Читать книгу Joscelyn Cheshire - Sara Beaumont Kennedy - Страница 4

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“Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.”

—Shakespeare.

He threw the door wide open and, with one foot advanced and his weight on the other hip, stood at pose with uplifted arm and sword; as gallant a figure as ever melted a maiden’s heart or stormed a foeman’s citadel. There was great suggestion of power in the straight limbs, a marvellous promise of strength in the upward sweep of the arm, which, for a moment, held the inmates of the room in silence of admiration. Then an avalanche of exclamations broke loose.

“Richard, Richard!”

“Master Clevering!”

“A health to the young Continental!”

“Oh, the new uniform, how bravely it doth become him!”

“The buff and blue forever!”

“What an air the coat gives him.”

“And the breeches have never a wrinkle in them. I have ever said, my son, that you were not over fair of feature, but that the Lord made it up to you in the shape o’ your legs.” The last speaker was his mother, who, passing behind him, ran her fingers caressingly along the seams of his military outfit.

The young man lowered his sword and answered with a boyish laugh: “And truly did the Lord owe me a debt in that He gave me not your beauty, mother.”

“He balanced His account,” was the complacent answer, “for you are a fit figure to please even a king.”

“Nay, I care not to please the king—but the assembled queens!” He doffed his hat, and bowed with courtly grace to the group of young women in the centre of the room.

Full of laughter and chaffing they crowded about him—his sister Betty, her friend Patience Ruffin, Mistress Dorothy Graham, who had come in to learn a new knitting stitch of Betty, and pretty Janet Cameron, who had followed Dorothy to hear the gossip which must necessarily flow freely where so many women were assembled. Immediately they surrounded the young soldier, and there was much laughter and talking as they relieved him of his sword and gun.

“Only a private in the ranks, and yet here am I attended like a commander-in-chief,” he said, laughing. “Methinks no hero of olden romance had ever such charming squirage. Are you going to give me your gloves and fasten your colours on my helmet, that I may go forth to battle as did the knights of yore?”

“Yes; kill me a Redcoat for this,” and Janet tossed him her glove, while Dorothy tied a strand of the bright wool from her knitting ball upon his sleeve. “An you win not a battle for each of us, you are no knight of ours.”

But the fifth girl of the group, after one glance at him upon his entrance, had turned abruptly to the window and stood gazing into the street, tapping the air to “King George, Our Royal Ruler” upon the panes. No part of her face was visible, but her attitude was spirited, and the poise of her head bespoke defiance. Richard Clevering’s eyes travelled every few minutes to that straight, lithe figure, and anon he called out banteringly:—

“Hey, you, there at the window, are King George and his army passing by that you have no eyes for other folk?”

“I would that they were,” was the short answer, and the fingers went on with their strumming.

“Come, Joscelyn, leave off sulking and see how brave Richard’s uniform doth make him,” said Betty, coaxingly, eager that her brother’s unspoken wish should be gratified.

“And truly doth he need somewhat to make him brave, seeing he is in arms against his king,” Joscelyn retorted, but turned not her head.

“In arms against the king? Aye, truly am I; and yours be not the only Royalist back I shall see ’twixt this and the end of the campaign, Mistress Joscelyn Cheshire.”

“Then, forsooth, will they be in luck—not having you to look at.”

But the others had caught his meaning, and her retort was half lost in the shout of laughter that greeted him.

“Aye, I warrant me when the fighting comes you will see the backs of so many Redcoats that you can e’en cut their pattern in the dark,” declared Dorothy.

“Then will his head be twisted forever awry with looking so much over his shoulder behind him.”

“My Lady Royalist’s ears are in the room though her eyes be elsewhere,” laughed Janet.

“And neither is her tongue paralyzed. Turn about, Joscelyn, and let us see you have also other power of motion.”

“Not quite so much as some folk who turn like a weather-cock in every gust of a partisan wind.”

Thus the sparring went on until the visitors took their departure, followed to the gate by Mistress Clevering and her daughter for that one last word which women so love. Richard bowed them out and closed the door upon their backs; then, marching straight to the window, he placed himself by Joscelyn, who immediately turned her face in the opposite direction. He spoke to her, but only a shrug of the shoulders answered him.

“You shall look at me,” he cried, with sudden determination; and, seizing her by the shoulders, he twisted her about until she faced him; but even then he did not accomplish his purpose, for she covered her face with her hands, declaring vehemently she would rather see him in his shroud than in the uniform of a traitor.

“Traitor, forsooth! You know not whereof you speak. In what button or seam see you aught that is traitorous?” He dragged her hands from her face, and held them in his strong grip; but still he was foiled, for her eyes were tightly closed. “An you open not your eyes immediately, I will kiss them soundly upon either lid.”

Which threat had the desired effect, for instantly the lashes parted and a pair of sea-blue eyes looked angrily into his.

“So—I have brought you to terms. Well, and what think you of my uniform?”

“Methinks,” and her voice was not pleasant to hear, “that ’tis most fitting apparel for one who refuses allegiance to his king and—uses his greater strength against a woman.”

He flung her hands away with what, for him, was near to roughness. “By the eternal stars, Joscelyn, your tongue has a double edge!”

“A woman has need of a sharp tongue since Providence gave her but indifferent fists.”

“In sooth, it is the truth with you,” he cried, his good-humour restored as he again caught one of her slender hands and held it up for inspection. “Nature wasted not much material here; methinks it would scarce fill a fly with apprehension.”

But she wrung it out of his grasp, and, with an exclamation of annoyance, turned once more to the window. His expression changed, and he stood some moments regarding her in silence. At last he said:—

“Joscelyn, ’tis now more than two years since you came to live neighbours with us, and for the last half of that time you and I have done little else than quarrel. But on my part this disagreement has not gone below the surface; rather has it been a covering for a tenderer feeling. I have heard it said that a woman knows instinctively when a man loves her. Have you spelled out my heart under this show of dispute?”

She shrugged her shoulders mockingly. “I am but an indifferent speller, Master Clevering.”

“Right well do I know that, having seen some of your letters to Betty,” he answered with ready acquiescence. Whereat she flashed upon him a glance of indignant protest; but he went on calmly, as though he noted not the look: “But you are a fair reader, and mayhap I used a wrong term. Have you not read my heart all these months?”

“It is not given even unto the wise to read so absolute a blank.”

It was his time to wince, but the minutes were flying, the women might return from the gate at any moment, and this would be his last chance for a quiet word with her. “Let us have done with this child’s play, Joscelyn. To-morrow I march with my company; ’twill be months, perhaps years, before we meet again. I love you! Will you not give me some gentle word, some sweet promise, to fill with hope the time that is to come?”

“What manner of promise can you wish?” she asked, her back still toward him.

“A promise which shall mean our betrothal.”

“Betrothal?—and we always quarrelling?”

“Quarrels cease where love doth rule,” he answered softly.

“But I have no love for you.”

“You might have if you would cease dwelling so much on the king’s affairs and think somewhat of me. I would give you love unqualified if so you would but lean ever so little my way.”

“And think you, Master Clevering, that I would turn traitor for your love? Nay, sir; I am a loyal subject to King George, and can enter into no compact with his enemies.”

“Then will I be forced to conquer you along with the other adherents of the tyrant, for have you I will,” he cried impetuously. “An you yield not to persuasion, you shall yield to force. From this day I hold you as a part of the English enemy who needs must be subdued; and I do hereby proclaim war against your prejudice for your heart.”

“And I do accept the challenge, foreseeing your failure in both causes.” She swept him a courtesy full of open defiance and ridicule, and again turned her back upon him as Betty entered the room.

But Master Clevering was neither dismayed nor discouraged by the turn his wooing had taken. He had never thought to win her lightly, and his combative disposition recognized in the prospect before him the elements of a struggle, so that he was filled with the keen joy of a warrior at the onset of the fray. The possibility of final defeat did not occur to him.

Bidding Betty an affectionate good-by, Joscelyn quitted the house, declining his proffered escort, nor did he speak with her again for a space of many hours; for when the company, bidden that night to a farewell feast with him, assembled about the board, the chair set for her was vacant. Betty and Janet glanced meaningly at each other, for they had seen her at dusk in company with Eustace and Mary Singleton, and the Singletons were among the most pronounced Tories in the county. But at the other end of the table Richard only laughed as he thrust his knife into the fowl before him and felt for the joint.

“Tell her, Aunt Cheshire, that our loss does not equal hers, since she gets none of this bird, which is browned to the taste of Epicurus himself.”

His tone was careless, and in truth he was not surprised at her defection, for he, too, had seen the Singletons at her gate; and later on, as he stood at his own door, had seen her, through her lighted parlour window opposite, take off, for the entertainment of her guests, his own theatrical entrance in his uniform that afternoon. She was an excellent mimic, and her sense of humour enabled her to give a ludicrous side to the scene, which drew forth peals of laughter from her auditors. The vanity, the swagger, the monumental pose, were so exactly reproduced that Richard felt a quick tingle of irritation flush his veins. And that picture was still in his mind as he sat at table among his guests.

It is questionable whether it would have been an added nettlement or a relief had he known that she had been aware of his presence across the way, seeing him distinctly against the hall light behind him, and that the scene enacted was more for him than for her visitors.