Читать книгу Enter Bridget - Thomas Cobb - Страница 12

Colonel Faversham came home on Wednesday evening, the day after Carrissima's visit to Upper Grosvenor Street. She was sitting alone in the drawing-room, doubtful as to the precise date of his return, when she suddenly became aware of his presence in the house.

Colonel Faversham was apt to be noisy and blusterous. He had a loud voice, a rather demonstrative cough, he walked with a heavy tread, and, in fact, was generally assertive. Carrissima, not wishing to fail in her filial duty, went down-stairs to meet him in the hall, as the butler was helping him off with his thick overcoat.

"Ah, Carrissima!" he exclaimed at the top of his voice, "I'm sorry I didn't wire; but, to tell you the truth, I forgot all about it. Well, how are you—quite well? Glad to see me back again, eh?"

"Very glad indeed," was the dutiful answer.

"That's all right. I've had dinner—if you can call it dining in the train. Where's the best fire to be found?"

"You may as well come to the drawing-room," said Carrissima.

"Good!" replied the colonel, and then turned to the butler. "Knight,

I'll have some soda and whisky."

He accompanied Carrissima up-stairs, blowing out his red cheeks and beating his cold hands together with considerable energy. Going to the fire, he stood on the hearthrug warming his palms and making perfunctory inquiries after Lawrence and Phoebe and their child.

"How do you think I'm looking?" he demanded, suddenly facing Carrissima.

"Splendid," she answered. "I don't think I have ever seen you looking better."

"Well, I never felt better," he exclaimed, putting back his shoulders and puffing out his chest. "Never in the whole course of my life. Nobody at the hotel would believe I was anything like my age—fifty or fifty-five at the outside. Upon my soul, I can scarcely believe it myself. I can give a start to a good many youngsters yet. Not too much soda-water, Knight," he added, when the whisky and the syphon were brought in. "What's been happening while I've been away?" he asked, alone again with Carrissima.

"I wonder," she suggested, "whether you remember our holiday at

Crowborough some years ago?"

"Remember it—of course I remember it. Do you think I'm in my dotage. You make an immense mistake. My memory was never better. I will back it against yours any day."

"Then you haven't forgotten Mr. Rosser——"

"Rosser!" cried Colonel Faversham. "A shortish man with a red beard and an invalid wife: wrote twaddling novels. I tried to read one of them—couldn't get through it. He played a devilish good game all the same. What about him?"

"I have met his daughter," said Carrissima, and, in reply to her father's demand for further information, she told him all she knew about Bridget; how that she had made Mark Driver late for dinner; how that, after some dubitation, a visit had been paid to Golfney Place, and duly returned.

On learning that Bridget was good to look upon and only a few months older that Carrissima, Colonel Faversham blinked his eyes and fingered his large grey moustache. He took a cigar from his case by and by, Carrissima trying to stifle her yawns while he talked about golf and described some of his hands at bridge. To illustrate his skill, he made her bring some cards, and, sweeping clear a space on the table, kept her up until past midnight.

Colonel Faversham always came to breakfast with brisk and almost aggressive robustness. He had an enormous appetite, and when this was at last satisfied, it was his custom to retire with the newspaper to his smoking-room until eleven o'clock. The morning was so bright that he began to regret his return to London, although it was true that he could reach his favourite golf-course in three-quarters of an hour in a taxi-cab. There, indeed, Colonel Faversham spent the most of his waking hours, usually finishing up with a couple of hours' bridge before returning by rail to Grandison Square in time for dinner. Then he was occasionally irritable, and although he would never admit that he felt tired, Carrissima had her own opinion.

On the Saturday after his return from Church Stretton, however, he stayed at home, and as he sat smoking after an excellent luncheon, Carrissima came in wearing her hat and jacket.

"I'm going to see Phoebe," she explained, in the act of fastening her gloves. "I don't suppose I shall be home to tea unless you want me."

"Want you!" was the answer. "Good heavens, no! Why in the world should I want you. Do you imagine I can't feed myself? Thank goodness, I'm not in my second childhood yet. Besides, I shall most likely have tea at the club. What a day, Carrissima! What a day!"

Having finished his cigar about a quarter of an hour later, Colonel Faversham went to his dressing-room, where he spent a few minutes brushing his hair with great vigour and twisting his moustache to a point. On going down to the hall again, he noticed that the street door stood open, and that Knight was talking to some one on the threshold. As the colonel took his top hat from the table, he saw that the visitor was a young lady who looked admirably in harmony with the spring season. She wore a lightish grey cloth frock and a wide-brimmed hat, beneath which a vast quantity of chestnut-coloured hair conspicuously appeared.

He reached the open door as she was on the point of turning away, but, seeing him, she hesitated.

"Miss Rosser, colonel," said Knight, standing between the pair.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Rosser," cried Colonel Faversham. "Pray come in! You wish to see Carrissima! I assure you she will be immensely disappointed if you refuse to wait. I may mention that I had the pleasure of knowing your father."

"Oh, I remember you perfectly," she replied. "As well as if it were yesterday."

"Come this way, come this way," he insisted, replacing his hat on the table as she entered the hall. "Carrissima would never forgive me. She was talking about you before I had been in the house ten minutes——"

"But you were just going out," she expostulated. "You mustn't let me take you up-stairs again."

"Stairs are nothing to me," he said. "I could climb a mountain. I have climbed many a one before to-day, and I hope I shall again. What delightful weather!" he continued, as they reached the drawing-room. "It makes one feel quite—quite capable of anything."

She sat down, while the colonel talked about Crowborough and David Rosser; remembering whose vocation, he realized the desirability of giving the conversation a bookish turn. While he was remarking upon some of the most recent publications—quoted from advertisements, for he seldom opened a book—Knight and a small footman brought in the tea equipage. Colonel Faversham invited Bridget to officiate, and told himself how delectable she looked as, half-shyly, she passed his cup and saucer.

"You know, Colonel Faversham," she said, "I cannot help feeling immensely guilty."

"A libel," he protested. "I have never seen a more transparently innocent face in the whole course of my life."

"Still, I am certain I have kept you from going to your club or somewhere. Of course I am duly grateful. Carrissima said I might come here whenever I felt too lonely."

"My dear Miss Rosser," said Colonel Faversham, "I am afraid it must be a rather dull life you're leading. But it will be entirely your own fault if ever you find yourself bored in future. Carrissima has no end of friends, and hers shall be yours. Then there's my daughter-in-law! As for books, my library was left to me by an uncle who had nothing better to do than to read from morning till night. You must allow me to send you a suitable selection."

When Carrissima came home, a little later, she raised her eyebrows on seeing Bridget Rosser presiding at the tea-table, with Colonel Faversham seated rather close by her side. As he began to explain his good fortune in meeting the visitor at the door, Carrissima told herself that she knew exactly how things would turn out!

The truth was that Colonel Faversham had always been somewhat dangerously susceptible. Lawrence could never feel certain that his father was too old to think of marrying again. Carrissima knew that for the next few days he would talk of nobody but Bridget; that he would lend her books, and perhaps even express a wish to invite her to dine. He would on every opportunity pay her extravagant compliments and make himself generally ridiculous; then he would begin to forget her existence and fall back into his ordinary routine of bridge and golf until another attractive face arrested his attention.

Although he sang Miss Rosser's praises loudly that Saturday afternoon, and spoke of her frequently on Sunday and during the next few evenings, Carrissima scarcely suspected that the colonel had met Bridget since her visit to Grandison Square. She was certainly astounded when, going to see her small nephew one afternoon a week or so later, she found that she had run her head into a hornets' nest.

"You have done a fine thing!" said Lawrence. "That is the worst of you."

"Oh, do please tell me what is the best, or at least the medium, for a change," was the answer.

"My dear Carrie——"

"If you call me Carrie you will drive me mad," said Carrissima.

"I fancy you must be," exclaimed her brother, standing on the hearthrug and looking as solemn as the judge he hoped some day to become. One hand was thrust between the buttons of his morning coat, the other clasped its lapelle, his head was flung back, and one foot rested on the fender. "An immense pity," he added, "that you can never mind your own business."

Carrissima skilfully mimicked his attitude.

"May it please you, m'lud, and gentlemen of the jury," she said, causing Lawrence hastily to change his pose, and Phoebe to look a little scandalized.

"There's a time for everything," he insisted, with a blush. "Let me tell you this is no laughing matter."

"You should not make yourself look so ridiculous," said Carrissima.

"Why should you everlastingly be retained for the prosecution?"

"You would certainly require a clever defence," returned Lawrence. "A fine thing you have done by your unnecessary interference."

"But what am I accused of?" she demanded. "What is all the fuss about?"

"As I was walking home on Saturday," he explained, "I turned up the

Haymarket. The people were just going in to the matinée——"

"I mustn't forget I want to go to the Haymarket," said Carrissima.

"Do, for goodness' sake," he expostulated, "try to fix your mind on one thing at a time."

"It depends on its nature," said Carrissima.

"Whom should I see getting out of a taxi," cried Lawrence, "but the colonel and some woman."

"My dear Lawrence," was the answer, "knowing father as well as you pretend to know everybody, surely you cannot imagine there's anything very unusual about that."

"Carrissima," interposed Phoebe, "I really think from Lawrence's description that she must have been Bridget Rosser."

"Oh, but surely not!"

"I think it was," Phoebe insisted.

"He has only seen her once," said Carrissima. "That was on Saturday week. She would scarcely——"

"Let me ask you one question!" cried Lawrence.

"Oh, a dozen," said Carrissima.

"How do you know that was the only time he saw the woman?"

"Of course, I can't say that I know for certain," she admitted.

"There you are! You don't know. You don't even believe. You simply jump to a conclusion. You have no means of knowing. Depend upon it, he has been at Golfney Place over and over again. We shall be fortunate if he doesn't end by marrying her."

"Who is jumping to a conclusion now?" said Carrissima.

"Lawrence dear," suggested Phoebe, quite humbly, "I understood you were afraid she might marry Mark. After all, she can't very well make victims of both him and your father."

"No, but she may like to have two strings to her bow. She may prefer a bird in the hand, and if he should escape, there's Mark to fall back upon."

"After all," said Carrissima, "you have not even seen Bridget. You don't know she has the slightest desire to marry anybody."

"She is simply an adventuress," was the answer. "A pretty woman on the make."

Although Carrissima had little reason to be prejudiced in Miss Rosser's favour, she was the possessor of an elementary sense of justice, and, moreover, it was always a satisfaction to contradict her brother.

"I don't admit you have any right to say that," she protested. "I saw a great deal of her at Crowborough——"

"Five years ago!"

"From what I have seen since," Carrissima continued, "I believe you have found a mare's nest. You seem to forget that father is sixty-five."

"Ah, yes, but he doesn't begin to realize the fact," said Lawrence. "He thinks he is quite capable of acting like an ordinary man of half his age. If you had tried to provide your friend with an easy prey, you couldn't have gone a surer way to work."

Carrissima, however, remained still unconvinced. She walked home to Grandison Square with the inclination to scoff at her brother's fears, although it was true that she was beginning to wish that Bridget had never crossed Colonel Faversham's path.