Читать книгу A Dead Reckoning - T. W. Speight - Страница 5

"Aunty, dear, do you know what day this is?"

"If the almanac may be believed, it is the 24th of April."

"Six months ago to-day, Gerald and I were married. I feel as if I had been married for years."

"How dreadful to feel that you are growing old so quickly! I hope all married people don't feel like that."

"You misunderstand me, Aunt Jane. I have been so happy since that evening last year when Gerald whispered something to me in the summer-house, that all my life before I knew him seems as unreal as a dream."

"Such short courtships are positively dreadful. Now, when I was engaged to Captain Singleton"----

A third lady, who had been lounging on a sofa and making-believe to be intent on a novel, gave a loud sneeze and sat bolt upright. She had heard Captain Singleton's name introduced so often of late, that she might be excused for not caring to hear it mentioned again--at least for a little while.

The first speaker, Clara Brooke, was a charming brunette of twenty-two, with sparkling black eyes, a pure olive complexion, and a manner that was at once vivacious and tender. Miss Primby, the second speaker, was a fresh-coloured, well-preserved spinster of---- But no; Miss Primby's age was a secret, which she guarded as a dragon might guard its young, and we have no right to divulge it. She had one of the best hearts in the world, and one of the weakest heads. Everybody smiled at her little foibles, yet everybody liked her. Just now she was busy over some species of delicate embroidery, in which she was an adept. Lady Fanny Dwyer, the third lady, whose inopportune sneeze had for a moment so disconcerted Miss Primby, was a very pretty, worldly-wise, self-possessed young matron, who in age was some six months older than Mrs. Brooke. She and Clara had been bosom friends in their school-days; and notwithstanding the many differences in their characters and dispositions, their liking for each other was still as fresh and unselfish as ever it had been.

The ladies were sitting in a pleasant morning-room at Beechley Towers, Mr. Gerald Brooke's country-house, situated about fourteen miles from London. The room opened on to a veranda by means of long windows, which were wide open this balmy April afternoon. Beyond the veranda was a terrace, from which two flights of broad shallow steps led down to a flower-garden. Outside that lay a well-wooded park, with a wide sweep of sunny champaign enfolding the whole.

Clara Brooke had scarcely heard her aunt's last remark. She was seated at a davenport, turning over some old letters. On the wall in front of her hung a portrait of her husband, painted on ivory. "'My own darling Clara,'" she read to herself from one of the letters; "'it seems an age since I saw you last, and it will seem like an age till I shall have the happiness of seeing you again.' What sweet, sweet letters he used to write to me! What other girl ever had such letters written to her?" She pressed the paper she had been reading to her lips, then refolded it, and put it away and took up another.

"Ah, my dear," remarked Lady Fanny, turning to her friend, "as you remarked just now, you have only been a wife for six short months, and of course everything with you is still couleur de rose. But when you have been married as long as Algy and I have, when the commonplace and the prosaic begin to assert themselves, as they do in everything and everywhere, whether you like it or not, then I am sure you will agree that the scheme of married life my husband and I have planned for ourselves has really a good deal to recommend it to all sensible people."

Miss Primby pricked up her ears. "You excite my curiosity, dear Lady Fanny," she said. "I hope you won't refuse to gratify it."

"Why should I?" asked Lady Fan with her merry laugh. "We want converts, Algy and I; and who knows, my dear Miss Primby, but that some day--eh? Well, this is our modus vivendi--I believe that's the correct term, but won't be sure. About eighteen months ago--we had then been married a little over a year--Algy and I came to the conclusion that married people ought not to be too constantly together if they wish to keep on good terms with each other. Algy's contention is that half the quarrels and scandals which come out in the newspapers are simply the result of people seeing so much of each other that at last they are impelled by some feeling they can't resist to have what he calls 'a jolly row,' just to vary the monotony of existence. And then, as he says, one 'row' is sure to lead to another, and so on. When once the match is applied, no one can tell where the conflagration will stop. Now, although ours was a love-match, if ever there was one, we had not run together in harness very long before we made the discovery that in many things our likes and dislikes were opposed. For instance, next to me, I believe Algy loves his yacht; whereas I detest yachting: it seems to me a most stupid way of passing one's time. On the other hand, I delight in going from one country-house to another and visiting each of my friends in turn; while Algy, dear fellow, is always awfully bored in general society, especially wherever a number of our sex happen to be congregated. Thus, it has come to pass that at the present moment he is somewhere in the Mediterranean, while I--well, je suis ici. Algy and I never give ourselves time to grow tired of each other; and when we meet after being apart for a month or two, our meetings are 'real nice,' as my friend Miss Peckover from New York would say."

Miss Primby shook her head. "I am afraid, dear Lady Fanny, that your opinions on such matters are very heterodox, and I can only say that I hope Clara will never see fit to adopt them."

"Not much fear of that, Aunt Jane," answered the young wife. "Fancy Gerald and me being separated for a month or six weeks at a time! But it is quite out of the question to fancy anything so absurd."

Lady Fan laughed. "Wait, my dear, wait," was all she said as she turned again to her novel.

Clara Brooke shook her head; she was in nowise convinced.

"Gracious goodness! whatever can that be?" ejaculated Miss Primby with a start.

"Only Gerald and the Baron Von Rosenberg practising at the pistol-range. It is an amusement both of them are fond of."

"An amusement do you call it! I wish they would practise their amusements farther from the house, then.--Heaven preserve us! there they go again. No wonder I have broken my needle."

"It's nothing, Aunt Jane, when you are used to it," responded her niece with a smile.

"Used to it, indeed! I should never get used to it as long as I lived. I have no doubt this is another of the objectionable practices your husband picked up while he was living in foreign parts."

"Seeing that Gerald was brought up in Poland, and that he lived in that country and in Russia from the time he was five years old till he was close on twenty (I think I have told you before that his grandmother was a Polish lady of rank), I have no doubt it was while he was living in those foreign parts, as you call them, that he learnt to be so fond of pistol-practice."

At this moment there came the sound of two pistol-shots in quick succession. Miss Primby started to her feet. "My dear Clara," she exclaimed, "if you don't want my poor nerves to be shattered for life, you won't object to my going to my own room. With plenty of cotton wool in my ears, and my Indian shawl wrapped round my head, I may perhaps---- Dear, dear! now my thimble's gone."

"Why, there's your thimble, aunt, on your finger."

"So it is--so it is, dear. That shows the state of my poor nerves."

"Will you not stay and say good-bye to the Baron?"

"No, my dear; I would rather not. You must make my excuses. Of course, you could not fail to notice how the Baron ogled me at luncheon. He puts me so much in mind of poor dear Major Pondicherry. But I never cared greatly for foreigners; besides, he will smell horribly of gunpowder when he comes in.--There again! Not another moment will I stay."

Clara Brooke's face rippled over with suppressed laughter as Miss Primby left the room. Then she turned to her letters again, and tied them up with ribbon. "I have heard that some people burn their love-letters when they get married," she mused. "What strange beings they must be! Nothing in the world would induce me to burn mine. Sweet silent messengers of love, what happy secrets lie hidden in your leaves!" She pressed the letters to her lips, put them away inside the davenport, and locked them up.

Just as she had done this, the pompous tones of Bunce, who filled the joint positions of majordomo and butler at the Towers, became plainly audible. Apparently he was standing outside the side-door and addressing his remarks to someone on the terrace. "Now, the sooner you take your hook the better," the two ladies heard him say. "We don't want none of your kidney here. This ain't no place for mountebanks--I should think not indeed!" Mr. Bunce in his ire had evidently forgotten the proximity of his mistress.

Clara crossed to one of the windows, and looking out saw, some little distance away, two strange figures slowly crossing the terrace. One was that of a man whose costume of a street tumbler was partly hidden by the long shabby overcoat he wore over it, which was closely buttoned to the chin. Over one shoulder a drum was slung, and in his left hand he carried a set of Pandean pipes. The second figure was that of a boy some eight or nine years old, who had hold of the man's right hand. Under one arm he carried a small roll of faded carpet. In point of dress he was a miniature copy of the elder mountebank, minus the overcoat. His throat was swathed in a dingy white muffler, while his profusion of yellow curls were kept from straying by a fillet round his forehead embroidered with silvered beads.

"Poor creatures," said Clara to herself. "Bunce had no business to speak to them as he did. How dejected they look, and the child seems quite footsore."

At this juncture the man happening to turn his head, caught sight of her. She at once beckoned him to approach.

The mountebank's face lighted up and all signs of dejection vanished in a moment. He had some kind of old cap on his head. This he now removed, and bowed profoundly twice. It was a bow that might have graced a drawing-room. Then he and the boy crossed the terrace towards Mrs. Brooke.

"Fan, I want you; come here," said Clara to her friend.

Lady Fanny rose languidly and crossed to the window.

What struck both the ladies first of all, as the vagrants drew near, was the remarkable beauty of the child. His face at the first glance seemed an almost perfect oval; his complexion, naturally fair and transparent, was now somewhat embrowned by exposure to the sun and wind. He had large eyes of the deepest and tenderest blue, shaded by long golden lashes; while his lips formed a delicate curve such as many a so-called professional beauty might have envied.

"He looks more like a girl than a boy," whispered Lady Fan.

"He looks more like a cherub than either," responded Clara, who was somewhat impulsive both in her likes and dislikes. "It is a face that Millais would love to paint."

The appearance of the man was a great contrast to that of the child, and a casual observer would have said that there was no single point of resemblance between the two. Apparently the former was about forty to forty-five years of age. He had a sallow complexion and a thin aquiline nose; his black locks were long and tangled; while into his quick-glancing black eyes, which appeared to see half-a-dozen things at once, there would leap at times a strange fierce gleam, which seemed to indicate that although the volcano below might give forth few or no signs, its hidden fires were smouldering still. Only when his eyes rested on the boy they would soften and fill with a sort of wistful tenderness; and at such moments the whole expression of his face would change.

"I am extremely sorry," said Mrs. Brooke, "that my servant should have spoken to you just now in the way he did. He had no right to do so, and I shall certainly ask my husband to reprimand him."

"It was nothings, madame, nothings at all," responded the mountebank with a little bow and a smile and a deprecatory motion of his hands. "We are often spoken to like that--Henri and I--we think nothings of it."

"Still, I cannot help feeling greatly annoyed.--Is this pretty boy your son?"

"Oui, madame."

"His mother"----

"Alas, madame, she is dead. She die six long years ago. She was English, like madame. Henri has the eyes of ma pauvre Marie; and his hair, too, is the same colour as hers."

Although the man spoke with a pronounced foreign accent, his English was fluent, and he rarely seemed at a loss for a word to express his meaning.

"Poor child!" said Mrs. Brooke. "This is a hard life to bring him up to. Surely some other way might be found"---- Then she paused.

The mountebank's white teeth showed themselves in a smile. "Ah no, madame; pardon, but it is not a hard life by no means. Henri likes it, and I like it. In the winter we join some cirque, and then Henri has lessons every day. He is clevare, very clevare--everybody say so. One day Henri will be a great artiste. The world--tout le monde--will hear of him. It is I who say it--moi." He touched his chest proudly with the tips of his fingers as he ceased speaking. "Would mesdames like to behold?"---- he said a moment later as he brought his drum into position and raised the pipes to his lips.

"Thank you, monsieur; not to-day," answered Clara gravely as she stepped back into the room and rang the bell.

Monsieur looked disappointed. Henri, however, looked anything but disappointed when, two minutes later, the beautiful lady, from whose face he could scarcely take his eyes, heaped his little hands with cakes and fruit till they could hold no more.

"Tell me your name, my pretty one," said Mrs. Brooke, as she stooped and helped him to secure his treasures.

"Henri Picot, madame."

"And have you any pockets, Henri?"

"Oui, madame."

A pocket was duly indicated, and into its recesses a certain coin of the realm presently found its way.

Before either Picot or the boy had time to give utterance to a word of thanks, a servant entered the room, and addressing Lady Fan, said: "If you please, my lady, the carriage is waiting; and Miss Primby desires me to tell you that she is ready."

"Good gracious, Clara," said Lady Fan, "I had forgotten all about my promise to accompany your aunt in her call on Mrs. Riversdale. I wish to goodness you could go with us. I dread the ordeal."

"And leave the Baron Von Rosenberg without a word of apology! What would become of my reputation as a hostess? Gerald and he will be here in a few minutes, I don't doubt; and if you like to wait till he is gone"----

"That would never do," interrupted her friend. "You know what a fidget your aunt is when she is kept waiting. You had better come and keep her in good-humour while I am getting my things on.--By-the-bye, where can our singular friends have vanished to?"

Clara looked round. Picot and the boy had disappeared. Neither of the ladies had seen the start the mountebank gave at the mention of Von Rosenberg's name, nor how strangely the expression of his face changed. Clutching the boy by one wrist, he whispered: "It is time to go. Venez, mon p'tit--vite, vite! The ladies want us no more."

"The man was French, and he seems to have taken the proverbial leave of his countrymen," said Lady Fan with a laugh.

Mrs. Brooke was a little surprised, but said nothing. The two ladies left the room together.