectory, but far worse at Hathercourt Edge, and even Arthur Beverley’s unfailing good spirits felt the influence of the outside dreariness.

“I wish I hadn’t gone over to the Rectory yesterday,” he said to himself, “it would have been something to do to-day. I can’t go again till to-morrow, at soonest, and it is so horribly dull here. I wonder what those girls do with themselves on such a day as this. Their life must be very monotonous, though they look happy enough. I can’t understand why Laurence doesn’t like them. I wonder if that old fool is going to give me any breakfast?” He turned from the window to look at the table; it was covered with a very crumpled and coarse cloth, the forks and spoons, etc, were of the homeliest description, there was nothing in the shape of eatables but the half of a stale loaf, and an uninviting-looking lump of evidently salt butter, on a cracked plate. Captain Beverley eyed it all rather disconsolately. Then he went to the door – he had to stoop to avoid knocking his head on the lintel – and called down the narrow, red-tiled passage leading to the kitchen.

“Mrs Bowker, I say. Aren’t you going to give me any breakfast this morning?”

No Mrs Bowker appeared in answer to his summons, but out of the depths of the kitchen a voice replied:

“I’m a-bringin’ it, sir.”

“And what is it? Bacon?”

“No, sir – heggs,” was the reply.

“Heggs,” he repeated, as he turned back again into the parlour, “of course. I might have known, by this time, if it wasn’t bacon it would be ‘heggs.’ I declare, if I were that Mrs Western, and she I, I wouldn’t be so inhospitable. She might have asked me to go to breakfast, or luncheon, or something. I am sure those nice girls would if they could. Ah! well, here comes the heggs, and letters, too! – What’s going to happen, Mrs Bowker? The postman’s not above half an hour late this morning!”

“May be he walks fast to get out of the wet,” Mrs Bowker suggested, composedly, as she left the room.

There were three letters, two manifestly uninteresting, and Captain Beverley tossed them aside. The third had the postmark “Paris.” It was from Mr Cheviott, and his cousin opened and read it eagerly. It was rather a long letter, once or twice he smiled, and once, when he came to a passage close to the end, a slight frown contracted his good-humoured face.

“Laurence takes up such unreasonable prejudices,” he said to himself, with some irritation. “What can he know about it?”

This was the passage that annoyed him: “I hardly think the man you mention would be experienced enough for your situation – in any case I would not, if I were you, consult the Hathercourt clergyman about him, for by all accounts he is far from a practical person as to such matters, and I rather fancy there is nothing superior about the Rectory family. They are desperately poor for one thing, but, of course, you will not need to make friends with them; it is not as if Hathercourt were to be your head-quarters.”

Captain Beverley ate his breakfast and pondered over his letter. Then he got up and went to the window, and looked out at the rain.

“It is very annoying of Cheviott to have taken up this prejudice against Owen,” he thought. “I believe he is the very man for me, and, at any rate, it is necessary to hear all I can about him. And as for what Cheviott says about the Westerns I think nothing of it whatever, and he himself would be the first to own he had been mistaken if he saw the sort of people they really are. I can understand their not being popular well enough; they are proud and won’t stand being patronised.”

His meditations ended in his deciding to walk over again to Hathercourt that very afternoon – it would not do to put off hearing about Owen and settling the matter, and this he could easily explain to Mr Western, as an excuse for troubling him about it. And, having arrived at this decision, things in general began to look considerably less gloomy – he got out the plans for the new farmhouse, and examined them critically, rolling them neatly up again, when the idea struck him that it would be well to take them with him to the Rectory, in the afternoon.

“Mr Western may like to see them,” he thought, “and, as he is the clergyman of the parish, it will gratify him to be consulted.”

Then he answered Mr Cheviott’s letter, saying nothing about his visit to Hathercourt, and merely mentioning that he was making further inquiries about the man Owen, ending with a description of Mrs Bowker for Alys’s benefit, and a hearty wish that they were all back at Romary.

This important task accomplished, he looked at his watch and saw that it was eleven o’clock, so he sauntered out for a stroll round the farm and a talk with his head man. The rain was ceasing, and there was no sort of reason why he should not walk over to the Rectory in the afternoon; besides, to-morrow would be Saturday, a day on which clergymen, proverbially, dislike to be interrupted. So, having dispatched a couple of rather tough mutton chops, which was all Mrs Bowker condescended to allow him in the way of luncheon, by half-past two o’clock Captain Beverley found himself more than ready for his second expedition to Hathercourt. It was really too early to call, however, but the day had grown pleasant out of doors, and inside the old farm-house he felt it impossible to kill any more time. A “happy thought” occurred to him – why not go round by the Balner woods? It was a long walk and he might probably lose his way, but if he did he could but try to find it again – anything was better than hanging about Hathercourt Edge doing nothing.

It was November now, but who that has really lived in the country – lived in it “all the year round,” and learned every change in the seasons, every look of the sky, all the subtle combinations of air, and light, and colour, and scent, which give to outdoor life its indescribable variety and unflagging interest, who of such initiated ones does not know how marvellously delicious November can sometimes be? How tender the clear, thin, yellow tone of the struggling sunbeams, the half frosty streaks of red on the pale blue-green sky, the haze of approaching winter over all! How soft, and subdued, and tired the world seems – all the bustle over, ready to fall asleep, but first to whisper gently good night! And to feel November to perfection, for, after all, this shy autumnal charm is not so much a matter of sight, as of every sense combined, sound and scent and sight together, lapsing into one vague consciousness of harmony and repose – the place of places is a wood. A wood where the light, faint at the best, comes quivering and brokenly through the not yet altogether unclothed branches, where the fragrance of the rich leafy soil mingles with that of the breezes from the not far distant sea, where the dear rabbits scud about in the most unexpected places, and the squirrels are up aloft making arrangements for the winter – oh! a wood in late autumn has a strange glamour of its own, that comes over me, in spirit, even as I write of it, far, far away from country sights and sounds, further away still from the long-ago days of youth and leisure, and friends to wander with, in the Novembers that then were never gloomy.

Arthur Beverley was by no means sentimental – he whistled cheerily as he went along, and thought more of the probable amount of shooting in the Balner woods than of the beauty around him, yet he was not insensible to it.

“How jolly it seems after the rain,” he said to himself. “After all, there’s nowhere like England, fogs and all – it’s fresh, and wholesome, and invigorating, even in murky weather, like what we’ve had lately,” and he stood still and looked round him approvingly.

Suddenly a sound, a faint sound only, caught his ear. He listened. It came again. This time he distinguished it to be that of cheerful voices approaching him, then a merry laugh, a little exclamation, and the laugh again. Arthur Beverley’s face lighted up with interest; he felt sure he knew that laugh. He hastened on and, after a few moments’ quick walking, a little turn in the path brought him in sight of a group of figures just in front of him; they were the Western girls, the Western girls in great force, for, besides the two he knew already, there were the younger ones, Alexa and Josephine, and little Francie. And the laugh had been Lilias’s – he was not mistaken.

She was standing with her back towards him, and so was Mary, but the tiny girl beside them drew their attention to his approach.

“A gentleman, sister,” she exclaimed, pulling Miss Western’s skirt. And Lilias, turning round, met his hearty look of pleasure.

“I thought it was you,” he said, as he shook hands, “I heard you laugh.”

“How do you know it was my laugh?” said Lilias, smiling.

“I recognised it,” he said, quietly.

And Mary glanced up at him brightly. “Yes,” she said, “it was Lilias. She was laughing at Alexa, who screamed because a rabbit ran across the path. That’s not like a country girl, is it, Captain Beverley?”

“Alexa screams if a butterfly settles on her,” said Josephine, disdainfully, trying to balance herself on the hooked handle of her umbrella, which she was holding upside-down for the purpose.

Captain Beverley looked at her and at Alexa with good-humoured curiosity. Alexa looked pretty and frightened, but Josey, her long thin legs emerging from a shabby waterproof, her “touzled” fair hair tumbling out from under a still shabbier hat, was rather a remarkable object.

“These are your younger sisters, I suppose?” he said, turning to Lilias.

“Yes,” she answered, rather shortly; “we all came out for a ramble as soon as the rain cleared off. It is so miserable to be shut up in the house all day.”

“Just what I have been feeling,” he replied. “Not that I mind the rain, but still one can’t exactly set off for a walk in it unless one has something to do or somewhere to go. It is very lucky for me that I met you; I was just making up my mind to losing my way.”

“I dare say we can direct you,” said Lilias, “but we are not going your way. We are going home; it must be about half-past three now, and we have been out ever since dinner-time. Mary, don’t you think we should be going home? – it is a good walk from here, you know. You can direct Captain Beverley to Hathercourt Edge better than I, I think.”

“But I don’t want to be directed to Hathercourt Edge,” said Captain Beverley, with a very slight touch of annoyance in his tone. “I have just come from there. Of course, if you won’t let me walk with you, I must submit; but I was bound for Hathercourt Rectory. I am very anxious to see Mr Western, and thought I might again take my chance of finding him at home. That is to say, if he will not think me very troublesome.”

“Of course he will not,” answered Mary, heartily; “he was very sorry to have missed you yesterday, and I know he will be at home all this afternoon. Which way shall we go back, Lilias – by the Southmore road, or all the way through the wood?”

“By the wood decidedly, I should say,” answered Captain Beverley. “Miss Western,” he went on, quickly, “you have got such a bramble on your skirt – there, now, I have got him – step forward, please – yes, that’s it.”

By this manoeuvre he had managed to get Lilias and himself a little in front of the others, and he maintained his ground by walking on beside her. Francie was at her other side, so the arrangement into threes seemed to come about quite naturally, Mary following with Alexa and Josephine. By degrees Lilias lost the slight constraint which her manner had shown at first, and became her usual happy, winning self. The sound of her voice, and now and then of her laugh, was enough to make Mary happy too, and well content to keep behind at a reasonable distance, so that Lilias should not be annoyed by the exhibition before a stranger of Alexa’s foolish shyness or Josey’s uncalled-for remarks.

The sun came out more brightly, and gleamed and quivered down the wood alleys before them. What did they talk of, those two, as they walked on quietly, little Francie beside them, trotting along, lost in her own pretty baby dreams of fairies and brownies and the like, with which her small head was filled, all unconscious of the old, old drama beginning once more to be re-enacted in the old, old way that is ever new? What did they talk of? Could they have told, or did it matter? All about everythings and nothings, no doubt, so called “small talk,” which yet seemed full of interest, nothing very wise or weighty – so much, at least, is certain – but certain too that the walk through the Balner woods that sweet November afternoon was neither wearisome nor long to Lilias Western and the new owner of the old Edge farm.

The sunshine had tempted Mr Western out too. He was walking about the garden when his five daughters, escorted by Captain Beverley, reached the Rectory. A momentary expression of surprise crossed his face as he came forward to meet them, at first sight of the stranger, but it was succeeded by a look of gratification and pleasure, which quickly set the young man’s mind quite at rest, and left him no doubt of being welcome.

“I was quite intending to walk over to Hathercourt Edge to see you, to thank you for the friendly visit yesterday, which I was sorry to have missed,” said the Rector, with a slight touch of old-fashioned formality, not unbecoming to his tall, thin, refined-looking figure and gentle face, as he shook hands with Captain Beverley, “and now I see I must thank you also for taking care of my girls.”

“We don’t need to be taken care of that way, papa,” said Josephine, “we were only in the Balner woods, and Captain Beverley was coming here, anyhow.”

“He only tookened care of Lily and me,” said Francie, importantly, but the observation was a happy one. It was impossible not to laugh at it, and Josey’s abruptness passed unrebuked.

“I certainly deserve no thanks,” said Captain Beverley. “My visit yesterday was a selfish one, and as for to-day – why, all my thanks are due to you, Francie! I should have been lost in the woods, and perhaps eaten up by Red Riding-hood’s wolf if I had not met you, and been shown the way here.”

“But that wolf was killed long ago, Lily says,” said Francie, staring up with great bewilderment in her blue eyes. “It couldn’t have eatened you up when it was killed itself.”

“Indeed. I am very glad to hear it,” replied Captain Beverley, gravely, “then I needn’t be afraid of coming through the Balner woods; it is a good thing to know that. It is a much pleasanter walk than by the road,” he went on, turning again to Mr Western. “I really was on my way here when I met your daughters. I am afraid you will think me very troublesome.”

His manner was certainly boyish, but not in the least awkward. That Mr Western was “taken” with him was quickly evident.

“Indeed, no,” he said, heartily. “Living here so completely out of the world, as you see, it is very seldom that we have the pleasure of showing even the little hospitality we have in our power. But, such as it is, I hope you will accept it. Lilias, Mary,” he continued, turning to his daughters, the younger ones having by this time disappeared, “tell your mother that Captain Beverley is here.”

“I will,” said Mary, hastening away with a great excitement in her thoughts, “I do believe papa is going to ask him to stay to tea. What will mamma say?” and not knowing whether she was pleased or distressed, she hurried in to break the momentous tidings to her mother, and to consult the cook.

Lilias was following her, but her father called her back. “You need not both go, my dears,” he said with sudden remembrance of unwritten letters awaiting him in his study, which must be seen to before four o’clock post-time. “Perhaps Captain Beverley would like to have a look at the church again, if you will take him to see it. I will follow you in a few minutes, but I have a letter or two I must finish, which I was forgetting.”

“Pray don’t let me interrupt you,” exclaimed Captain Beverley, with anxiety almost disproportionate to the occasion. “I should very much like to look at the church, for there are some tablets there I want to examine. And if Miss Western will explain them a little, I shall be very much obliged.”

Lilias hesitated. “Mary understands them better than I do,” she began, but her father interrupted her.

“I will send her after you, if you go on, and I will finish my letters as quickly as I can, and then, Captain Beverley, I shall be at your service. Mrs Western tells me you want to hear about Joseph Owen. You will stay and – I can’t say dine with us – we are very uncivilised, you see; we have a mongrel meal at six!”

He spoke with a slight nervousness, which made Lilias’s cheek grow hot. “Poor dear father!” she ejaculated, mentally. But the guest seemed blissfully unconscious of his host’s hesitation.

“You are very kind indeed,” he said, eagerly. “I should very much like to stay, if I shall not be a trouble. It is so wretchedly dull and uncomfortable at the Edge, I don’t think I could have stood it much longer, unless – if you had not taken pity on me,” he added, laughingly, as Lilias led the way across the grass to the old church.

Mary joined them there in a few minutes, and while Captain Beverley was examining the old coat-of-arms on the tablet in memory of his ancestress, she found time to whisper to her sister, —

“Mamma knows that papa has asked him to stay to tea. I don’t think she minds much.”

“But what will there be for tea?” said Lilias, in consternation.

“Oh! that will be all right,” replied Mary, reassuringly.

And, somewhat to Lilias’s surprise, her mother showed herself far more amiably disposed for Captain Beverley, on further acquaintance, than might have been anticipated.

“Though, indeed,” said Mary, when, at night, they were talking over in their own room the pleasant evening they had had, “it would be difficult not to feel amiably disposed to him! He is so unaffected and hearty, and yet not by any means a goose. He liked talking to papa about sensible things, I could see.”

“He talked sensibly to me, too,” said Lilias, dryly, “though, of course, I cannot answer for what he may have said to you.”

“Lilias!” exclaimed Mary, “don’t be so silly. You know – ”

“What do I know?”

“That I am not the sort of girl likely to have anything but sensible things said to me, especially when you are there.”

Lilias laughed merrily. “Really, Mary, you are very complimentary. You trust to me to absorb all the nonsense, and leave the sense for you! I think I shall keep out of the way, if Captain Beverley comes here again.”

“Then he wouldn’t come any more,” said Mary. “Lily, I’m sleepy, say good-night, please.”

“Good-night, though I am not sleepy at all,” said Lilias, cheerfully.

What had become of all her low spirits? thought Mary, with a little bewilderment Lilias was not usually so changeable. The evening had certainly been a very pleasant one; even the younger girls had somehow shown to advantage; and Captain Beverley had not merely ignored, he had seemed perfectly unconscious of the homeliness of their way of living – the crowded tea-table, the little countrified waiting-maid, the absence of the hundred and one small luxuries which to him could not but be matters of course. And his unconsciousness had reached favourably on his entertainers; Mr Western lost his nervousness, Mrs Western her gentle coldness, and every one seemed at ease and happy. Any stranger glancing in would have thought them all old friends, instead of new acquaintances, of the handsome young man who was the life and soul of the party.

“Mary,” said Lilias again, just as Mary was falling asleep, “Captain Beverley will be at the Brocklehurst ball this year. He is to be staying at Romary.”

“I thought you said you were never going again,” said Mary, who had her wits about her, sleepy though she was.

“But you would hot like to go without me, I know,” replied Lilias, meekly. “Oh, Mary, I do wish we could have new dresses for once!”

Mary did not consider this observation worth waking up to answer. But her dreams were a strange medley – Captain Beverley dancing at a ball with his great grandmother Mawde, dressed all in scarlet, as if she were Red Riding-hood, but with a face like Lilias’s. And what Lilias’s dreams were, who can say?

But the Brocklehurst ball was three weeks off as yet, and there was no lack of opportunities of discussing it with Captain Beverley.

Surely November this year must have been an exceptionally fine one, for there seemed few days on which Arthur Beverley did not find his way through the woods, or by the road, to the Rectory, with some excuse in the shape of further plans to be shown to Mr Western, or a book to lend to the girls or their mother, or without any, save the sight of his own bright face, and an eager proposal that they should all set off on a long ramble somewhere or other, instead of wasting one of the few fine days of late autumn, moping in the house. And by degrees it came to be a matter of course that, if the owner of Hathercourt Edge chose to drop in at any or every meal, he should be welcome, and that if he stayed away he should be missed, and Mrs Western’s fears and vague apprehensions gradually softened, now that this terrible wolf had actually taken up his quarters in the midst of her flock without, so far, any of them being the worse!

“He seems like a sort of elder brother among them all,” she said to her husband. “I wish Basil had been at home – contact with such a man would have done him good.”

Mr Western agreed with her, for he, too, had greatly “taken” to the young stranger. It was pleasant to him to find that he had not altogether fallen out of the ways of his class, that cares, and small means, and living out of the world had not crusted over his former self past recognition. Arthur Beverley had not been at college, but he, as well as his host, had been an Eton boy, and poor George, to whom the name of Eton was that of a forbidden Paradise, listened with delight to the many reminiscences in common of his father and his guest, notwithstanding the quarter of a century which divided their experiences. So everybody in his or her own way felt pleased with Captain Beverley, and his coming seemed to have brought new life and sunshine into the Rectory. Lilias alone spoke little of him, and Mary sometimes lay awake at night “thinking.”