Читать книгу Cobwebs and Cables - Stretton Hesba - Страница 9

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The room was a small one, with a dim, many-colored light pervading it; for the upper part of the mullioned casement was filled with painted glass, and even the panes of the lower part were of faintly tinted green. Like all the rest of the old house, the walls were wainscoted, but here there was no piece of china or silver to sparkle; the only glitter was that of the gilding on the handsomely bound books arranged in two bookcases. In this green gloom sat Felicita Sefton, leaning back in her chair, with her head resting languidly on the cushions, and her dark eyes turned dimly and dreamily toward the quietly opening door.

"Phebe Marlowe!" she said, her eyes brightening a little, as the fresh, sweet face of the young country girl met her gaze. Phebe stepped softly forward into the dim room, and laid the finest of the golden flowers she had gathered that morning upon Felicita's lap. It brought a gleam of spring sunshine into the gloom which caught Felicita's eye, and she uttered a low cry of delight as she took it up in her small, delicate hand. Phebe stooped down shyly and kissed the small hand, her face all aglow with smiles and blushes.

"Felicita," said Madame, her voice altering a little, "where is my son this morning?"

"Roland!" she repeated absently; "Roland? Didn't he say last night he was going to London?"

"To London!" exclaimed his mother.

"Yes," she answered, "he bade me good-by last night; I remember now. He said he would not disturb me again; he was going by the mail-train. He was sorry to be away on poor little Felix's birthday. I recollect quite distinctly now."

"He said not one word to me," said Madame. "It is strange."

"Very strange," asserted Felicita languidly, as if she were wandering away again into the reverie they had broken in upon.

"Did he say when he would be back?" asked his mother.

"In a few days, of course," she answered.

"But he has not told Acton," resumed Madame.

"Who did you say?" inquired Felicita.

"The head clerk, the manager when Roland is away," she said. "He has not said anything to him."

"Very strange," said Felicita again. It was plainly irksome to her to be disturbed by questions like these, and she was withdrawing herself into the remote and unapproachable distance where no one could follow her. Her finely-chiselled features and colorless skin gave her a singular resemblance to marble; and they might almost as well have addressed themselves to a marble image.

"Come," said Madame, "we must see Acton again."

They found him in the bank parlor, where Roland was usually to be met with at this hour. There was an unspoken hope in their hearts that he would be there, and so deliver them from the undefined trouble and terror they were suffering. But only Acton was there, seated at Roland's desk, and turning over the papers in it with a rapid and reckless hand. His face was hidden behind the great flap of the desk, and though he glanced over it for an instant as the door opened he concealed himself again, as if feigning unconsciousness of any one's presence.

"My son is gone to London," said Madame, keeping at a safe distance from him, with the door open behind her and Phebe to secure a speedy retreat. The flap of the desk fell with a loud crash, and Acton flung his arms above his head with a gesture of despair.

"I knew it," he exclaimed. "Oh, my dear young master! God grant he may get away safe. All is lost!"

"What do you mean?" cried Madame, forgetting one terror in another, and catching him by the arm; "what is lost?"

"He is gone!" he answered, "and it was more my fault than his—mine and Mrs. Sefton's. Whatever wrong he has done it was for her. Remember that, Madame, and you, Phebe Marlowe. If anything happens, remember it's my fault more than his, and Mrs. Sefton's fault more than mine."

"Tell me what you mean," urged Madame breathlessly.

"You'll know when Mr. Sefton returns, Madame," he answered, with a sudden return to his usually calm tone and manner, which was as startling as his former vehemence had been; "he'll explain all when he comes home. We must open the bank now; it is striking ten."

He locked the desk and passed out of the comfortably-furnished parlor into the office beyond, leaving them nothing to do but to return into the house with their curiosity unsatisfied, and the mother's vague trouble unsoothed.

"Phebe, Phebe!" cried Felix, as they slowly re-entered the pleasant home, "my mother says we may go up the river to the osier island; and, oh, Phebe, she will go with us her own self!"

He had run down the broad staircase to meet them, almost breathless with delight, and with eyes shining with almost serious rapture. He clasped Phebe's arm, and, leaning toward her, whispered into her ear,

"She took me in her arms, and said, 'I love you, Felix,' and then she kissed me as if she meant it, Phebe. It was better than all my birthday presents put together. My father said to me one day he adored her; and I adore her. She is my mother, you know—the mother of me, Felix; and I lie down on the floor and kiss her feet every day, only she does not know it. When she looks at me her eyes seem to go through me; but, oh, she does not look at me often."

"She is so different; not like most people," answered Phebe, with her arms round the boy.

Madame had gone on sadly enough up-stairs to see if she could find out anything about her son; and Phebe and Felix had turned into the terraced garden where the boat-house was built close under the bank of the river.

"I should be sorry for my mother to be like other people," said Felix proudly. "She is like the evening star, my father says, and I always look out at night to see if it is shining. You know, Phebe, when we row her up the river, my father and me, we keep quite quiet, only nodding at one another which way to pull, and she sits silent with eyes that shine like stars. We would not speak for anything, not one little word, lest we should disturb her. My father says she is a great genius; not at all like other people, and worth thousands and thousands of common women. But I don't think you are a common woman, Phebe," he added, lifting up his eager face to hers, as if afraid of hurting her feelings, "and my father does not think so, I know."

"Your father has known me all my life, and has always been my best friend," said Phebe, with a pleasant smile. "But I am a working-woman, Felix, and your mother is a lady and a great genius. It is God who has ordered it so."

She would have laughed if she had been less simple-hearted than she was, at the anxious care with which the boy arranged the boat for his mother. No cushions were soft enough and no shawls warm enough for the precious guest. When at length all was ready, and he fetched her himself from the house, it was not until she was comfortably seated in the low seat, with a well-padded sloping back, against which she could recline at ease, and with a soft, warm shawl wrapped round her—not till then did the slight cloud of care pass away from his face, and the little pucker of anxiety which knitted his brows grow smooth. The little girl of five, Hilda, nestled down by her mother, and Felix took his post at the helm. In unbroken silence they pushed off into the middle of the stream, the boat rowed easily by Phebe's strong young arms. So silent were they all that they could hear the rustling of the young leaves on the trees, under whose shadows they passed, and the joyous singing of the larks in the meadows on each side of the sunny reaches of water, down which they floated. It was not until they landed the children on the osier island, and bade them run about to play, and not then until they were some distance away, that their merry young voices were heard.

"Phebe," said Felicita, in her low-toned, softly-modulated voice, always languid and deliberate, "talk to me. Tell me how you spend your life."

Phebe was sitting face to face with her, balancing the boat with the oars against the swift flowing of the river, with smiles coming and going on her face as rapidly as the shadows and the sunshine chasing each other over the fields this May morning.

"You know," she answered simply, "we live a mile away from the nearest house, and that is only a cottage where an old farm laborer lives with his wife. It's very lonesome up there on the hills. Days and days go by, and I never hear a voice speaking, and I feel as if I could not bear the sound of my own voice when I call the cattle home, or the fowls to come for their corn. If it wasn't for the living things around me, that know me as well as they know one another, and love me more, I should feel sometimes as if I was dead. And I long so to hear somebody speak—to be near more of my fellow-creatures. Why, when I touch the hand of any one I love—yours, or Mr. Sefton's, or Madame's—it's almost a pain to me; it seems to bring me so close to you. I always feel as if I became a part of father when I touch him. Oh, you do not know what it is to be alone!"

"No," said Felicita, sighing; "never have I been alone, and I would give worlds to be as free as you are. You cannot imagine what it is," she went on, speaking rapidly and with intense eagerness, "never to belong to yourself, or to be alone; for it is not being alone to have only four thin walls separating you from a husband and children and a large busy household. 'What are you thinking, my darling?' Roland is always asking me; and the children break in upon me. Body, soul, and spirit, I am held down a captive; I have been in bondage all my life. I have never even thought as I should think if I could be free."

"But I cannot understand that," cried Phebe. "I could never be too near those I love. I should like to live in a large house, with many people all smiling and talking around me. And everybody worships you."

She uttered the last words shyly, partly afraid of bringing a frown on the lovely face opposite to her, which was quickly losing its vivid expression and sinking back into statuesque coldness.

"It is simply weariness to me and vexation of spirit," she answered. "If I could be quite alone, as you are, with only a father like yours, I think I could get free; but I have never been left alone from my babyhood; just as Felix and Hilda are never left alone. Oh, Phebe, you do not know how happy you are."

"No," she said cheerfully, "sometimes when I stand at our garden-gate, and look round me for miles and miles away, and the sweet air blows past me, and the bees are humming, and the birds calling to one another, and everything is so peaceful, with father happy over his work not far off, I think I don't know how happy I am. I try to catch hold of the feeling and keep it, but it slips away somehow. Only I thank God I am happy."

"I was never happy enough to thank God," Felicita murmured, lying back in her seat and shutting her eyes. Presently the children returned, and, after another silent row, slower and more toilsome, as it was up the river, they drew near home again, and saw Madame's anxious face watching for them over the low garden wall. Her heart had been too heavy for her to join them in their pleasure-taking, and it was no lighter now.