Читать книгу Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 - Various - Страница 13

The worthy Marmaduke’s gossip was indeed true, for as strange a thing as that had really happened. Lady Barbara Gordon, in open company, had announced that she knew positively that Lord Farquhart was no other than the Black Highwayman who for a twelvemonth had been terrorizing the roads round about London town. He had confessed it to her, himself, she said. She had seen him guised as the highwayman. Mr. Ashley, the Lady Barbara’s escort at the moment, had corroborated her statements, vouchsafing on his own account that he had been with the Lady Barbara when Lord Farquhart’s servants had returned her rings and a rose that had been stolen from her by the Black Highwayman only the night before.

Just a moment’s consideration of the conditions and incidents, the chances and mischances, that led up to this denouncement will show that it was not so strange a thing, after all. To take the Lady Barbara, first. Up to the time of her visit to London, Lord Farquhart had been to her something of a figurehead. She had considered him merely as a creature quite inanimate and impersonal, who was to be forced upon her by her father’s will just as she was to be forced upon him. But Lord Farquhart in the flesh was a young man of most pleasing appearance, if of most exasperating manners. When the Lady Barbara compared him with the other gallants of the society she frequented she found that he had few peers among them, and as she accepted his punctilious courtesies and attentions she began to long to see them infused with some personal warmth and interest. She saw no reason why Lord Farquhart should be the one and only gentleman of her acquaintance who discerned no charm in her. It piqued something more than her vanity to see that she alone of all the ladies whom he met could rouse in him no personal interest whatsoever. And, almost unconsciously, she exerted herself to win from him some sign of approbation.

Also, in addition to her awakened interest in Lord Farquhart – or possibly because of it – the Lady Barbara thought she saw in Mr. Ashley’s devotion some new, some curious, some quite displeasing quality. It was not that he was not as courteous as ever. It was not that he was not as attentive as ever. It was not that he did not speak his love as tenderly, as warmly, as ever. All this was quite as it had been. But in his courtesies the Lady Barbara recognized a thinly veiled – it was not contempt, of course, but there was the suggestion of the manner one would offer to a goddess who had advanced a step toward the extreme edge of her pedestal. And this Barbara resented. In his attentions he was quite solicitous, but it was a solicitude of custom – of custom to be, perhaps, as much as of custom that has been. To this Barbara objected. Already, too, his love savored of possession. Against this Barbara chafed. She would give her favors when she was ready to give them. They would be gifts, though – not things held by right.

Her resentments, her objections, her chafings, she tried to hold in check. She endeavored to show no sign of them to Ashley, with the result that in her manner to him he saw only the endeavor. So he, in turn, was piqued by the change in his lady. He was angry and annoyed, and asked himself occasionally what right the Lady Barbara had to change toward him when she and her Lord Farquhart were so absolutely in his power. All of which strained, somewhat, the relations between the Lady Barbara and Mr. Ashley.

To come to Lord Farquhart: he loved or thought he loved – he had loved or had thought he loved Sylvia – Sylvia, the light o’ love, one of the pretty creatures on whom love’s hand falls anything but lightly. To his prejudiced eyes, the Lady Barbara, cold and colorless in the gloom of Gordon’s Court, had seemed quite lacking in all charm. But when he had sauntered from her presence to that of Sylvia on the afternoon when the jest of the highway robbery had been discussed, he found that his curiosity, nay, his interest, had been aroused by the Lady Barbara. He found that his unsophisticated cousin was not altogether lacking in color and spirit, and Sylvia, for the first time, seemed somewhat over blown, somewhat over full of vulgar life and gayety. Later, that same night, when he saw the future Lady Farquhart dimpling and glowing, the central star in a galaxy of London beaux, he wondered if the Lady Barbara might not be worth the winning; he wondered if the mariage de convenance might not be transformed into the culmination of a quick, romantic courtship. To win the Lady Barbara before the Lady Barbara was his without the winning! Might not that be well worth while?

To give just a passing word to Sylvia; for it was to Sylvia that the main mischance was due. Sylvia saw that her reign was over, that she had lost all hold on Lord Farquhart, and, in her own way, which, after all, was a very definite and distinct way, poor Sylvia loved Lord Farquhart.

For six days these conditions had been changing, with all their attendant incidents and chances, and the time was ripe for a mischance. Lord Farquhart, lounging in the park, hoping to meet the Lady Barbara, even if it was only to be snubbed by the Lady Barbara, saw that young lady at the end of a long line of trees with Mr. Ashley. For Barbara had consented to walk with Mr. Ashley, partly so that she might have the freedom of open air and sunshine in which to express a belated opinion to Mr. Ashley concerning his new manner and tone, and partly in hopes that she would encounter Lord Farquhart and pique his jealousy by appearing with his rival.

“I tell you I’ll not stand it, not for an instant,” she was saying, the roses in her cheeks a deep, deep damask and the stars in her eyes beaming with unwonted radiance. “To hear you speak the world would think that we had been married a twelvemonth! That you demanded your rights like a commonplace husband, rather than that you sought my favor. I’ll warn you to change your manner, Mr. Harry Ashley, or you’ll find that you have neither rights nor favors.”

It was at this instant that the Lady Barbara caught sight of Lord Farquhart at his own end of the lime-shaded walk. Instantly her manner changed, though the damask roses still glowed and the stars still shone.

“Nay, nay, Hal” – she laid a caressing hand on his arm – “forgive my lack of manners. I’m – I’m – perchance I’m over weary. We country maids are not used to so much pleasure as you’ve given me in London.” She leaned languorously toward Ashley and he, made presumptuous by her change of tone, slipped his arm about her slender waist.

The Lady Barbara slid from his grasp with a pretty scream of amazement and shocked propriety. Then there might have followed a bit of swordplay; indeed, the Lady Barbara hoped there would – the affianced lover should have fought to defend his rights, the other should have fought for the privileges bestowed by the lady, and all the time the lady would have stood wringing her hands, moaning perchance, and praying for the discomfiture of the one or the other. But, unfortunately, none of this came to pass because, just at the critical moment, just when Lord Farquhart, watched slyly by Lady Barbara’s starry eyes, was starting forward to defend his rights, Sylvia slipped from behind a tree and flung herself with utter abandon upon Lord Farquhart.

Now, in reality, Lord Farquhart tried to force the woman away from him, but the Lady Barbara saw only that his hands were on her arms, that, in very truth, he spoke to the girl! Turning on her heel, she sped from the lime walk, followed by Mr. Ashley.

What ensued between Lord Farquhart and his Sylvia concerns the story little, for he had already told her that her reign was over, that a new queen had been enthroned in his heart. What ensued between the Lady Barbara and her escort cannot be written, for it was but a series of gasps and sharp cries on the lady’s part, interspersed with imploring commands on the lover’s part to tell him what ailed her. The interview was brought to a summary conclusion when the Lady Barbara reached her aunt’s house, for she flung the door to in his face and left him standing disconsolate on the outside.