Robinetta. Findlater Jane Helen

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СКАЧАТЬ Did it belong to a child of her own? Can she be a widow, I wonder,” said Lavendar to himself.

      “I often think,” he said suddenly, raising his head, “that when two people meet for the first time as utter strangers to each other, they should be encouraged, not forbidden, to ask plain questions. It may be my legal training, but I’d like all conversation to begin in that way. As a child I was constantly reproved for my curiosity, especially when I once asked a touchy old gentleman, ‘Which is your glass eye? The one that moves, or the one that stands still?’”

      The tears had dried, the hat was pushed back again, the young woman’s face broke into an April smile that matched the day and the weather.

      “Oh, come, let us do it,” she exclaimed. “I’d love to play it like a new game: we know nothing at all about each other, any more than if we had dropped from the moon into the boat together. Oh! do be quick! We’ve so little time; the river is quite narrow; who’s to open the ball?”

      “I’ll begin, by right of my profession; put the witness in the box, please.–What is your name, madam?”

      “Robinette Loring,” she said demurely, clasping her hands on her knee, an almost childlike delight in the new game dimpling the corners of her mouth from time to time.

      “What is your age, madam?” Lavendar hesitated just for a moment before putting this question.

      “I refuse to answer; you must guess.”

      “Contempt of Court–”

      “Well, go on; I’m twenty-two and six weeks.”

      “Thank you, you are remarkably well preserved. I can hardly believe–those six-weeks! What nationality?”

      “American, of course, or half and half; with an English mother and American ideas.”

      “Thank you. Where is your present place of residence?”

      “Stoke Revel Manor House.”

      “What is the duration of the visit?”

      “Fixed at a month, but may be shortened at any time for bad behaviour.”

      “Your purpose in coming to Stoke Revel?”

      “A Sentimental Journey, in search of fond relations.”

      “Have you found these relations?”

      “I’ve found them; but the fondness is still to seek.”

      “Have you left your family in America?”

      “I have no one belonging to me in the world,” she answered simply, and her bright face clouded suddenly.

      There was a moment’s rather embarrassed silence. “It’s getting to be a sad game”; she said. “It’s my turn now. I’ll be the cross-examiner, but not having had your legal training, I’ll tell you a few facts about this witness to begin with. He’s a lawyer; I know that already. Your Christian name, sir?”

      “Mark.”

      “Mark Lavendar. ‘Mark the perfect man.’ Where have I heard that; in Pope or in the Bible? Thank you; very good; your age is between thirty and thirty-five, with a strong probability that it is thirty-three. Am I right?”

      “Approximately, madam.”

      “You are unmarried, for married men don’t play games like this; they are too sedate.”

      “You reassure me! Am I expected to acknowledge the truth of all your observations?”

      “You have only to answer my questions, sir.”

      “I am unmarried, madam.”

      “Your nationality?”

      “English of course. You don’t count a French grandmother, I suppose?”

      Robinette clapped her hands. “Of course I do; it accounts for this game; it just makes all the difference.–Why have you come to Stoke Revel; couldn’t you help it?”

      A twinkle passed from the blue eyes to the brown ones.

      “I am here on business connected with the estate.”

      “For how long?”

      “An hour ago I thought all might be completed in a few days, but these affairs are sometimes unaccountably prolonged!” (Was there another twinkle? Robinette could hardly say.) They were half-way across the river now. She leaned over and looked at herself in the water for a moment.

      Lavendar rested on his oars, and began to rub the palms of his hands, smiling a little to himself as he bent his head.

      “Yours is an odd Christian name,” he said. “I’ve never heard it before.”

      “Then you haven’t visited your National Gallery faithfully enough,” said Mrs. Loring. “Robinetta is one of the Sir Joshua pictures there, you know, and it was a great favourite of my mother’s in her girlhood. Indeed she saved up her pin-money for nearly two years that she might have a good copy of it made to hang in her bedroom where she could look at it night and morning.”

      “Then you were named after the picture?”

      “I was named from the memory of it,” said Robinette, trailing her hand through the clear water. “Mother took nothing to America with her but my father’s love (there was so much of that, it made up for all she left behind), so the picture was thousands of miles away when I was born. Mother told me that when I was first put into her arms she thought suddenly, as she saw my dark head, ‘Here is my own Robinetta, in place of the one I left behind,’ and fell asleep straight away, full of joy and content.”

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