Читать книгу Proud Lady - Neith Boyce - Страница 4

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The roast was burned. Dr. Lowell, at the head of the table, carved and dispensed it, with sly chuckles. His mild blue eyes beamed through his spectacles, and he kept up the slow flow of conversation, now addressing the minister, who sat alone on one side of the table, now Captain Carlin, who sat with Mary on the other side; and sending propitiatory glances at his wife, who loomed opposite, stonily indignant. She was outraged at having her dinner spoiled—in addition to everything else. And if looks could have done it, the whole company, except the minister, would have been annihilated.

Yes, her husband too. This was one of the times when he exasperated her beyond endurance. How ridiculous he was, with his perpetual good-humour, his everlasting jokes! As he carved the leathery beef he made a point of asking each person, "Will you have it well-done, or rare?" And then he would wink at her. She glared back at him, looking like a block of New England granite, as she was.

It was strange that in a long life together she had not been able to crush the light-mindedness out of that man. But she had not even made a church member of him. He treated the minister as he did anybody else, with gentle courtesy—beneath which, if you knew him well, you might suspect a sparkle of amusement. He laughed at everything, everybody! At times she suspected him of being an atheist. He had said that he was too busy correcting God's mistakes in people's bodies to think about their souls, or his own. Mrs. Lowell would not have dared repeat this remark to the minister, for if she had an atheist in the family she would conceal him to the last gasp, as she would a forger.

Whenever she spoke, during this meal, she addressed herself pointedly to the minister, for she was above being hypocritical or pretending that Captain Carlin's presence was welcome to her. From the deep respect of her manner toward the Reverend Mr. Robertson, he might have been a very venerable personage indeed. But he was a young man, under thirty and at first glance insignificant—slight and plain. His straw-coloured hair was smoothed back from a brow rather narrow than otherwise, his light eyebrows and lashes gave no emphasis to his grey-blue eyes, his complexion was sallow, his mouth straight and rather wide. Perhaps Mrs. Lowell's manner merely indicated respect to the cloth.

But when Hilary Robertson spoke, people listened to him—whether he was in his pulpit or in a chance crowd of strangers. Sometimes on the street, people would turn and look at him, at the sound of his voice. It had a deep, low-toned bell-like resonance. The commonest words, spoken in that rich voice, took on colour, might have an arresting power. Perhaps this remarkable organ accounted for Hilary Robertson as a minister of religion. No, it was only one of his qualifications.

A second glance was apt to dwell on his face with attention. There were deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth and across the forehead and between the eyebrows. The pale-coloured eyes had a luminous intensity, and the mouth a firm compression. A fiery irritable spirit under strong control had written its struggle there.

As he sat quietly, eating little, speaking less, but listening, glancing attentively at each of the family in turn and at Captain Carlin, only an uncommon pallor showed that he was feeling deeply. No one—not Mrs. Lowell, though she suspected much, not Mary—no one knew what the return of Carlin meant to Hilary Robertson. Two people at that table would have been glad if Carlin never had come back. Mrs. Lowell would have denied indignantly that she wished any ill to Laurence Carlin—only she did not want her daughter to marry a nobody, of unworthy foreign descent. But the minister faced the truth and knew that he, Hilary Robertson, sinner, had hoped that Laurence Carlin would die in battle; that when his imagination had shown him Carlin struck down by a bullet, he felt as a murderer feels. His heart had leaped and a deep feeling of solace had filled it, to think that Carlin might be out of his way. Why not, where so many better men had died? Why must just this man, whom his judgment condemned, come back to cross the one strong personal desire of his life, his one chance of happiness? Mary belonged to him already, in a sense—he shared the life of her soul, its first stirring was due to him. Not a word of love had ever been spoken between them. She was betrothed, he could not have spoken to her. But all the same he felt that only a frail bond held her to the other—the bond of her word and of a feeling less intense than the spiritual sympathy between her and himself.... But now it was all over—Carlin had come back and she would marry him. And a soul just beginning to be awakened to eternal things would perhaps slip back into the toils of the temporal and earthly....

Dr. Lowell asked questions about Washington city, the great review of the army, about General Grant, and Sherman and the new President. Carlin answered rather briefly, his natural buoyancy suppressed by the hostility of two of his auditors. But this he felt only vaguely, his happiness was like a bright cloud enfolding him, blurring his eyes. The other people were like shadows to him, he was really only conscious of Mary there beside him. He would have liked to be silent, as she was.

There was no lingering over the table. The doctor had his round of visits to make. The Indian pudding disposed of, he lit his pipe, put on his old felt hat and his cape, took his black medicine-chest, and went out to hitch up Satan, a fast trotter who had come cheap because of his kicking and biting habits. Gentle Dr. Lowell liked a good horse, and as he pointed out to his wife, he needed one, on his long country journeys at all hours of the day or night. The horse's name had provoked a protest, but as the doctor said, that was his name and it suited him, why change it? You might christen him the Angel Gabriel but it wouldn't change his disposition.

The minister took his leave, saying that he had work to do. At parting he asked if he should see them at evening meeting. Mary felt a reproach and blushed faintly and Mrs. Lowell said with asperity, "Certainly, that is all except the doctor, nobody ever knows when he'll be back." She escorted Mr. Robertson to the door, and then majestically began gathering up the dinner dishes. There were no servants in the household. Mary came to help, but her mother said sternly, "I'll attend to these, you can go along."

So Mary went along, to the parlour where Laurence Carlin was waiting. This room was bright now because of the sunlight and the potted plants in all the windows, between the looped-up lace curtains. But the furniture was black walnut and horse-hair, and marble-topped tables. On the walls were framed daguerreotypes and a wreath under glass, of flowers made from hair. It was not a genial room. The blue and purple hyacinths flowering in the south windows made the air sweet with rather a funeral fragrance.

Carlin turned to her with a tremulous wistful look. After the first joy of seeing her, as always, timidity came upon him. Each time that he had come back to her, during these four years, it seemed that he had to woo her all over again. Each time she had somehow become a stranger to him. Yet she had never repudiated the engagement made when she was seventeen. It was always understood that they were to be married. But it seemed almost as though she had accepted and then forgotten him. She took their future together for granted, but his passionate eagerness found no echo in her. So he always had to subdue himself to her calm, her aloofness, and his wistful hungry eyes expressed his unsatisfied yearning. Mary liked him best when only his eyes spoke, when his caress, as now, was timid and restrained. He touched her bright hair and looked adoringly at her untroubled face. They sat down together on the slippery horse-hair sofa.

"Captain!" said Mary, looking at the stripes on his sleeve with a pensive smile. "So now you're Captain Carlin!"

"That's all I am," he said ruefully. "I have to start all over again now."

"Yes."

"Nothing to show for these four years."

Mary smiled and touched with her square finger-tips the scar on his cheek.

"How did you get that?"

"Sabre-cut." He looked hurt. "I wrote you from the hospital, don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes, I remember," she said serenely. "Well, it doesn't look so bad. You aren't sorry, are you?"

"For what, the—"

"The four years."

"No, I couldn't help it. But—but—"

"I'm glad of it—I'm proud of you—and that you were promoted for bravery—"

"Oh, Mary, are you?... But bravery isn't anything, it's common. Why—"

"Yes, I know. But you must have been uncommonly brave, or they wouldn't have promoted you!"

He laughed and drew her near him, venturing a kiss.

"It seems strange that you have been through all that—battles, killing people—and you just a boy too, just Laurence," said Mary dreamily. "And wouldn't hurt a fly. I can remember yet what a fuss you made about a kitten—you remember the kitten the boys were—"

"Just Larry O'Carolan, the gossoon, divil a bit else," said Laurence.

"Oh, don't be Irish!... O'Carolan is pretty, though, prettier than Carlin, but it's too Irish!"

"You can have it either way you like, Mary darling," said he tenderly. "Just so you take it soon—will you?"

She could feel the strong beating of his heart as he held her close.

"And yet—I ought not to ask you, maybe! For I've got nothing in the world, only my two hands!... You know I was studying law when it came. Judge Baxter would take me back in his office, I think—but it would be years before—"

"He said you would be a good lawyer," pondered Mary.

"Would you like that? I could make some money at something else, perhaps, and be reading law too—at night or some time.... Or there's business—there are a lot of chances now, Mary, all over the country. I've heard of a lot of things.... Would you go away with me, Mary, go west, if—"

"West?"

She looked startled, rather dismayed.

"Well, we'll talk about that later, I'll tell you what I've heard," said Laurence hastily. "But I'll do exactly what you want, Mary, about everything. You shall have just what you want, always!"

She smiled, her pensive dreamy smile, and looked at his eyes so near her—blue mysterious eyes, radiant with love. This love, his complete devotion, she accepted calmly, as her right and due. Laurence belonged to her and she to him—that was settled, long ago. Her heart beat none the quicker at his touch—except now and then when he frightened her a little. Mary Lavinia was not in the least given to analysing her own feelings. She took it for granted that they were what they should be. And they remained largely below the threshold of consciousness.

But now she moved a little away from him and studied his face thoughtfully. This was not the handsome boy of four years ago, gay, tumultuous, demanding, full of petulant ardour. The lines of his mouth and jaw, which she had always thought too heavy, with a certain grossness, were now firmly set. He was thinner, that helped—the scar on his cheek, too. There was power in this face, and a look, sad, almost stern, that she had never seen before. Suffering, combat, the resolute facing of death, the habit of command, had formed the man. She had been used to command Laurence Carlin, she had held him in the palm of her hand. But here was something unfamiliar. Her instinct for domination suffered an obscure check.