Shrewsbury: A Romance. Weyman Stanley John

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СКАЧАТЬ and recovering himself by turns. Not now was this all, however: now I saw also imprimis, a dim oval face, framed in the background behind the two old people; and that, now in shadow now in light, gleamed before my fascinated eyes with unearthly beauty. Once or twice, fearing to be observed, I averted my gaze and looked elsewhere; guiltily and with hot temples. But always I returned to it again. And always, the longer I let my eyes dwell on the vision-for a vision it seemed in the halo of the candles-and the more monotonous hung the silence, broken only by Mrs. D-'s even drone, the more distinctly the beautiful face stood out, and the more bewitching and alluring appeared the red lips and smiling eyes and dark clustering hair, that moment by moment drew my heart from me, and kindled my ripening brain and filled my veins with fever!

      "Seventhly, and under this head, of the sin of David!"

      So Mrs. D- booming on, in her deep voice, to all seeming endlessly; while the air of the dingy whitewashed room grew stale, and the candles guttered and burned low, and the boys, poor little wretches, leaned on one another's shoulders and sighed, and it was difficult to say whether Mr. D-'s noddings or his recoveries went nearer to breaking his neck. At last-or was it only my fancy? – I thought I made out a small brown hand gliding within the circle of light. Then-or was I dreaming? – one of the candles began to move; but to move so little and so stealthily, that I could not swear to it; nor ever could have sworn, if Mr. D-'s wig had not a moment later taken fire with a light flame, and a stench, and a frizzling sound, that in a second brought him, still half-asleep, but swearing, to his feet.

      Mrs. D-, her mouth open, and the volume lifted, halted in the middle of a word, and glared as if she had been shot; her surprise at the interruption so great-and no wonder-that she could not for a while find words. But the stream of her indignation, so checked, only gathered volume; and in a few seconds broke forth.

      "Mr. D-!" she cried, slamming the book down on the table. "You disgusting beast! Do you know that the boys are here?"

      "My wig is on fire!" he cried for answer. He had taken it off, and now held it at arm's length, looking at it so ruefully that the boys, though they knew the danger, could scarcely restrain their laughter.

      "And serve you right for a weak-kneed member!" his wife answered in a voice that made us quake. "If you had not guzzled at dinner, sir, and swilled small beer you would have remained awake instead of spoiling a good wig, and staining your soul! Ay, and causing these little ones-"

      "I never closed my eyes!" he declared, roundly.

      "Rubbish!" she answered in a tone that would brook no denial. And then, "Give the wig to Jennie, sir!" she continued, peremptorily. "And put your handkerchief on your head. It is well that good Mr. Nesbit does not know what language has been used during his discourse; it would cut that excellent man to the heart. Do you hear, sir, give the wig to Jennie!" she screamed. "A handkerchief is good enough for profane swearers and filthy talkers! And too good! Too good, sir!"

      He went reluctantly to obey, seeing nothing for it; but between his anger and Jennie's clumsiness, the wig, in passing from one to the other, fell under the table. This caused Mrs. D-, who was at the end of her patience, to spring up in a rage, and down went a candle. Nor was this the worst; for the grease in its fall cast a trail of hot drops on her Sunday gown, and in a flash she was on the maid and had smacked her face till the room rang.

      "Take that, and that, you clumsy baggage!" she cried in a fury, her face crimson. "And that! And the next time you offer to take a gentleman's wig have better manners. This will cost you a year's wages, my fine madam! and let me hear of your stepping over the doorstep until it is earned, and I will have you jailed and whipped. Do you hear? And you," she continued, turning ferociously on her husband, "swearing on the Lord's day like a drunken, raffling, God-forsaken Tantivy! You are not much better!"

      It only remains in my memory now as a coarse outburst of vixenish temper, made prominent by after events. But what I felt at the moment I should in vain try to describe. At one time I was on the point of springing on the woman, and at another all but caught the sobbing girl in my arms and challenged the world to touch her.

      Fortunately, Mr. D-, now fully awakened, and the more inclined to remember decency in proportion as his wife forgot it, recalled me to myself by sternly bidding me see the boys to their beds.

      Glad to escape, they needed no second order, but flocked to the door, and I with them. In our retreat, it was necessary for me to pass close to the shrinking girl, whom Mrs. D- was still abusing with all the cruelty imaginable; as I did so I heard, or dreamed that I heard, three words, breathed in the faintest possible whisper. I say, dreamed I heard, for the girl neither looked at me nor removed the apron from her face, nor by abating her sobs or any other sign betrayed that she spoke or that she was conscious of my neighbourhood.

      Yet the three words, "Garden, ten minutes," so gently breathed, that I doubted while I heard, could only have come from her; and assured of that, it will be believed that I found the ten minutes I spent seeing the boys to bed by the light of one scanty rushlight the longest and most tumultuous I ever passed. If she had not spoken I should have found it a sorry time, indeed; since the moment the door was closed behind me I discerned a hundred reasons to be dissatisfied with my conduct, thought of a hundred things I should have said, and saw a hundred things I should have done; and stood a coward convicted. Now, however, all was not over; I might explain. I was about to see her, to speak with her, to pour out my indignation and pity, perhaps to touch her hand; and in the delicious throb of fear and hope and excitement with which these anticipations filled my breast, I speedily forgot to regret what was past.

      CHAPTER III

      Doubtless there have been men able to boast, and with truth, that they carried to their first assignation with a woman an even pulse. But as I do not presume to rank myself among these, who have been commonly men of high station (of whom my late Lord Rochester was, I believe, the chief in my time), neither-the unhappy occurrence which I am in the way to relate, notwithstanding-have I, if I may say so without disrespect, so little heart as to crave the reputation. In truth, I experienced that evening, as I crept out of the back door of Mr. D-'s house, and stole into the gloom of the whispering garden, a full share of the guilty feeling that goes with secrecy; and more than my share of the agitation of spirit natural in one who knows (and is new to the thought) that under cover of the darkness a woman stands trembling and waiting for him. A few paces from the house-which I could leave without difficulty, though at the risk of detection-I glanced back to assure myself that all was still: then shivering, as much with excitement as at the chill greeting the night air gave me, I hastened to the gap in the fence, through which I had before seen my mistress.

      I felt for the gap with my hand and peered through it, and called her name softly-"Jennie! Jennie!" and listened; and after an interval called again, more boldly. Still hearing nothing, I discovered by the sinking at my heart-which was such that, for all my eighteen years, I could have sat down and cried-how much I had built on her coming. And I called again and again; and still got no answer.

      Yet I did not despair. Mrs. D- might have kept her, or one of a hundred things might have happened to delay her; from one cause or another she might not have been able to slip out as quickly as she had thought. She might come yet; and so, though the more prolonged my absence, the greater risk of detection I ran, I composed myself to wait with what patience I might. The town was quiet; human noise at an end for the day; but Mr. D-'s school stood on the outskirts, with its back to the open country, and between the sighing of the wind among the poplars, and the murmur of a neighbouring brook, and those far-off noises that seem inseparable from the night, I had stood a minute or more before another sound, differing from all these, and having its origin at a spot much nearer to me, caught my ear, and set my heart beating. It was the noise of a woman weeping; and to this day I do not know precisely what I did on hearing it-when I made out what it was, I mean-or how I found courage to do it; only, that in an instant, as it seemed to me, I was on the other side of the fence, and had taken СКАЧАТЬ