Читать книгу Barnaby - Rina Ramsay - Страница 5

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Susan had flung from her with both hands the imprudent longing to cry out her story.

Somehow she felt that if she spoke now she would be a traitor. It was too late to look back; for good or ill she had changed places with the other woman who would not come. To fail now would not be to clear her honour, it would be to desert her post.

When Lady Henrietta, having triumphed, had given way at last, and had clung to Susan, the girl, gathered in that fierce clasp, had known that Barnaby's mother took passionate comfort in her only because the stranger was something that had belonged to him. To deny her that comfort would be to rob one who had nothing left. Could she, by a wistful life of devotion, justify herself, not in the sight of man, not to hard judges—but perhaps to this Barnaby who was dead, and who would surely understand? Keeping silent, she promised him that she would.

Day after day passed over her head, building an unsteady wall between her and that pitiless outside world in which she had been like a driven leaf, without hope or foothold. She became accustomed to the lazy peace of the house, to the watchful offices of the old servants, who seemed, like Lady Henrietta herself, curiously proud of her.

Slowly she grew stronger; her thin cheek rounded, still pale, but touched with a faint promise of colour.

One afternoon she was taking her solitary walk in the park, and had wandered farther than she had been. The dogs had left her, scurrying after rabbits, and she leaned on a stile that offered a resting-place, a little tired and wistful, gazing at the sinking fire in the west.

Suddenly the air was quick with galloping, and all around her were jumping horses. Startled, but unafraid, she watched them coming over the hedge, imagining that as they came they would vanish.

"You shouldn't stay there, you might get hurt," called someone, pulling up at her side. "How are you?"

She had been looking on, as one would look at a gallant picture, not realizing that she was in its midst. Instinctively she drew back. All had stopped, and hounds were clustering in the bottom, where the huntsman had dismounted, and was peering into a drain. Many heads were turned, with a rough kindness that excused curiosity, in her direction. Perhaps they were all Barnaby's comrades, who missed him, and saw in the pathetic figure one who was missing him more than they...

But the man who had drawn up beside her was leaning down to her like an old friend, barring out the rest with his shoulder. His horse, still excited, jerked at his bit, and flung a white flick of lather on her black dress. Without thinking, she stretched out her hand to his muzzle.

"Take care. He's an uncertain brute," said Rackham. "You like horses?"

"I used to ride," she said.

Something awoke in her at that velvet touch, and she could not finish, thinking of other horses.

"Good," he said quickly. "Tell you what. I have a mare that would carry you. I'll come and talk it over—if my aunt will let me in."

He laughed a little under his breath at that. "How do you get on with her?" he asked. "She's a warrior—!"

Susan lifted her eyes to his face. His abrupt friendliness could not entirely conquer the fluttering apprehension of danger in his good-nature that made her unaccountably shy of him. There was commiseration in his look—and admiration.

"Look here," he said; "we're cousins—by marriage. I've some warrant to be officious—and you're alone in a strange land, aren't you?—and all that."

Was it her imagination, or did he drop his voice significantly? Perhaps he was glancing at their first meeting, pitying her as a reed bruised in Lady Henrietta's warlike hands. Perhaps—no, she could not read his expression.

The huntsman straightened his back, and walked stiffly towards his horse. A man who was giving up passed by and gravely took off his hat; she watched him hooking with his whip at the bridle gate. She was afraid that they would all ride off and leave her with Barnaby's kinsman, and his penetrating smile.

"Anyhow," said Rackham, "I'm here if you want backing.... Just let me know if you need any kind of help."

A scream on the hidden side of the spinney beneath them linked up the field, believing in one of the glorious surprises that light up the dragging end of the day. The huntsman pushed right through the misty tangle, calling on his hounds, and the riders disappeared like a swirling river. A minute and they were gone.

The girl listened breathlessly to the thudding of distant hoofs. Her heart beat a little too fast, disturbed by that brief interlude of excitement. She stood quite still until the last gleam of scarlet faded, and the galloping died away, leaving a tremendous quiet. There was no sound at last but the wildfowl, far away on the lake, beginning their sunset chaunt.

Half the household had rushed out to look for hounds, and were returning singly, more or less out of breath, as the girl came home. It was astonishing what a commotion the hunt, in its passing, had awakened in that sad household. Lady Henrietta herself, with a shawl on her head, was in the garden, peering. Her sporting instincts were struggling in her with a kind of rage.

"Tell me who were out," she said. "Oh, of course you can't. But they would know who you are. I am glad they saw you. It would remind some of them—a man is so soon forgotten! To think of them all hunting and fooling just as they used; with him left out—! Did they run from Tilton? I don't suppose a man of them wasted a thought on him till they saw you there. Did they change foxes, Susan?"

She talked on eagerly, answering herself with conjecture as she hurried the girl into the warm house, out of the gathering rain. Macdonald, the butler, was better informed than she, and his mistress seized on him as he slipped in, wiping his brow, short-winded but triumphant. He it was who had holloaed the fox away.

"Come here and tell me all about it," said Lady Henrietta sharply. "—At your age, Macdonald—!"

He approached with solemnity, remembering his dignity, and his rheumatism, an inextinguishable light in his eye.

"They ran from Owston, my lady, and lost the fox on yon side of our bottom spinney. He must have been about done, by the way scent failed, and they couldn't pick him up again for the gentlemen crowding forrard. No, my lady, there was two sticks crossed in the earth—and the drainpipe clogged. But we found 'em one that'll take them a sight farther than some of them care to go. A real fine fox that was!" He wound up with real pride.

"And who was that on the bay?" asked Lady Henrietta. "He took the fence well, Macdonald."

"That was his Lordship," allowed Macdonald, but grudgingly. "Ah, my lady, I seen Mr. Barnaby take that very jump that day they killed their fox in the park. Clean and fine he went up, and lighted; he never smashed no top rail!"

"I know—I know," said Lady Henrietta. "The day he put out his shoulder."

"That was a rabbit hole," said Macdonald jealously. "Ah, my lady, his Lordship will never go like him!"

Dismissing Rackham with the scorn of an old servant staunch to his master, he shook his head mournfully and retreated. Lady Henrietta had turned abruptly from her cross-examination, and held out her hands to the fire.

The incident, slight as it was, and brief, coloured all their evening. Afterwards, Lady Henrietta returned to the subject, amusing herself with surmises. Had Susan noticed a man with a grizzled moustache and a furtive eye?—and another who had a trick of jerking out his elbow?—and one who rode like a jack-in-the-box, starting up continually in his stirrups? And had she seen a woman in brown, who usually backed in under the hedge at a check, talking secrets with a lank man, her shadow,—and all unwitting that there were two sides to hedges, and that voices filtered through? Insensibly, she branched into reminiscence, telling caustic histories of these Leicestershire unworthies, who were all unknown to Susan; and the girl hardly listened, sitting with her cheek on her hand and a dreaming brow.

The short interlude had impressed her. But in imagination she saw, not the splendid figure that had crashed over the hedge down yonder,—but another, one silently haunting the dim pastures where he had ridden once, sweeping out of the dusk, and passing into the dusk again. The swift scene came back to her, with its wild rush of life, hounds, and horsemen,—only, instead of his cousin, she pictured Barnaby, to whose memory she had dedicated herself.

It was wearing late. Soon Lady Henrietta would interrupt herself, breaking off with a remorseful brusqueness, and order her off to bed. How quiet it was in the library, that vast, comfortable room! How safe she felt, and how sleepy, only dreaming, not thinking of anything.

The white fox-terrier with the bitten ear had stolen down to her and lay on her skirt. There was a kind of fellowship between her and the dog. When it jumped up all at once with a shiver she stroked its back softly, wondering why it alone was excited by the wind whistling outside the house. And it looked up in her face and scuttled like a thing possessed down the room.

"What's the matter with Kit?" said Lady Henrietta, pausing.—"I daresay she heard Macdonald shutting up in the hall."—And she went on talking.

Far down the room the heavy curtain swung hastily, and fell back. It was Susan who, without warning, lifted her eyes and saw somebody standing there.

He had walked right in out of the wind and rain, had flung off his dripping cap, but had not waited to unbutton his greatcoat; and he looked as he had looked in his picture, but no ghost—real,—with dreadful blue eyes, and a smiling mouth.

The girl started to her feet. One wild moment she stared at him. Her own cry sounded strange in her ears, very far off ... and then the world went round.

*****

Slowly she drifted back into consciousness, and she was lying on her bed, surrounded by fluttered women, whose amazed whispering reached her like the dim clamour in a dream.

"Poor thing; poor thing—it was too much for her." "It was wicked of Mr. Barnaby to startle her like that. But how like him——!"

"Lord, Lord! his face as she lay on the floor!—and his mother rating him as if he'd never been dead an hour——!"

"'You've killed her!' said she. 'You've killed her!'"

"Like as not she'll go out of her mind, poor lamb!"

The quavering excitement hushed suddenly as she stirred.

"Hold your noise, you!" the old housekeeper adjured the others, pushing them on one side, and patting her anxiously, promising something in a voice that shook, tremulous and coaxing,—as one might dangle the moon to quiet a frantic child.

Up the long corridor came a man's step, and the pattering of a dog. The housekeeper jumped, and ran from the bedside, and the maids clung hysterically together, looking with a scared eagerness at the door. A superstitious terror was still painted on their faces.

Barnaby was not dead. The whole dreadful comedy was scarcely clear to the girl, so dizzy was she with this one miracle, the thing that was impossible, and was true. Shame had not yet burnt up wonder. She lay motionless, with her hands on her heart, listening to his step, and waiting for the sound of a voice that she had never heard.

"How is she?"

Oh strange, kind voice, asking that! Susan caught her breath, remembering who she was not.

The housekeeper, running out, had closed the door nervously, and was posted with her back against it, half in a rapture, and half reproachful.

"Oh, Mr. Barnaby—! Oh, my gracious!"

Collecting herself, she went on in a trembling hurry.

"She's come round at last; she's come to herself;—but the doctor says we must keep her quiet. You can't come in, sir! It might do harm. He said so before he went to my lady.... I daren't let you in, Mr. Barnaby.... Please! ... I've told her you'll come to her in the morning ... and I was to give you her love."

The girl started up, horror-stricken, and fell back on the bed, covering her face. Would nothing silence that foolish tongue, inspired by its ill-judged haste to pacify the presumed impatience of the man who had done the mischief? Through the guarded door, through her shut eyes, Susan had a scorching vision of Barnaby, the stranger, listening to that brazen message. And between her convulsive fingers she heard the old servant babbling on.... No, after that, she could not bear to look him in the face!

Panic seized her. It grew upon her as she lay quiescent, enduring the ministrations of sympathizers who would have scorned to touch her if they had known. Barnaby had not spoken. He had not said to them, "She is an impostor." He was letting them pity her, handle her gently ... till to-morrow.

They had given her something to make her sleep, but the draught was impotent; instead of soothing, it was exciting a strange confusion in her head. She got out of bed at last, hearing nothing but somewhere in her room the heavy breathing of a dozing watcher. Slowly at first, and then quicker, as the impulse took hold of her, she began struggling into her clothes. She must go, she must go; she could not stay in this house.

Driven by her panic, that could not think, could not reason, she set her desperate foot on the stair.

The lights were not out in the hall below; they shimmered faintly as she passed like a shadow towards the door. If someone should come—! Feverishly she tried to undo the bar; the latch was very heavy. Her heart beat so loud that she was deaf to all other noises.

She did not know that she was not alone till a hand was laid on her shoulder.

She turned round, shaking from head to foot, leaning against the door.

"Oh, let me go!" she cried.

He looked at her gravely.

"I'm afraid we're neither of us real," he said. "Let's try not to scare each other.... They tell me that you're my widow."

She turned her face from him.

"Don't look at me. Oh, don't look at me! Let me go," she repeated wildly.

His fingers closed over hers, still fumbling at the bar.

"I don't think I can do that," he said. "The doctor blames me for frightening you out of your life. He'd hold me responsible if I let you rush out of my house in the middle of the night like this. If you don't mind I'll ask you not to make me out a worse fool than I've been already. And—you aren't going to faint again, are you? Sit down a minute——"

His arm went round her quickly; he had unloosed her hands from the door, and put her into a chair by the fire, before she was sure that she had not fainted. She leant her whirling head against the packed red cushions.

"They gave me something to make me sleep...." she murmured.

He stood a little way off on the hearthrug, watching her. Kit, the terrier, lay down suddenly between them, as if it had him safe.

"How did you know me?" he said abruptly.

"There is a picture of you," she said; "and I—thought of you so often."

The man who had been dismissed so lightly from his world looked down with a queer expression. He could not doubt the utter unconsciousness in the tired young voice. She had nothing to hope for. She was being judged.

"In the name of Heaven, why——?" he burst out, checking himself too late for, the girl stood up and faced him, calling up all her courage.

"Because I am a shameless wretch," she cried unsteadily. "A liar and an impostor.... You don't ask a thief why he has robbed you. You send him to prison.... You don't laugh at him...."

"You child!" said Barnaby.

The strange, kind note in his voice broke down her desperation. Somehow, she found herself stammering out the story of her Southern childhood; the brave old family ruined by the war; the last of them dying, the last friend gone, and she left undefended, to fight for herself in the world. Not strong enough to nurse the sick, not hard enough to win her way in business; driven to try if she could live by her one poor gift of acting;—what could she do but catch at the happy-go-lucky kindness that had flung salvation to her?

"I could have died..." she said, scorning herself; "but I ... came."

"Hush!" said the man softly, all at once, turning round to meet interruption. The doctor was coming downstairs, deliberately, as became an all-wise and elderly dictator, peering short-sightedly into the hall below.

"Bless my soul!" he said. "Barnaby, you villain, she's not fit to be talking to you. I warned the servants it was as much as their lives were worth to let you go near her;—and look at this!"

He shook his head at them both, but relented, with his fingers on Susan's pulse. His professional knowledge of woman mitigated his surprise at her quick recovery. Some women could bear anything, after the first shock of pain or joy.

"Good," he said. "Since you're awake, and in your right mind, which I had hardly dared to hope for,—I'll send you up to Lady Henrietta. She has been calling for you. Just sit beside her, and tell her very quietly, over and over again, how Barnaby looks, and all that. I can't risk her seeing him yet;—her age isn't so elastic,—and nothing will satisfy her but you."

Instinctively the girl moved to obey, and stopped. Would Barnaby let her go to his mother? As far as she could understand—it was still stranger than a dream—he had not yet proclaimed her an impostor. But surely the time was come.

"Oh," said the doctor, following her look; "your husband must do without you."

And then Barnaby spoke.

"You're a bit hard on us, doctor," he said. "We had a lot to say to each other. But my wife and I can finish our talk to-morrow."—His voice, as he turned to her, lost its humorous note and became grave. "Go up to my mother,—please."

She went. The doctor watched her go, and, shaking off a certain perplexity, addressed himself to the younger man. Old friend of the family that he was, his gruff manner poorly hid his emotion.

"Good heavens, man!" he said. "I can't get accustomed to you. Shake hands again, will you? I want to feel positive you are not a spook."

"What about my mother?" asked Barnaby. He too had been watching the girl go slowly up the stairs.

"She'll be all right, if we can keep her quiet," said the doctor cheerfully. "But she can't afford to have any more shocks. Her heart is bad. You didn't know that, of course. She is a courageous lady, and has taken all your vagaries gallantly up to now, but this has been a bit too sudden. If it hadn't been for your wife's collapse distracting her attention for the moment, taking her mind off the greater shock——"

He broke off there.

"How the devil was I to know?" burst out the other man. "I had no notion that I was dead."

"Hadn't you heard——?"

"How should I? Look here, doctor, I haven't been sulking in civilization; racketing in cities. I've been roughing it, going up and down in the earth.—There wasn't much use in writing letters. I told my mother I would turn up again some day, and she wasn't to be surprised. I did send her a line, now and then, the last of them a greasy scrawl in a mining camp, where there was one bit of paper among the lot of us, and I won it. She can't have got that.... When I had worked the restlessness out of my blood—some fellows can't manage that, it takes them all their lives—I had a fancy to come home and walk into the old place as if I had never left it.... It's simple enough——!"

He was bending forward, stammering a little in his excitement. Suddenly he laughed.

"By George!" he said. "So that was why the porters fled from me at John o' Gaunt!"

The old man surveyed him anxiously, wiping his glasses.

Often one heard of men who, seized by a thirst for adventure in the rough, or unbalanced by passion and disappointment, had thrown up everything familiar and dropped out, to savour the hard realities of life. Sometimes they reappeared, sometimes only peculiar stories drifted to their old set about them, and those who might know were dumb. He felt a most irrational alarm, an impulse to hold fast to this prodigal.

"You'll not vanish again?" he said hastily. "You won't want to roam in search of adventures now you have a wife to take care of."

Barnaby stretched out for a cigarette and lit it. There had always been a box of them in one corner of the chimney-piece. It did not strike him as odd that he should find them there.

"Have a smoke, doctor," he said. "It'll steady your nerves a bit.... Yes, I'm sobered."

He halted a minute, and the terrier at his feet, remembering an old trick he had taught her, sprang up and blew out the match. As he stooped to caress her, she began licking him furiously. There had been some other trick, but she had forgotten that. She made a clumsy effort to keep his attention by crossing her paws and waving them, which was how it had begun....

"Good dog," he said, and she dropped at his feet, proud of her cleverness, though grudging his notice to the doctor.

"You're right there," he went on, as if the thought amused him. "A man is a fool to go tramping over the world, searching for adventures, when they come to him on his own hearth."

*****

Lady Henrietta lay propped high with pillows, talking fast.

"I want Susan!" she complained. "Bring me Susan. The doctor shan't put me off with his opiates. I can't trust any of you but Susan."

And the girl came faltering into the room.

Lady Henrietta caught her hand, nipping it tight in hers.

"Susan, my child," she said. "What a little cold hand you've got! They're hushing me as if I was a lunatic, humouring me with tales. And my heart's so funny. I can feel it misbehaving.... I'll die if they make me angry. Come here, closer. I want to ask you—you won't tell me comfortable lies.—Has Barnaby come back?"

"He has come back," said Susan.

"Are you deceiving me?" whispered Lady Henrietta. "Are you in league with the doctor?—I sent old Dawson out there, you know, and he said the report was true.... He saw the boy's grave. He put up a stone.... And the lawyers came croaking together like ravens, and swore there wasn't a scrap of doubt.... And Rackham stepped into his shoes, and I made them search for you high and low!—Oh! no, it's not true! I am wandering in my mind. Look at me. You and I couldn't cheat each other. Let me see it in your face!"

But Susan could not. She dropped her head over the hand clasping hers so fiercely, and her unstrung nerves gave way; she could not keep from sobbing.

Strangely enough, her crying seemed to soothe Lady Henrietta.

"Ah, you never used to cry like that!" she said. "He has come." She stroked the girl's hair with her other hand.

"I suppose they'll let me see him in the morning," she said rationally. "He will be asleep now, poor boy. He shall come up to me when he has had his breakfast, and pour out his ridiculous adventures. They must give him devilled bacon. Margaret, Margaret, stop snivelling, and remind them to give him devilled bacon. Keep holding my hand, Susan, and don't cry so. We have got him back."