Читать книгу Not Without Thorns - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 1

La danse au piano est ou très-charmante ou très-ennuyeuse, selon le sort.

A foggy evening in early December. Fogs are quick to gather and slow to disperse in the heavily laden air surrounding an assemblage of tall chimneys; and the manufacturing town of Wareborough, low-lying and flat, seemed to have a special attraction for them. Unprepossessing at its best, Wareborough was peculiarly so at this season and in such weather; it would, indeed, have been difficult to choose a day on which it could have less favourably impressed a stranger than the one just drawing drearily to a close.

There was a good deal of confusion in the streets, for the fog greatly impeded the traffic.

“What a place! How can human beings be found willing to spend their lives here?” thought to himself, with a shudder at the bare idea, a young man seated in a rattling Wareborough fly, whose driver, notwithstanding constantly recurring risk of collision, was doing his best to keep his tired horse up to its usual speed. “Where in the world is the fellow taking me to?” was his next reflection. “It seems to me I have been hours in this wretched shandry-dan.”

Just as he was about putting his head out of the window to shout inquiries or directions to the driver, the fly stopped. The gentleman jumped out, then stood still, bewildered.

“Where is the house?” he exclaimed. “Is this Barnwood Terrace? I see no houses at all.”

“There’s a gate, sir, just by where you’re standing,” replied the man. “You’ve some little way to walk up the path. Can’t drive up to the door. There’s three houses together, and Mr Dalrymple’s is the middle one. I’ll run up to the door and ring, sir.”

He was preparing to descend, but the young man stopped him. “Never mind, stay where you are, I’ll find my way. Come for me about eleven or half-past. You stand near our place, don’t you? Yes. All right then.”

He fumbled away for some time at what he discovered by feeling, to be an iron railing, before he succeeded in finding anything like a gate. He came upon it at last suddenly: it was open. The path fortunately was straight, and the light of a gas-lamp glimmering feebly through the fog showed him, in time to prevent his tumbling against it, a flight of five or six stone steps to be ascended before he could ring the front-door bell of Number 2, Barnwood Terrace. It showed him something more. Some one was there before him. On the top step stood a figure, waiting apparently for admission. It was a human being, but that was about all he could discern as he cautiously mounted the steps; then as he drew nearer, it gradually assumed to him through the exaggerating, distorting medium of the fog the dimensions of an unnaturally tall, curiously shrouded woman. It remained perfectly motionless, whether the face was turned towards him or not he could not tell. Now he was quite close to it, standing on the same step, yet it gave not the slightest sign of having perceived his approach. The young man began to think it rather odd – who could it be? A woman, apparently, standing there alone waiting – was she a beggar? No, even through the fog he could distinguish nothing crouching or cringing in the attitude, the figure stood erect and firm, the shrouding drapery seemed to fall in rich and ample folds. The new-comer felt extremely puzzled. Then suddenly he resolved to end his perplexity.

“Have you rung?” he asked, courteously. The figure moved a little, but seemed to hesitate to answer. “Shall I ring?” he repeated, “or have you done so already?”

“I have rung, but perhaps not loudly enough.”

“I think you had better ring again, for I have been waiting here some minutes,” came the reply at last in low, clear, refined tones.

“A lady! How very strange for her to be standing here alone in the dark – what a queer place Wareborough must be,” thought the young man; but he said nothing more, and almost before his vigorous pull at the bell could have taken effect, the door was thrown open, revealing a brightly lighted, crimson carpeted hall, and two or three servants in unexceptionable attire.

“Come, this looks more promising,” was the reflection that glanced through the stranger’s mind as he drew back to allow his companion to enter. The glare of light was almost blinding for a moment, but still as she passed him he managed to catch a glimpse of her face – a mere glimpse however. By what he saw of her features only, he would hardly have been able to recognise her. Still, hurried as it was, his glance satisfied him on one point – she was very young, and he felt all but certain, very pretty. But in a moment she had disappeared, how or where he could not tell; so quickly that but for the remembrance of her voice he could have imagined her altogether the offspring of his own fancy. He stood still for a moment or two, feeling somehow confused and bewildered, and very much inclined to rub his eyes or pinch himself to make sure he was awake. Then suddenly he was recalled to himself by hearing his own name sonorously announced, and in another moment he found himself ushered into a large, richly furnished drawing-room, all mirrors and gilding, damask and velvet pile, among a dozen or more well-dressed people of both sexes, one of whom, a lady comely and pleasant looking, advanced quickly to meet him.

“Captain Chancellor, I am so delighted to see you. So glad you have found your way to us already. Henry,” turning to a stout good-humoured-looking man beside her, “Henry, this is my old – my long-ago young friend. Captain Chancellor, let me introduce my husband to you, Mr Dalrymple.”

The old young friend responded with becoming graciousness to this cordial reception, though not feeling so thoroughly at his ease as was usual to him. He was conscious of having been expected, looked for, talked over probably by the company among whom he found himself, before he had made his appearance. And though thoroughly accustomed to please and be pleased, he was not a vain man, and this curious little sensation of conspicuousness was not altogether agreeable. By way of making him feel himself at home, his host proceeded to introduce him right and left to so many of the assembled guests, that the result was a feeling of increased bewilderment and utter confusion as to their identity. Still to all appearance he proved himself quite equal to the occasion, shook hands heartily with the men, looked amiably at the women and, being a remarkably handsome and perfectly well-bred man, succeeded even during the few minutes that elapsed before the dinner gong sounded in securing to himself the favourable prepossessions of nearly every one in the room.

He had reasons of his own for wishing to impress his entertainers agreeably; his efforts speedily met with their reward.

“I have a surprise for you,” said Mrs Dalrymple when her Henry at length allowed the young man a little breathing time. “Guess who is here – ah yes, there she comes – she had just gone upstairs to fetch her fan when you came in. Roma dear, here is Captain Chancellor at last. I must manage to let you two sit next to each other at dinner, you will have so much home news to talk over. You have not met for some months, Roma tells me.”

The young lady addressed came forward quietly, with a slight look of amusement on her face, to greet the new-comer.

“How funny it seems to find you here? Who would have thought of you turning up at Wareborough, Beauchamp?”

“Not half so funny as your being here, it strikes me,” replied the gentleman. “Very lucky for me that it is so of course, but what you can find to amuse you here I cannot imagine.” Their hostess had by this time turned away.

“She – Mrs Dalrymple – is my cousin, you know,” said Miss Eyrecourt, in a lower tone, with a very slight inclination of her head in the direction of the lady referred to.

“I know that; but people are not obliged to visit their cousins if they bury themselves in such places. I daresay you are wondering at my not seeming more surprised to see you, are you not? The truth is, Gertrude mentioned it in a letter I got this morning, but what the reason was of your coming here she didn’t say.”

The announcement of dinner prevented the young lady replying. It fell to Captain Chancellor’s lot to escort his hostess to the dining-room, but, thanks to her good offices, Miss Eyrecourt was placed at his right hand.

“You were asking the reason of my coming to Wareborough, were you not, Beauchamp?” she began, after calmly snubbing the first feeble effort of her legitimate companion of the dinner table – a Wareborough young gentleman – to enter into conversation. “I don’t see why you should think it so extraordinary. I have been at my godmother’s – up in the Arctic regions somewhere – in Cumberland, you know – for three weeks. Now I am on my way to Brighton for a fortnight. Gertrude is already there, you know, with the children, and we shall all go home together for Christmas. I don’t suppose you ever learnt geography; but if you had, you would know that Wareborough is somewhere between the two points I name, which was lucky for me. Pearson objects to long journeys without a break.”

Captain Chancellor smiled. “Then why drag her up to Cumberland in the middle of winter? I can’t imagine any motive strong enough to make you risk her displeasure.”

“Can’t you?” said Roma, languidly, leaning back in her chair. “Not even god-daughterly devotion? Seriously, Beauchamp, you know Lady Dervock has ever so many thousand pounds to leave to somebody, and I don’t see why I should not be that happy person. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to get some money – a good comfortable sum of course.”

A slightly cynical expression came over Captain Chancellor’s face, and there was a suspicion of a sneer in his voice as he replied —

“Really? I didn’t know your views had progressed so far. Perhaps this is the real secret of your visit to Wareborough: it is said to be a first-rate neighbourhood for picking up millionaires in.”

“Thank you for the suggestion,” answered Miss Eyrecourt, calmly; “but I have no intention of the kind. I have no idea of selling myself. When I do get my money I should prefer it without appendages. I shall not try for a Wareborough millionaire at present; certainly not – as long as there is a chance of godmamma Dervock awakening to a proper sense of her duty.”

Captain Chancellor’s brow cleared a little. Just then Mrs Dalrymple, whose attention had been caught by a stray word or two of their low-toned conversation, interrupted it by an inquiry as to what he thought of Wareborough. He laughed a little as he answered her, that so far he could hardly venture to have any thoughts on the subject.

“I only crossed over from Ireland yesterday,” he said. “It was eleven o’clock last night when I reached Wareborough, and the whole of to-day I have been conscious but of one sensation.”

“Fog?” inquired Roma.

“Yes, fog,” he replied. “And, by-the-bye, that reminds me I had such a funny little adventure when I came here to-night,” he stopped abruptly and looked searchingly round the table.

“What is the matter? Whom are you looking for?” asked both his neighbours at once.

“No, she is certainly not here,” he replied inconsequently. “Even if my impression of her features is mistaken, there is no girl here dressed as she was. She had a scarlet band round her hair and something silver at one side. What can have become of her?”

“Beauchamp, are you going out of your mind? What are you talking about?” exclaimed Miss Eyrecourt. “Mary,” to Mrs Dalrymple, “I am sure his senses are going – a mysterious ‘she’ with scarlet and silver in her hair?”

“I think I understand,” said Mrs Dalrymple, looking amused. “Captain Chancellor must have met my little friend Eugenia Laurence as he came in. I remember hearing the bell ring just before you rang,” she continued, turning to the young man – “the first was a very feeble attempt.”

“But she is not little, she is very tall, whoever she is,” objected Beauchamp.

“Rather, not very. Certainly she is not taller than Roma, but then she is so very thin.”

“Thank you, that means I am very fat,” observed Miss Eyrecourt.

“Nonsense, you are just right. Eugenia is a mere child. So you made acquaintance with her outside in the fog, did you, Captain Chancellor? How very funny! I wonder she didn’t run away in a fright, poor child. I should like to know if you think she promises to be pretty. Roma thinks so, don’t you, dear? But you are very hard to please I hear, Captain Chancellor. I must introduce you to Eugenia after dinner. She is a great pet of mine.”

This was all the information Mrs Dalrymple vouchsafed on the subject of the mysterious young lady, for before Captain Chancellor had time to make any further inquiry the usual smiling signal was exchanged, and the ladies retired with much stateliness and rustle to the drawing-room.

Mrs Dalrymple, the most good-natured of her sex, was never so happy as when she saw “young people,” as she expressed it, “enjoying themselves,” and her ideas on this subject, as on most others, being practical in the extreme, a somewhat unexpected sight met the eyes of Captain Chancellor on his re-entering the drawing-room in company with the other gentlemen.

“Dancing,” he exclaimed, slightly raising his eyebrows, when he had made his way across the room to Miss Eyrecourt, “and on this heavy carpet. Won’t it be rather hard work?”

“Very, I should say,” replied Roma, indifferently. “I certainly don’t mean to try it.”

“Not with me?” said he in a low voice, looking down on her where she sat, with the deep blue eyes he so well knew how to make the most of.

“No, not with you,” she answered, coolly. “Carpet dances are not at all in my way, as you might know.”

Captain Chancellor looked considerably piqued.

“I don’t understand you, Roma,” he exclaimed. “If the floor were red hot I should enjoy dancing on it if it were with you.”

Miss Eyrecourt laughed softly.

“You would dance vigorously enough in that case, I have no doubt,” she replied; “but as for enjoying it, that’s quite another affair. Seriously, Beauchamp, I am going away to-morrow, and I don’t want to knock myself up before the journey. Besides, what is the use of dancing with me here? Wait for the hunt ball at Winsley, when you come home on leave. You had better make friends with some of these Wareborough people, as you are sure to be here for some time to come. There are at least six or eight passable-looking girls in the room, and Mary Dalrymple is dying to show off her new lion. They want to hear you roar a little; you don’t half appreciate the position.”

“Who are all these people? Where have they sprung from?” asked Captain Chancellor, ignoring her last remarks. “I counted how many there were at dinner – sixteen I think – but there are several more in the room now.”

“Yes; those were mostly papas and mammas. The young ladies come after dinner, and some of the young gentlemen. We have had one or two little entertainments of the kind in the week I have been here. I found them very fatiguing; but then I have no interest in the place or the people. I am not going to be here for months like you.”

“And you won’t dance?” urged Beauchamp.

“No, really I don’t feel inclined for it,” she replied decidedly. “And it looks uncivil to go on like this, talking to ourselves so much. Do go and get introduced to some one, Beauchamp. I don’t want to offend Mary.”

Captain Chancellor walked off without saying any more, but he felt chafed and cross, and by no means inclined to waste his waltzing on a Wareborough young lady. He retired into a corner, and stood there, looking and feeling rather sulky, and trusting devoutly that his energetic hostess might not discover his retreat. It was a large room, with several windows and a good deal of drapery about it: there were heavy curtains, only partially drawn, close to where he was standing, and these for some moments concealed from his view a young lady sitting by herself on a low chair very near his corner.

Her head was the first thing he caught sight of; a scarlet band and a small cluster of silvery leaves at one side, just above a pretty little ear. He could not see her face, but the simple head-dress, the arrangement of the bright wavy brown hair, he recognised at once. He moved his position slightly, drawing a little, a very little nearer, enough however to attract her attention. She looked up – ah yes, he had been right, his instinct had not deceived him; it never did in such matters, he said to himself; she was pretty, very pretty, though so young and unformed a creature. The gloomy expression, softened out of his face as he watched her for a moment without speaking; then gradually a slight colour rose on her cheeks, she looked down quickly, as if becoming conscious of his observation, and the movement recalled him to himself.

“I beg your pardon,” he began hurriedly, without quite knowing what he meant. “I did not see you when I invaded your quiet corner. Are you not going to dance?” he went on, as if speaking to a child, for almost as such he unconsciously regarded her, calmly ignoring the fact that he had not been introduced to her. “Don’t you like dancing?”

“Oh, yes, at least I think I do,” she answered, with some hesitation. “I have never danced much. I don’t care for it very much.”

Captain Chancellor looked at her again, this time with increasing interest and some perplexity. He could not make her out. She was not shy, certainly not the least awkward; but for the slightly fluctuating colour on her cheeks, he would have imagined her to be thoroughly at her ease, rather more so perhaps than he quite cared about in a girl of her tender years, for “she can’t be more than sixteen,” he said to himself, as he observed her silently, sitting there alone, gravely watching the dance which had now begun. It seemed unnatural that she should not join in it; he felt sorry for her – but yet – it was quite against his principles to risk making a spectacle of himself – he wished she would dance with some one else; he could judge of her powers in a moment then. But no one came near their corner – even Mrs Dalrymple seemed to have forgotten them both. Captain Chancellor was a kind-hearted man, the sort of man, too, to whom it came naturally to try to attract any woman with whom he might be thrown in contact. And then this girl was undoubtedly pretty, and with something out of the common about her. He began to feel himself getting good-tempered again. It was stupid work sulking in a corner on account of Roma; he had had plenty of experience of her freaks before now, much better show her he did not pay any attention to them. Just as he had reached this point in his meditations, a faint, an all but inaudible little sigh caught his ear. It carried the day.

“Don’t you find it rather wearisome to sit still, watching all this waltzing?” he said at last. “Though you don’t care much about dancing, a turn or two would be a change, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” the girl answered, raising her face to his, with a rather melancholy expression in her eyes. “Yes, I daresay it would be very nice; but no one has asked me to dance. I hardly know any one here, for it is almost the first time I have been out anywhere in this way.”

Her frankness somewhat embarrassed her companion. It is not often that young ladies calmly announce a dearth of partners as a reason for their sitting still, and Captain Chancellor hardly knew how to reply. Condolence, he feared, might seem impertinent. He took refuge, at last, in her extreme youth.

“No one could think it possible you had been out much,” he said gently. “At your age, many girls have never been out at all.” She looked up quickly at this, smiling a little, as if about to say something, but stopped. “As for not knowing any one here, we both seem in the same predicament, for I am a perfect stranger too. If no one better offers, will you condescend to give me the next dance? This one is just ending.”

A bright, almost a grateful glance was his reward.

“I didn’t understand that you were asking me to dance with you,” she said, half apologetically. “I should like it very much, but – ” here the rather stiff demureness of her manner fairly melted away, and she began to laugh. “You forget I don’t know who you are. I haven’t even heard your name.”

Captain Chancellor started. He felt considerably annoyed with himself. He was the last man to slight or ignore any recognised formality, and he could not endure to be laughed at. He drew himself up rather haughtily, and was just beginning a somewhat stilted apology, when the young lady interrupted him.

“Oh, please don’t be vexed!” she exclaimed eagerly. “I hope I haven’t said anything rude. It was so kind of you to ask me to dance, and I should like it so much! It doesn’t matter our not being regularly introduced, does it?”

“I hope not. We must consider the fog our master of ceremonies: it was under his auspices we first made each other’s acquaintance,” he replied, with a smile, for her “Oh, please don’t be vexed!” was irresistible; “and I think I do know your name. You are Miss Laurence, are you not? Your friend Mrs Dalrymple was speaking about you at dinner, and I know she quite intended asking your permission to introduce me to you. It is easy to tell you my name. It is Chancellor.”

“Captain Chancellor! Oh yes; I thought so,” she said naïvely; “but of course I was not sure. Now it is all right, isn’t it?” for by this time a new dance was beginning, and she was evidently eager to lose no more valuable time.

It was only a quadrille. They took their places, and though Miss Laurence’s gravity returned when she found herself facing so many people, an underlying expression of great content was nevertheless plainly visible in her countenance to an observer so experienced and acute as her partner, and the discovery by no means diminished his good, humour.