Читать книгу Enchanted Ground - Temple Bailey - Страница 8

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It had been early in the morning when Mary started on her reluctant errand. Her father had been insistent, sending Jinks up with a message. “I want you to go at once, Mary.”

Peter had been called for just after dawn by a man whose brother had been hurt in an accident, and had not come back. Jinks was busy with her patient, so Mary, after a hasty breakfast, had set forth, dreading what was ahead of her, yet glad to escape the shadows of the old house, the fears that assailed her in the sick-room.

The morning world, as she came into it, was cool and fragrant. Veils of mist drifted like smoke among the trees. A mocking bird was singing in a syringa bush; little bronze ducks were bobbing for their breakfast in the limpid waters of the bayou. White herons, standing motionless in the shallows, seemed like painted birds against the blue. Following a path which led to the right of the house and around it, Mary made her way through a gate, and entered the orange groves on the Musgrave estate. “You can’t miss your way if you follow the path,” Peter had told her, so she went on with confidence.

There seemed to be miles of trees, a limitless expanse of them. As Mary walked under them, she gloried in the serene sense of solitude they gave her. She seemed infinitely remote from the cares which oppressed her, so it was with a feeling almost of resentment that she came upon a house set in that wilderness of trees.

It was an old house, white-painted, with a flame vine over it, and at the side a flower garden, and a kitchen-patch of vegetables. A woman was in the patch among the vegetables. She rose as Mary approached.

“Am I trespassing?” Mary asked.

“Anybody can walk through the groves.”

“I am looking for Mr. Musgrave.”

“You’ll find him ahead a bit. He was just speaking to me—”

“Thank you.” Mary smiled and passed on, and the woman stood looking after her. She had cut a cabbage and held it under her arm. She wore no hat, and her skin was burned by the sun. The hair of the girl who had passed was like shining silk, and the frock she wore matched her hair—a soft silk sheath of pale yellow. The woman who held the cabbage had never worn a frock like that.

But Mary was not thinking of the woman with the cabbage. She was wondering about Boone Musgrave. What he would be like, and what she would say to him.

It was then that she had come upon him, standing there with his little cat—a vivid and arresting figure, his eyes bold and bright as they surveyed her.

“You are Ward Hamilton’s daughter?”

“Yes. The one who bought—White Feathers.”

There was an undercurrent of indignation in her voice.

He gave her a keen glance, “Everything all right?”

“Nothing is right, Mr. Musgrave.”

“I’m sorry. Shall we sit down and talk about it?”

He led her to a seat under the trees. Boots trailed after them. “What a darling cat,” Mary said.

Boone laughed, “He isn’t a darling. He’s a thief and a murderer. But we’re great pals ...” He picked up the little animal, and it lay purring in the crook of his arm. “Nobody else can live with me. Not even my mother. She prefers to stay in her own house. You passed it as you came along.”

“Your mother? The woman in the garden?”

He was aware of her astonishment. “Yes. Cutting cabbages. You’re surprised, of course. Most people are, to see her living that way when she might have everything. But it’s her own fault. She hides herself. I’d like to have her with me. But perhaps it is best as it is. I’m not easy to live with.”

“Really ... !”

He sat down on the seat beside her. “You’re not interested. You think I’m talking too much about myself. Well, perhaps I am. But I’d like you to understand at once what you’ve got to deal with. I am not easy to live with because I like my own way. And I usually get it. But my way isn’t bad, not when people don’t set themselves against it. They are happier when they give in.”

“How sure you are!” she said, with coldness.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“How can you know you are right? I’d hate to have people give in to me just because my will was stronger.”

“Why worry about others? I think only of myself.”

It was a shameless philosophy, yet it held her by its very honesty. “I’m sure you don’t mean it.”

“I do. The battle goes to the strong. What I want, I get ...”

“Do you always get what you want at the expense of others?” Hot color flamed in her cheeks. “Our house ... ! You should never have sold it to us, Mr. Musgrave. It’s a dreadful place! The kitchen stove, the plumbing! Cockroaches! Water bugs! And the ceiling of my room is so cracked I am afraid to sleep under it.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“Give us back our money, and let us go.”

His eyes were upon her, noting again the gold and white of her—her stillness, her composure. Except for the flame in her cheeks, she might have been an ice woman.

“No,” he said, “I shan’t let you go ...”

Then, after a moment, “Where would you go if I gave you the money?”

“Away from here.” But he saw that she wavered.

“You haven’t any plans?”

“No—my father is ill—”

“How would it do if I agreed to fix up the house for you—new plumbing, new stove, fresh paint, a ceiling that would be a benediction to your dreams—?”

Laughter lit his eyes. Mary, looking up at him, was again conscious of his dark splendor. There was, too, a sort of boyish naïveté which modified her dislike of his arrogance.

“You’re laughing at me,” she said.

“No, I’m not. But I could make a charming house of it. I’ve done a lot of that kind of thing. I wish you’d come on up to my house and let me show you. It was a wreck before I bought it, and now it’s one of the show places ...”

“I’m afraid I haven’t time—”

“Take it.”

She found herself yielding, and presently she was in his amazing house. Amazing because its beauty was so unexpected. Boone had spent his money well. He had had decorators down from New York, and had told them what he wanted. “No old furniture. I haven’t inherited anything, and I won’t have what others have used. Let your men go out into my orchard and key my house to it.”

The decorators had made a good job of it. It was all very modern and spacious and uncluttered—ivory and green and pale yellow. A wide window with straight silver draperies showed beyond the aisles of the orange groves the faint blue of the bayou. There were white roses in black bowls—white iris—

“You like it?” Boone asked her more than once, as they moved from room to room.

At last she said, “I haven’t any adjectives left.”

“You didn’t expect it?”

“No.”

“Not after seeing me—and my mother ... ?”

She flushed, “You’re not fair ...”

“I’m used to it—”

Alec came in with frosted glasses on a tray. “It’s orange juice,” Boone said, “with fresh mint and ginger-ale. Nothing intoxicating. I don’t drink myself. I’ve seen too many men go to pieces.”

Mary sat in a chair of old green lacquer and drank her orange juice. “It’s delicious. I must tell father about it.”

“If you had come to breakfast, I would have had fish for you. I caught them myself ...”

She said, “I saw you the other night, fishing.”

“Saw me? Where?”

“As we passed over the bridge.”

“How did you know it was I?”

“Peter Ferry told me. He’s father’s doctor.”

“I know him.” His voice had hardened. “And he knows me. I hold the mortgages on his house. I’ll bet he didn’t have anything good to say about me.”

Under her flickering lashes, Mary’s eyes shone. “He said you were a robber baron—”

“What ... !”

“A robber baron—” Then, as the red surged up in his face, “I shouldn’t have told you. But you seemed so sporting.”

“I am—but not when other men are unfair to me.”

She rose, smiling distantly. “Thank you for showing me your house ...”

“Thank you for coming ...”

He got his hat, and walked with her through the grove. “I shall see your father in a day or two. And tell him not to worry. He won’t know the place when I’m done with it.”

He held out his hand, “Please don’t be too hard on me. I’m really not as bad as I sound.”

“Is that an apology?” But she laid her hand in his, and he stood staring after her as she went away.

Then he followed the path back to his mother’s cottage. He poked his head in at the kitchen window. “You saw that girl?” he said.

His mother, peeling potatoes for the boiled dinner, lifted her eyes, “The one in the yellow dress?”

“Yes. If she comes this way again, look hard at her. She’s the woman I am going to marry, Mother.”