Читать книгу In Silk Attire: A Novel - William Black - Страница 7

"It often surprises me," said Mr. Anerley, as the little party made its way across the common of St. Mary-Kirby in the warm evening glow, "that Hubbard cares to keep up acquaintance with us. We always dislike people who have known us in ill-fortune, or penury, or great depression. I even hate the flavour of cigars that I have smoked when recovering from sickness; I must have others when I get quite well again. Now, Hubbard, with his deer-park, and harriers, and thirty thousand a year, ought to be disgusted with people who knew him as a tea-broker."

"Don't be so ill-natured about Mr. Hubbard, dear," said his wife, with a smile. "I'm sure he is a big, soft, stupid, well-meaning sort of man."

Mr. Anerley was not quite so certain about the softness and good intentions of the Count; but he charitably forbore to speak. Dove and Will, who had stood for a few seconds on the bridge, to watch the two swans come sailing towards them in expectation of crumbs – cleaving the burnished gold of the mill-head into long purple lines – now came up; and they walked away from the still little village, along the green lanes, until they drew near the Place.

It was a great, sombre, fine old building, which had figured in history under another name – a large building of gloomy red brick, with innumerable mullioned windows, and peaks, and stone griffins – a building that had here and there grown grey and orange with the lichens and rain and wind of many years. It stood upon a high terrace on the side of a hill sloping down to the river, which ran along the valley to St. Mary-Kirby; and at this point the stream – a line of flashing gold winding through the soft green – divided the terrace and lawn of the house from the great park opposite, with its magnificent elms and its small close-lying herd of deer. Round about the Place, too, were some fine trees, on a particular cluster of which a colony of rooks had established themselves at some bygone time. Altogether a noble and handsome old building was this Balnacluith Place, for which the Graf von Schönstein had – not without a purpose – expended a large sum of money, on his accession to fortune. Alas! the influence of the Place had fled the moment he bought it. The brilliant gentlemen and lovely ladies whom the Count had pictured to himself dining in the great hall, or walking in the broad park, never appeared. The grand old house had lost its mesmeric power; and no longer drew down from London those brilliant parties of wits, and beaux, and belles who once – as the Count had informed himself – held their merry revels there. He had sparkling wines at his command; lights he could have in abundance; when he chose, the dining-hall was brilliant with plate, and flowers, and fruit – but the ladies and gentlemen whom he had mentally invited stayed away. And he was not the man to go out into the highways and byways, and gather in beggars to his feast. He had aimed at a particular kind of guests: they had not come; but there was yet hope of their coming.

When the Anerleys drew near they perceived the figure of a man walking solitarily up and down the stone terrace in front of the house. His only companions were the couchant lions at each end of the terrace, which had kept guard there, over the few steps, for nearly a couple of centuries.

"It is Hubbard himself," said Mr. Anerley.

"He looks like the ghost of some dead owner of the house, come back to take his accustomed stroll," said Will.

"At all events, he is smoking," said Dove.

When the Count perceived his visitors, he threw away his cigar, and came down to meet them, saluting them with florid and formal courtesy.

"No need to ask how you are, Miss Anerley – charming as ever. Persuaded our friend Will to give up his wandering life, eh?"

This was the Count's great joke: it had never been known to fail – at least in rendering Dove very uncomfortable.

"What a fine evening! Look how beautiful the trees are down there!" he continued, allowing his eye to roam over the prospect before him in innocent pride – looking, indeed, as if he thought that God had prepared the sunset simply to light up Count Schönstein's park.

"It is a fine park; and a beautiful evening, too," said Mr. Anerley. "It is a pity that most beautiful things make one sad."

"That is because we don't possess them," said the Count, laughing; he was of a practical turn of mind.

The Count turned to the ladies, and – as was his universal custom when he wished to be polite – he insisted on their going inside and having a glass of wine.

"Look here, Anerley," he said, when both of them declined, "you must come and try some port I got down last night – bought it at the sale of Major Benson's cellar on Thursday – 10*l.* a dozen, and cheap at the money."

"If it was sent home last night, I'd rather not," said Mr. Anerley, with a smile.

"I didn't mean that particular wine," replied the Count, unblushingly. "Or will you all stay and dine with me? Do; I dine at eight."

This was what is bluntly called a lie; the Count – except when circumstances compelled him – never forsook his old dinner-hour of five. He had, in fact, only begun his second cigar after dinner when the Anerley's arrived. But the Count probably fancied that a mere courtesy-lie wasn't much, and trusted to his visitors declining the invitation, which they did.

"I would rather go down and see the deer," said Dove. "Didn't you say you had some roe-deer amongst them?"

"Those I had brought from Schönstein?" said the Count, rather pompously. "They all died, as Hermann said they would. But it was an experiment, you know. I must get Hermann, if we're going into the park; the deer won't come to me."

He went into the house for a few moments, and reappeared, followed by the keeper, a splendid-looking fellow, with a brown, handsome face, great shoulders, and long legs encased in rough top-boots. This Hermann had been the head-keeper, chief forester, and what not, of Schönstein, when Mr. Hubbard bought the place; and on the principle of the Portuguese navigators, who brought home men and women from the Guinea Coast to prove that they had been there, the Count carried the big Schwarzwalder over to England with him, as a specimen of what he had purchased abroad. Unlike most of his Schwarzwald brethren, Hermann knew not a word of English; Hubbard knew not a word of German; and for many a month after his expatriation the efforts of master and man to understand each other formed a constant comedy at the Place. In one or two cases Mr. Anerley was besought to act as interpreter; and even now nothing delighted the stalwart, good-natured Blackforester so much as a long talk in his native language with any of his master's guests who were complaisant enough to humour him.

"Hermann," said the Count, loudly, to let his visitors know that now he could support his rank by talking in the language of the country which gave it him, "das Fräulein wunscht die – die Rehe zu sehen – "

"The Rehe are all died, Herr Graf," said the sturdy keeper, who would not have his native tongue burlesqued.

"Ich meine die – die – the deer that are there," said the Count, sharply and hotly, "und sie müssen, wissen Sie, etwas – etwas – eh – ah – etwas Speise – "

"Futter, nicht wahr?" suggested Will, looking gravely at Dove.

"Yes, yes, of course; the fellow knows well enough. I mean to get the deer to come up to him."

"They will come without nothing, Herr Graf," said the tall forester.

They crossed the small iron bridge leading from the lawn over the river into the park. The deer were for the most part lying down, underneath the shadow of three large oaks, one or two only still standing and nibbling the grass. When our party drew near, however, the whole herd rose and retreated a little, while one of the bucks came proudly to the front and stood with his small head and tall horns erect, watching the approach of the strangers.

"Will you come with me, Fräulein?" said Hermann; and Dove went forward with him, leaving the others behind.

No sooner had the keeper thus made himself distinctly visible, than two or three of the does came timidly forward, alternating a little quiet canter with a distrustful pause, and at last one of them came quite up to the keeper, and looked rather wistfully at his hand with her large soft brown eyes.

"This is her I call Lämmchen," said Hermann, stroking the small neck of the hind, "she is so tame. And there is Leopard over there, with the spots on him. I speak to them in German; they know it all the same."

One of the bucks now seemed also desirous to approach; looking about him in a sheepish way, however, as if it were beneath his dignity for him to follow the example of the women of his tribe.

"Komm her, du furchtsamer Kerl!" said Hermann, going forward, and taking hold of him by one of his broad, palmated horns; "he is a fine deer, is he not? Look at his horns and his bright colours. He is better than for to be in a park, like the cows. He should be in the woods."

He took a piece of brown bread from his pocket and gave it to Dove, who held it to the small mouth of the buck, where it was speedily nibbled up. Then she stroked his neck, and looked at his big, apprehensive eyes; and then they went back to the group whom they had left.

"Miss Anerley," said the Count, "won't you persuade those people to go inside and have some tea? I ought to be able to give you good tea, you know."

It was when the Count wished to be very modest and complaisant indeed that he joked about his old calling.

They went inside, and sat in a large, sombre, oaken-panelled room, with the fast fading light coldly falling through the diamond panes of the tall and narrow windows. Then lamps were brought in, and tea; and they sat talking and chatting for nearly an hour.

When they went out upon the terrace again to go home, there was a pale moonlight lying over the lawn, hitting sharply here and there on the stone mullions of the windows, and touching greyly and softly a thin mist which had settled down upon the park. It was a beautiful, still night; and as Dove and Will went home, they allowed Mr. and Mrs. Anerley to get on so far in front of them, that at last they were only visible as dark specks on the white road.

For some time they walked on in silence; and then Will said, carelessly:

"Will you go up to town with me to-morrow morning, Dove, and I'll devote the whole day to you; or will you come up with my father in the afternoon?"

She did not answer him; and then, in a second or two, when he looked down, he was surprised to find her eyes full of tears.

"Whatever is the matter, Dove?"

"Oh, Will," she said, turning the beautiful, wet eyes up to his face – and they were very beautiful in the soft moonlight – "I have been wanting to speak to you all day; and I have been so afraid. I wanted to ask you not to – not to go to Honduras – won't you give it up, if I ask you, Will?"

"Why should that trouble you, Dove? If I do go, it will only be a short trip; and then it will be of great advantage to me in this way, that if – "

"But Will, dear, listen to me for a moment," she said, with a piteous entreaty in her voice. "I know why you have always to go away from England, although you have been too kind-hearted to speak of it – I know it quite well – it's because I am to have the money that belongs to you, and you have to fight your way all by yourself, and leave your family year after year, and all because of me – and I won't have the money, Will – I hate it – and it's making me more miserable every day."

"Darling, don't distress yourself like that," he said, soothingly, for she was now crying very bitterly. "I assure you, you mistake the whole affair. I won't go to Honduras, if you like – I'll do anything you ask me. But really, Dove, I go abroad merely because, as I believe, one of my ancestors must have married a gipsy. I like to wander about, and see people, and live differently, and get generally woke up to what's going on in the world. Bless you, my darling, if it were money I wanted, I ought to have remained at home from the beginning. My father has only done what any well-thinking man would have done in his place – and you mustn't fret yourself about such a trifle – "

"I knew you would never acknowledge I was robbing you, Will; but I am. And all the time you were in Russia, and in Canada, whenever there was a heavy storm blowing, I used to lie awake at night and cry; because I knew it was I who had sent you away out there, and I thought you might be in a ship and in danger – all through me. And this morning, when you – when you said you were going to Honduras, I made up my mind then to go to papa to-morrow morning, and I'll tell him I won't have the money – I'll go away from you altogether rather, and be a governess – "

"Now, now, Dove, don't vex me and yourself about nothing," he said to her kindly. "I won't go to Honduras."

"You won't?"

"I won't."

She raised her head a little bit – in an entreating way – and the compact was sealed.

"I'll tell you what I shall do," he said, taking the hand that lay on his arm into his own. "I will stay at home, get myself into some regular work, take a small house somewhere near here, and then you'll come and be my wife, won't you, Dove?"

There was a slight pressure on his hand: that was her only answer. They walked on for some little time in silence; and then, catching a glimpse of her face, he stopped to dry the tears from her cheeks. While engaged in that interesting occupation, she said to him, with a little smile:

"It looks as if I had asked you, Will – doesn't it?"

"I don't think so," he said.

"It wouldn't matter, if I did – would it?" she asked, simply. "For you know how fond I am of you, Will."

They talked of that and a good many other relevant matters until they had reached St. Mary-Kirby. They paused for a moment on the bridge – to look at the dark shadows about the mill and the white sheen of the moonlight on the water; and then she whispered timidly:

"When shall we be married, Will?"

"We shall be maghied whenever you like, Dove," he said, lightly and cheerfully.