White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume II. William Black

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СКАЧАТЬ impossible," said he.

      "Then I am very sorry," said she, with great sweetness. "Because Denny-mains is really a beautiful place. And the house would lend itself splendidly to a thorough scheme of redecoration; the hall could be made perfectly lovely. I would have the wooden dado painted a dark bottle-green, and the wall over it a rich Pompeian red – I don't believe the colours of a hall can be too bold if the tones are good in themselves. Pompeian red is a capital background for pictures, too; and I like to see pictures in the hall; the gentlemen can look at them while they are waiting for their wives. Don't you think Indian matting makes a very nice, serviceable, sober-coloured dado for a dining-room – so long as it does not drive your pictures too high on the wall?"

      The fiendishness of this woman! Denny-mains was being withdrawn from him at this very moment; and she was bothering him with questions about its decoration. What did he think of Indian matting?

      "Well," said he, "if I am to lose my chance of Denny-mains through this piece of absurdity, I can't help it."

      "I beg your pardon," said she most amiably; "but I don't think your uncle's proposal so very absurd. It is the commonest thing in the world for people to wish persons in whom they are interested to marry each other; and very often they succeed by merely getting the young people to meet, and so forth. You say yourself that it is reasonable in certain cases. Well, in this case, you probably don't know how great an interest your uncle takes in Miss Avon, and the affection that he has for her. It is quite remarkable. And he has been dwelling on this possibility of a match between you – of seeing you both settled at Denny-mains – until he almost regards it as already arranged. 'Put yourself in his place,' as Mr. Reade says. It seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and I am afraid he will consider you very ungrateful if you don't fall in with his plan."

      Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of perplexity on the young man's brow. At first he had seemed inclined to laugh the whole matter aside, but the gentle reasoning of this small person had a ghastly aspect of seriousness about it.

      "Then his notion of my seeking out the man Smethurst and giving him a thrashing: you would justify that, too?" he cried.

      "No, not quite," she answered, with a bit of a smile. "That is a little absurd, I admit – it is merely an ebullition of anger. He won't think any more of that in a day or two I am certain. But the other – the other, I fear, is a fixed idea."

      At this point we heard some one calling outside:

      "Miss Mary! I have been searching for ye everywhere; are ye coming for a walk down to the shore?"

      Then a voice, apparently overhead at an open window —

      "All right, sir; I will be down in a moment."

      Another second or two, and we hear some one singing on the stair, with a fine air of bravado —

      A strong sou-wester's blowing, Billy; can't you hear it roar, now?

      – the gay voice passes through the hall —

      Lord help 'em, how I pities all un —

      – then the last phrase is heard outside —

      – folks on shore now —

      Queen Titania darts to the open window of the dining-room.

      "Mary! Mary!" she calls. "Come here."

      The next instant a pretty enough picture is framed by the lower half of the window, which is open. The background is a blaze of scarlet and yellow and green – a mixture of sunlight and red poppies and nasturtiums and glancing fuchsia leaves. Then this slight figure that has appeared is dark in shadow; but there is a soft reflected light from the front of the house, and that just shows you the smile on Mary Avon's face and the friendliness of her dark soft eyes.

      "Oh, how do you do?" she says, reaching in her hand and shaking hands with him. There is not any timidity in her manner. No one has been whispering to her of the dark plots surrounding her.

      Nor was Mr. Smith much embarrassed, though he did not show himself as grateful as a young man might have done for so frank and friendly a welcome.

      "I scarcely thought you would have remembered me," said he modestly. But at this moment Denny-mains interfered, and took the young lady by the arm, and dragged her away. We heard their retreating footsteps on the gravel walk.

      "So you remember her?" says our hostess, to break the awkward silence.

      "Oh, yes, well enough," said he; and then he goes on to say stammeringly – "Of course, I – I have nothing to say against her – "

      "If you have," it is here interposed, as a wholesome warning, "you had better not mention it here. Ten thousand hornets' nests would be a fool compared to this house if you said anything in it against Mary Avon."

      "On the contrary," says he, "I suppose she is a very nice girl indeed – very – I suppose there's no doubt of it. And if she has been robbed like that, I am very sorry for her; and I don't wonder my uncle should be interested in her, and concerned about her, and – and all that's quite right. But it is too bad – it is too bad – that one should be expected to – to ask her to be one's wife, and a sort of penalty hanging over one's head, too. Why, it is enough to set anybody against the whole thing; I thought everybody knew that you can't get people to marry if you drive them to it – except in France, I suppose, where the whole business is arranged for you by your relatives. This isn't France; and I am quite sure Miss Avon would consider herself very unfairly treated if she thought she was being made part and parcel of any such arrangement. As for me – well, I am very grateful to my uncle for his long kindness to me; he has been kindness itself to me; and it is quite true, as he says, that he has asked for nothing in return. Well, what he asks now is just a trifle too much. I won't sell myself for any property. If he is really serious – if it is to be a compulsory marriage like that – Denny-mains can go. I shall be able to earn my own living somehow."

      There was a chord struck in this brief, hesitating, but emphatic speech that went straight to his torturer's heart. A look of liking and approval sprang to her eyes. She would no longer worry him.

      "Don't you think," said she gently, "that you are taking the matter too seriously? Your uncle does not wish to force you into a marriage against your will; he knows nothing about Adelphi melodramas. What he asks is simple and natural enough. He is, as you see, very fond of Mary Avon; he would like to see her well provided for; he would like to see you settled and established at Denny-mains. But he does not ask the impossible. If she does not agree, neither he nor you can help it. Don't you think it would be a very simple matter for you to remain with us for a time, pay her some ordinary friendly attention, and then show your uncle that the arrangement he would like does not recommend itself to either you or her? He asks no more than that; it is not much of a sacrifice."

      There was no stammering about this lady's exposition of the case. Her head is not very big, but its perceptive powers are remarkable.

      Then the young man's face brightened considerably.

      "Well," said he, "that would be more sensible, surely. If you take away the threat, and the compulsion, and all that, there can be no harm in my being civil to a girl, especially when she is, I am sure, just the sort of girl one ought to be civil to. I am sure she has plenty of common sense – "

      It is here suggested once more that, in this house, negative praise of Mary Avon is likely to awake slumbering lions.

      "Oh, I have no doubt," says he readily, "that she is a very nice girl indeed. One would not have СКАЧАТЬ