The Great House. Weyman Stanley John

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Oh!"

      "This is Mr. Basset," Audley explained. Mary stared at the stranger. The name conveyed nothing to her.

      "I came to meet you," he said, speaking with difficulty, and now and again casting a wild eye abroad as the deck heaved under him. "But I expected to find you at the hotel, and I waited there until I nearly missed the boat. Even then I felt that I ought to learn if you were on board, and I came up to see."

      "I am very much obliged to you," Mary answered politely, "but I am quite comfortable, thank you. It is close below, and Lord Audley found this seat for me. And I have a cabin."

      "Oh yes!" he answered. "I think I will go down then if you-if you are sure you want nothing."

      "Nothing, thank you," Mary answered with decision.

      "I think I-I'll go, then. Good-night!"

      With that he went, making desperate tacks in the direction of the companion. Unfortunately what he gained in speed he lost in dignity, and before he reached the hatch Lord Audley gave way to laughter.

      "Oh, don't!" Mary cried. "He will hear you. And it was kind of him to look for me when he was not well."

      But Audley only laughed the more. "You don't catch the full flavor of it," he said. "He's come three hundred miles to meet you, and he's too ill to do anything now he's here!"

      "Three hundred miles to meet me!" she cried in astonishment.

      "Every yard of it! Don't you know who he is? He's Peter Basset, your uncle's nephew by marriage, who lives with him. He's come, or rather your uncle has sent him, all the way from Stafford to meet you-and he's gone to lie down! He's gone to lie down! There's a squire of dames for you! Upon my honor, I never knew anything richer!"

      And my lord's laughter broke out anew.

      CHAPTER V

      THE LONDON PACKET

      Mary laughed with him, but she was not comfortable. What she had seen of the stranger, a man plain in feature and ordinary in figure, one whom the eye would not have remarked in a crowd, did not especially commend him. And certainly he had not shown himself equal to a difficult situation. But the effort he had made to come to her help appealed to her generosity, and she was not sure how far she formed a part of the comedy. So her laughter was from the lips only, and brief. Then, "My uncle's nephew?" she asked thoughtfully.

      "His wife's nephew. Your uncle married a Basset."

      "But why did he send him to meet me?"

      "For a simple reason-I should say that he had no one else to send. Your uncle is not a man of many friends."

      "I understood that some one would meet the boat in London," she said. "But I expected a woman."

      "I fancy the woman would be to seek," he replied. "And Basset is a kind of tame cat at the Gatehouse. He lives there a part of the year, though he has an old place of his own up the country. He's a Staffordshire man born and bred, and I dare say a good fellow in his way, but a dull dog! a dull dog! Are you sure that the wind does not catch you?"

      She said that she was very comfortable, and they were silent awhile, listening to the monotonous slapping of a rope against the mast and the wash of the waves as they surged past the beam. A single light at the end of the breakwater shone in the darkness behind them. She marked the light grow smaller and more distant, and her thoughts went back to the convent school, to her father, to the third-floor where for a time they had been together, to his care for her-feeble and inefficient, to his illness. And a lump rose in her throat, her hands gripped one another as she strove to hide her feelings. In her heart she whispered a farewell. She was turning her back on her father's grave. The last tendril which bound her to the old life was breaking.

      The light vanished, and gradually the girl's reflections sought a new channel. They turned from the past to the present, and dwelt on the man beside her, who had not only thought of her comfort, who had not only saved her from some hours of loneliness, but had probably wrought this change in her life. This was the third time only that she had seen him. Once, some days after that memorable evening, he had called at the Hôtel Lambert, and her employer had sent for her. He had greeted her courteously in the Princess's presence, had asked her kindly if she had heard from England, and had led her to believe that she would hear. And she remembered with a blush that the Princess had looked from one to the other with a smile, and afterwards had had another manner for her.

      Meanwhile the man wondered what she was thinking, and waited for her to give him the clue. But she was so long silent that his patience wore thin. It was not for this, it was not to sit silent beside her, that he had taken a night journey and secured these cosey seats.

      "Well?" he said at last.

      She turned to him, her eyes wet with tears. "It seems so strange," she murmured, "to be leaving all and going into a world in which I know no one."

      "Except the head of your family."

      "Except you! I suppose that I owe it to you that I am here?"

      "I should be happy if I thought so," he replied, with careful reticence. "But we set a stone rolling, we do not know where it falls. You will soon learn-Basset will tell you, if I don't-that your uncle and I are not on good terms. Therefore it is unlikely that he was moved by what I said."

      "But you said something?"

      "If I did," he answered, smiling, "it was against the grain-who likes to put his finger between the door and the jamb? And let me caution you. Your uncle will not suffer meddling on my part, still less a reminder of it. Therefore, as you are going to owe all to him, you will do well to be silent about me."

      She was sure that she owed all to him, and she might have said so, but at that moment the boat changed its course and the full force of the wind struck them. The salt spray whipped and stung their faces. Her cloak flew out like a balloon, her scarf pennon-wise, the tarpaulin flapped like some huge bird. He had to spring to the screen, to adjust it to the new course, to secure and tuck in her cloak-and all in haste, with exclamations and laughter, while Mary, sharing the joy of the struggle, and braced by the sting of the salt wind, felt her heart rise. How kind he was, and how strong. How he towered above ordinary men. How safe she felt in his care.

      When they were settled anew, she asked him to tell her something about the Gatehouse.

      "It's a lonely place," he said. "It is quite out of the world. I don't know, indeed, how you will exist after the life you have led."

      "The life I have led!" she protested. "But that is absurd! Though you saw me in the Princess's salon, you know that my life had nothing in common with hers. I was downstairs no more than three or four times, and then merely to interpret. My life was spent between whitewashed walls, on bare floors. I slept in a room with twenty children, ate with forty-onion soup and thick tartines. The evening I saw you I wore shoes which the maid lent me. And with all that I was thankful, most thankful, to have such a refuge. The great people who met at the Princess's-"

      "And who thought that they were making history!" he laughed. "Did you know that? Did you know that the Princess was looking to them to save the last morsel of Poland?"

      "No," she said. "I did not know. I am very ignorant. But if I were a man, I should love to do things like that."

      "I believe you would!" he replied. "Well, there are crusades in England. Only I fear that you will not be in the way of СКАЧАТЬ