A Ring of Rubies. Meade L. T.

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СКАЧАТЬ the meal was over, Cousin Geoffrey rose, and held out his hand.

      “Good-bye, Rosamund,” he said. “I am glad you came to see me. You are your mother’s daughter, although you have not got her face. You may tell her so if you like, and and – But no; I won’t send any other message. Good-bye, Rosamund.”

      “Cousin Geoffrey, you have not told me – Cousin Geoffrey – you won’t, oh, you won’t disappoint me?”

      “Child, if I grant your request it will be against my will. As a rule, I never do anything against my will. I disapprove of your scheme. You are just a nice girl, but you are no artist, Rosamund.”

      “Cousin Geoffrey, let me prove to you that I am.”

      “I don’t want you to prove it to me. There, if I think twice of this matter you shall hear from me in a week.”

      “And if I don’t hear?”

      “Take my silence for what it means. I respect art – only true votaries must approach her shrine.”

      Chapter Two

      Cousin Geoffrey

      I went home and waited for the week. I was excited, I even felt nervous. I was not a particularly pleasant companion for my mother during these days of waiting. I felt irritable, and the merest trifle made me speak crossly. The boys (we always called my big grown-up brothers “the boys”) twitted me on my London visit. They said my new hat had not improved my temper, and, by the way, where was my new hat?

      I said, if it came home it would be in a week. I threw great mystery into my voice when I made this remark, but the boys were essentially matter-of-fact, and did not pursue the inquiry.

      During this week my mother talked a great deal about Cousin Geoffrey.

      At first she seemed almost afraid to ask me what had taken place during the time I spent with him, but soon she got over her reluctance, and then she was only too desirous to learn even the most remote particulars that I could give her.

      She both laughed and cried over my account of my interview.

      “Just like Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, when I quoted his remarks about art and artists. “Just like Geoffrey,” she said again, when I told her about the mutton-chop cooked by his own hands, and the delicate and rare wine served in the tall Venetian glasses.

      My mother seemed to know his home well; she asked about the position of certain pieces of furniture, and in particular she spoke about the Paul Veronese. She knew its value well enough – she was no artist, but she could appreciate its merits. Her cheeks glowed, and her eyes grew bright as she spoke of it.

      “Ah, Rosamund,” she said, “I helped him to unpack it – long ago – long, long ago.”

      When I told my mother how Cousin Geoffrey said she was the only relative who was not kind, she turned her head away.

      I knew why she did this – she did not want me to see the tears in her eyes.

      The week passed.

      I got up early on the morning which saw its completion, and went down-stairs myself to answer the postman’s ring.

      There was no letter for me. I did not cry, nor show disappointment in any way. On the contrary I was particularly cheerful, only that day I would not talk at all about Cousin Geoffrey.

      In the evening my father returned by an earlier train than usual; my brothers had not come back with him. He came straight into our little drawing-room without removing his muddy boots, as his usual custom was. My mother and I had just lighted the lamp; the curtains were drawn. My mother was bending over her eternal mending and darning.

      When my father entered the room my mother scarcely raised her head. I did – I was about to remark that he was home in specially good time, when I noticed something strange in his face. He raised his eyebrows, and glanced significantly towards the door.

      I knew he wanted me to leave the room; he had something to say to my mother.

      I went away. My father and mother remained alone together for about a quarter of an hour. Then he came out of the drawing-room, called to me to get supper ready at once, and went up to his own room.

      I helped our one maid to put the dishes on the table, and then rushed into the drawing-room to my mother.

      She was sitting gazing into the fire. A stocking she had been darning lay on her lap. Her face was very pale, and when she turned round at my step, I saw by her eyes that she had just wiped tears away from them.

      “Rosamund,” she said, in her gentle, somewhat monotonous voice, “my child, you will be disappointed – disappointed of your hope. Cousin Geoffrey is dead.”

      I uttered a loud exclamation.

      “Hush,” said my mother. “We must not talk about it before your father. Hush, Rosamund. Why, Rosamund, my dear, why should you cry?”

      “No, I won’t cry,” I said, “only I am stunned, and – shocked.”

      “Come in to supper,” said my mother. “We will talk of this presently. Your father must not notice anything unusual. Keep all your feelings to yourself, my darling.”

      Then she got up and kissed me. She was not a woman to kiss any one, even her own child, often. She was the sweetest woman in the world, but she found it difficult to give expression to her feelings. Her tender caress now did much to make up for the sore and absolutely certain fall of all my castles in the air.

      The next day, I learned from one of my brothers that Cousin Geoffrey Rutherford had been found seated by his desk, quite dead. A policeman had found him. He had seen that hall-door, which was practically never off its chain, a little ajar, and had gone in and found Cousin Geoffrey.

      The day but one after the news reached us, my mother got a letter from Cousin Geoffrey’s lawyer.

      “As you are one of the nearest of kin of the deceased, it would be advisable that you should be present at the reading of the will.”

      “I think, Andrew,” said my mother, handing this letter across the table to my father, “that I will go, and take Rosamund with me; I am quite sure Geoffrey cannot have left me anything,” she continued, a vivid pink coming into her cheek. “Indeed, I may add,” she continued, “that under the circumstances I should not wish him to leave me anything, but it would give me gratification to show him the slight respect of attending his funeral – and I own that it would also give me pleasure to see the old house and the furniture again.”

      I had never heard my mother make such a long speech before, and I fully expected my father to interrupt it with a torrent of angry words. Even the boys turned pale as they listened to my mother.

      To our great astonishment her words were followed by half a moment of absolute silence. Then my father said in a quiet voice: —

      “You will please yourself, of course, Mary. I have not a word of advice to give on this matter.”

      We buried Cousin Geoffrey in Kensal Green. After the funeral was over we all returned to the old house.

      When I say “we all,” I include a very goodly company. I am almost sure that fifty people came home in mourning-coaches СКАЧАТЬ