Читать книгу The Victors; a romance of yesterday morning & this afternoon - Robert Barr - Страница 7

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It was three o’clock and the summer afternoon shimmered with a heat that seemed visible as it throbbed above the parched earth, therefore the blinds over the parlour windows were drawn to keep the room dark and cool. Lottie was neatly dressed any time of the day you happened to meet her, but in the afternoon, when a lull came in the day’s work, she blossomed out almost equal to one of the coloured plates in Peterson’s Magazine, which arrived from the cultured city of Philadelphia once a month and thus kept the farm informed of what the outside world was wearing. A complete living up to the gorgeousness of those fashion-plates was next to impossible, when the limited resources of the neighbourhood and the scanty amount of money at the girl’s disposal were taken into consideration, but nevertheless the magazine had its influence, and the effect was perhaps more charming and certainly more subdued than if the instructions from these fascinating pages had been fully carried out. Of course Sunday was the real test of all this array, and then, perhaps, Peterson’s was out-distanced, but every afternoon produced the picture of an amazingly pretty girl most admirably garmented—a spotless collar at the plump throat, surrounded by a dainty ribbon. She wore a light white muslin dress, through the semi-transparent sleeves of which could be just discerned a suggestion of rounded arm, all in all a cool, pretty and luringly lovable girl, kindly and sweet, living the healthy if arduous life of the farm, pure as a calla lily, with possibilities of character latent, needing only the vivifying touch of opportunity to begin their development, as the severing of a silken thread permits the waiting ship on the ways of the building yard to glide into the expectant ocean. Lottie was an American girl, brought up in the same, refreshing moral atmosphere of the country, similar to thousands of others scattered up and down the length of the land, yet, notwithstanding this multitude, the young man of destiny, her man of destiny, when he arrives cannot be persuaded that there is such another in the whole world.

Coming from her room into the parlour Lottie heard the gate click, and, running to the front window, peered cautiously past the edge of the blind to learn who the visitor was. She saw Maguire come swinging up the walk, his chin in the air, his hat set back on his head, his whole appearance that of a man well satisfied with himself and contented with existence. She learned by the dust on his boots that he had come some distance on foot, and wondered what had happened to his two comrades with their horse and waggon. She drew back, fearing he might see her, and a moment later heard him enter the dining-room, pausing for an instant on the threshold when he found it tenantless. “He wants something to eat,” said the girl to herself, and, hospitably intent, opened the door between parlour and dining-room.

“Ah, Miss Byfield,” cried Maguire, doffing his hat, which he had not taken off on entering the house. “I thought at first there was nobody at home.”

“There isn’t except mother and myself, and she is resting. I suppose you haven’t had your dinner?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, two of them; happened to strike the early lunch house and the late lunch house one after the other, and in the right order, too. I’ve done first-rate to-day in the matter of meals, and I hope my luck will keep up. But I know it won’t. Some day I’ll come on the late dinner house first, and leaving before the horn is blown, reach the early meal house just when the dishes are cleared away. Dinner hours in the farming districts should be regulated by law, and then pedlars, tramps and canvassers wouldn’t get left. Say, Miss Byfield. I collared that voter’s list all right, took a copy of it and now all I want is to get the names ticked off.”

“Then you wish to see my father, don’t you? He won’t be back from the fields for some hours yet, but if you went out there—”

“No, he wouldn’t like that, and then he’s busy, and it’s a pity to disturb him. I hate bothering a busy man. You know all these people on the list, don’t you?”

“I know most of them; that is, I meet them at church on Sundays; some I know very well, others not so well, and the rest by name only.”

“Well, now, Miss Byfield, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe you could tell me the fellows likely to vote on our side, and the fellows against us. Then, you see, I wouldn’t need to bother your father at all.”

“I don’t think I could do that, but I might be able to pick out the names of those who were at the meeting last night, and they are all going to vote with my father.”

“Why, that’s just the ticket; just what I want. You see, we will sort of hew this list out in the rough together, if you will be kind enough to help me, and then your father and I can put the finishing touches on it. It will save him a lot of trouble if you go over it first and give me some kind of idea where I stand.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can. Won’t you come into the parlour?”

“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”

He threw his hat into a corner and followed the girl into the darkened room, she going to a window, pulling up the blind and letting in the light. She invited him to a seat at the circular table that stood in the centre of the room, covered with a dark brown cloth embroidered at the edges. In the centre of the table lay a huge family Bible, and on the top of that an almost equally huge photograph album, which gave evidence of having been in use rather more frequently than the volume that supported it. There were various other books scattered about the table, such as “Yowett on the Sheep,” and one author in a still more uncomfortable attitude, “Quinby on the Bee.” Lottie sat down opposite her visitor.

“If you will read the list,” she said, “I will tell you those who were at the meeting.”

Maguire, not too eagerly, pulled his copy from an inside pocket and smoothed it out on the table.

“I don’t write a very good fist,” he remarked, as he wrinkled his brow trying to make out the first name he had set down, “that’s how I come to miss me deplomy at college, the professors saying that all the answers was splendid, but they couldn’t read them for me handwrite.” The young man looked across at her with a humourous twinkle in his eye which was answered by a sparkle in her own.

“I will write out the list for you if you like. You read the names to me.”

“Oh, I don’t want to bother you so much as that,” he protested; but she sprang up, cleared a place on the table and quickly brought pens, ink and paper, saying, as she sat down again:

“There now. Go ahead.”

Instead of going ahead as invited, or rather going ahead in another direction, Patrick, leaning his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, gazed at the girl murmuring:

“I wish my name was on this list.”

“I’ll put it on, if you like. Why?”

“Oh, I dunno. This strikes me as the nicest neighbourhood I ever was in. I like the people so well. If I was on the voters’ list I’d be living here, that’s all.”

“Then you think you won’t have any trouble getting them to vote as you want them?”

“Oh, that will be no trouble at all, at all. You do be having a lot of fun here in the winter time, I’m thinking, when work’s a bit slack.”

“Yes, it’s pretty lively sometimes, when the sleighing’s good. Then we go for sleigh rides; sometimes we have singing school or husking bees, or paring bees ...”

“Ah, that last is what would suit me. They do be pairing off at them bees.”

“Paring off apple peelings, yes.”

“Oh, it’s apples they pare, is it? Sure I thought it was the boys and girls. Ah, well, trouble first come into this world on account of an apple, and it’s but right—”

“That apples should keep on making trouble?”

“No, no. The very opposite is what I was going to say. It is but right that the apples should repair the damage. How is that for a joke? I did that all by myself.”

“Beautiful. That’s nearly as good as our hired man could do. But why don’t you read out the names on the list, now that I’m all ready to copy them?”

“To tell the truth I’ve come to a complete stand at the very first name. And I don’t know how to settle the question at all, at all.”

“Can’t you read it? Let me see.”

“Oh, I can read it all right enough, but I was just wondering what the first name of his daughter was. It was one of the places I visited to-day, and the daughter was the prettiest girl I’ve seen in ten years’ time and in the sixty-five years of my long life before that.”

“Was that over at Spence’s? Her name is Sarah, and they do say she’s the best-looking girl in this part of Michigan.”

“Then they’re no judges of beauty. The name I head the list with is Mr. John Byfield.”

“Very well. I’ve got that down. What’s the next?”

“The next is the name of his daughter. That’s what I wanted to know, so I might feel acquainted like.”

“Oh!”

“My own name’s Patrick,” the young man went on hurriedly, fearing he had offended the girl by being somewhat precipitate on a very short acquaintance, “and the only objection I have to it is that it sounds Irish, which leads people to make mistakes, for there is nothing Irish about me at all, at all, except the trifling fact that I was born on the island, which should not be used as evidence against me, because I was so young at the time. I plead the minor act.”

The young man’s apprehension grew keen, as the girl made no reply. Her head was bent over the paper on which she scribbled in silence with apparent aimlessness. Was she offended? Had his question been impertinent? How do people in high society acquire knowledge of each other’s names except by being told or asking honestly and plainly for the information? He felt horribly at a disadvantage. If he had only asked the college boys that morning they might have given him a hint regarding the correct method of procedure, but he had anticipated no such predicament as this. It was the white dress that had done it, with the pink ribbon at the throat and the gleam of fair plump arms through the thin muslin. He had a susceptible heart, and the crisis had been unexpected. What should he do now? Wait for her to speak? What if she did not speak, but rose suddenly and left him sitting there, with no chance of making amends? Should he apologise? That seemed about the only thing to do, but for once the words failed him. The deadlock had come so suddenly. A moment ago they were talking amicably together, and now there was silence and a bent head.

The demure Miss Lottie dared not raise her head until her tumultuous thoughts adjusted themselves and she had determined what was the proper thing to do in the circumstances. Was this, then, the advent of a beau? The coming of the beau was a standard subject for discussion and comment among the girls of her acquaintance, mingled with accusation, indignant denial at first, usually followed by proof indisputable, such as the walking home from church together in the sight of all the world and then reluctant admission when the facts were too plainly demonstrable to be further successfully disputed. Some girls, indeed, flaunted the acquired beau defiantly from the very first, but as a general rule it was good form to disclaim strenuously and then admit blushingly, with a considerable interval between the two conditions. The new possession of a beau involved teasing by a girl’s companions, and voluble comments, which were gratifying or painful according to the callousness or sensitiveness of the victim.

But besides this material world around her Lottie was also the inhabitant of another sphere. Peterson’s Magazine dealt in fiction as well as fashion, and the girl remembered with a sudden palpitation at her throat that on the question of the name, many of the matrimonial cases in that delightful, alluring, imaginative world turned. “May I call you Gladys?” the young earl would say as they rode together through the woods or along the winding avenues of the ancestral park, and the nobleman usually reached forward and touched the white hand of Lady Gladys as it rested like a snowflake on the horse’s mane. Sometimes the fateful question was asked as the pair strolled along the margin of a romantic stream; sometimes on a balcony overlooking a silent city street, while the music of an orchestra mingled with the sound of dancing feet in the ballroom from which they had just stolen away; sometimes on a shipwrecked vessel, or in a dangerous position in the high mountains; but whenever or wherever it happened it always denoted a crisis in the lives of two young people, and much depended on the lady’s reply. Fiction, in this respect, differed from the actualities of life, for in the country, everybody called everybody else by his or her Christian name, and no importance was attached to the doing so. In truth, when Maguire himself had addressed the girl as “Miss Byfield,” the unusual ceremony of the appellation had brought the colour to her cheeks, and she feared her brother might notice the incident, to make it the after foundation of rallying remark. Finally she looked up at the young man opposite her and said with the glimmer of a smile on her warm lips:

“The first name on the list is John Byfield. What is the next? I have written down the one you gave me.”

“Ah, ye’ve written down more than that, for I’ve been watching ye,” cried Patrick, jubilantly, overjoyed to see that she had not taken offence as he had for a moment feared. “Ye’ve written the name Charlotte three or four times, and a mighty pretty name it is, and ye’ve written down Lottie a dozen times, and I like that even better than the other.”

“You shouldn’t watch people when they’re writing,” reproved the demure Lottie; “it isn’t manners.”

“When one writes as nice as you—I wish I could do it half so well—it’s a sin not to watch and take lessons. I’m always trying to improve my mind, de ye see?”

“You should go to a writing school some winter and improve your hand. Improving the mind doesn’t improve the writing.”

“If you were the teacher at the writing school I’d go summer and winter.”

“Oh, would you? I’m afraid, then, your penmanship will never be mended, for I shall never be a schoolteacher.”

“Ye might take private pupils, and, sure, you would find me a docile one.”

“Are you fond of reading?” asked Lottie, hurriedly and somewhat inconsequently, the stories in Peterson’s still running in her mind, although none recurred that offered any guidance in the present situation.

“Not of reading books. They’re trash, and there’s no use wasting time over them. But I like to read men and women. There’s something worth your money, and yet it costs nothing. I’m afraid that’s as Irish as me name, for if it cost nothing how can it be worth any money? But what I mean is, that there’s some interest in the project, for a man says one thing when he’s thinking another, and although he doesn’t want you to know what he’s thinking yet he always gives you a clew in spite of himself, just as I could read what you were writing on that sheet of paper, although the writing was upside down to me. Then, ye see, if you put together what a man says and what he thinks—”

“What you think he thinks,” interrupted and corrected Lottie.

“True for ye. And that’s just the point that makes the whole thing a puzzle and gives interest to the game, what you think he thinks, and then form your own conclusions about what’s really in his mind, you can play with him and turn him the way you want him to go, while he believes all the time he is going the way he intended from the very first. It has all the merit and the amusement of driving a contrary pig to market.”

“But what good does it do?”

“The pig? Ye sell him when you get there.”

“No, the men. You can’t sell a man as you would a pig.”

“I’m not so sure of that. The world’s wide, and I haven’t had time to see very much of it yet, but I’ll see more before I’m through with it, and it’ll see more of me. I don’t just know what’s to be done, but this is a rich country and it’s going to be richer, and it owes a good living to Patrick Maguire. He’s going to collect that living if he can, and that’s what he’s practising now. I’m at the writing school, but what I’m going to do with the trick when I’ve learnt it I’m not just sure. If you know how to get men to do what ye want there’s money in it, and I’ll bet my hat on that.”

“You are learning how to control men. Are you going to do the same with women?”

“I want to understand all men and one woman. That’s my ambition, and I’m thinking perhaps the one woman will be more hard to learn than all the men. Ye see I haven’t practised with the sex yet.”

“I suppose you are very confident you will succeed.”

“Indeed and I am not. It’s a project I know nothing about at all, at all, but I have hopes that some kind young lady will learn me. Ye see, on account of my own bashful and retiring nature, I may not be able to do myself justice when it comes to the point.”

“I don’t think you need trouble yourself about that. People will never notice your lack of conceit if you don’t tell them.”

Lottie smiled, and the young man laughed aloud. The girl was rather pleased with herself, finding she was able to keep up her part of a conversation almost as if the dialogue had been a selection from a book. It was true that the heroes of romances were usually persons of the most refined education, whose opinions on literature, where expressed, were invariably of a nature extremely flattering to that art; still Mr. Maguire was merely a first attempt, and he was certainly very amusing. Perhaps she would yet meet one of those who talked in rounded periods, and this present encounter would at least be good practice for what was to come. Thinking of the discourse as a preliminary training brought the next question to her lips.

“You are taking part in this election then, not because you have any interest in it, but merely as practice in getting to know how to deal with people?”

“Oh, I have the deepest interest in it while it’s going on, for I do want to see whether I’m any good or whether me name’s Dennis.”

“How are you going to get them to do what you want them to? I’d like to know.”

“What do you want to know for? Sure you don’t need to learn a thing like that, because everybody would want to do what you asked them anyhow, and be pleased to get the chance. Try me, for instance, if you don’t believe it.”

“Yes, but that’s not telling.”

“Well, ye see, it’s like the old poem, ‘Many men of many minds, many fish of many kinds. Many—’ I forget the rest. You treat each one according to his nature, and that’s what I say a man must be able to find out, if his name’s not to be Mud. I’m fully certain of this, that you must smooth people down if ye want to get along with them. Flattery is not distasteful to any man, if you mix it according to his liking and apply it with some judition.”

“I thought it was only women who were silly enough to want flattery.”

“Now, there you’re wrong entirely. Flattery is the very last thing I would dare try with a woman. She would see through it in a minute and so would have a poor opinion of me, and once ye lose a woman’s good opinion you’re nowhere at all with her. No, I always tell a woman the exact truth, for she don’t like to think you’re deluding her. And even the truth itself one must deal sparingly with, for fear she might not be pleased with too bold a handling of it; for take ourselves here, friendly like, I would not presume to say half what I thought. I might say that never in all my life had I met a young lady it was such a pleasure to talk with, but I would carefully conceal that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen as well.”

“O dear,” cried Lottie blushing and jumping to her feet, “after that I must get about my work. It’s later than I thought.”

“Now sit down again, Miss Lottie,” he pleaded persuasively. “You see you just prove what I was saying. Imagine what the result would be if I ventured away from the truth and tried flattery, if, indeed, it would be possible to flatter you, which it is not, for anything any man could say would be short of the truth. Won’t you, then, forgive the half I said as well as the half I hid? You know you promised to help me with this list.”

The girl stood irresolute for a moment, then sat once more.

“Time is getting on,” she said warningly.

“Yes, bad luck to it. It always gallops when you want it to walk, and walks when you want it to gallop, like an ill-trained horse.”

“Oh, by the way, where is your own horse all this time?”

“I lent it to the boys to do some peddling with. You see I didn’t want it while I was copying the list, and told them to take it and go on with them, and I’d walk.”

“I’m sure that was very kind of you. I hope they’ll make some money, although this isn’t a very good district for pedlars.”

“Money is the last thing they’ll make now or any other time. They’re college-bred chaps, and they’ll never amount to anything.”

“Don’t you believe in colleges then?”

“I do not. You lose all the years you spend there, and what money it costs you, and then come out not able to meet the world at all, at all. What they learn there is nonsense and no use at all outside, and I’m sure I don’t know what good it is inside the colleges either.”

“What do they teach, besides reading and writing and all that?”

“I’ll never tell you, for I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know whether it’s useless or not?”

“Now you have me there sure enough. My eyes were that dazzled looking at you that I tumbled into the trap without seeing it. Oh, yes, yes, the list. True enough, we mustn’t forget the list, and I’m coming to it in one moment.”

The girl had risen again, and a voice came from an inner room.

“Lottie, isn’t it time to be looking after the tea?”

“Yes, mother,” she replied, “I am going this moment.”

“Please don’t go just yet awhile. It’s quite early.”

“I must go now.”

“Well, I’m wid ye then. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”

“I’ve helped you so much with the list, haven’t I?”

“Indeed ye’ve done more than that, Miss Lottie, you’ve spoken kindly words to a poor fellow that hasn’t many friends in this world, and words that he’ll remember all his life.”

“I didn’t know anything I said was so important as all that;” but here again she experienced a thrill almost equal to the reading of a fascinating romance, for it might be coincidence or it might not—he said he never read these immortal works—yet it was undoubted that in most of them the slightest words of the heroine had a life-extending effect on the well-being of the hero. The two walked out into the kitchen together, he carefully closing the door behind them to give a greater effect of being alone.

“Isn’t there anything I can do to help? Wood to chop, a fire to light, or water to carry?”

“No, thank you. But you might go out to the fields and walk back with my father when he returns. Then you would have a chance of talking over the voters.”

Patrick was quick to see that she did not desire her father and brother to come home and find them there together.

“I’ll do it,” he said, “this very moment. But I want another talk with you. There are lots of things I didn’t have a chance to mention this afternoon. Won’t you come out to the front gate after supper?”

The girl shook her head.

“Please come if you can slip away. I’ll be out there anyhow, and if you don’t come I’ll be thinking of what you told me.”

“You’d better get to the fields, if you want to have a talk with my father about the voters’ list.”

“Will you come to the gate to-night?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t go out to the gate even with my friends, and it’s not likely I’m going with a stranger.”

“I’d forgotten I was a stranger,” said the young man in a doleful voice. Then with a semi-comical air of throwing a load of sorrow from his mind he looked up at her, a twinkle in his eye, and added:

“I am not as much of a stranger now as I was this morning, am I?”

“I don’t suppose you are.”

“Then it’s wearing off gradually. Will ye be in the parlour to-morrow afternoon?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then I’m off to the fields at once, and here’s hoping to-morrow will come quickly.”

From the kitchen window she saw him disappear down the lane that led to the back of the farm.