Wild Margaret. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ and she smiled. "Then there are the schools and lectures – oh! it is a very pleasant life when one is so fond of art as I am."

      "And you don't feel lonely with no kith nor kin near you?"

      "No," she said. "Three of us girls lodge together a little way from the schools, and so it is not lonely, and the lady who looks after the house – and us, of course – is pleasant and lady-like. Oh, no, it is not lonely, but – " her eyes softened – "but I am glad to come down and see you, grandma – I can't tell you how glad!" and she stretched out her long, white, shapely hand – the artist's hand – so that the old lady could take it and fondle it.

      "Yes, my dear," she said. "And I can't tell you how glad I am to have you. It seems ages instead of five years since we parted in London and I came down here as housekeeper to the earl – ages! And the change will do you good; I think you want a little country air; you're looking a trifle pale, now that you have settled down a bit."

      "It's only the London color," said the girl, smiling. "Nobody carries many roses on his cheeks in London. What lovely ones those are on the table, grandma, and what cream! How the girls would stare if they saw and tasted it. You know we drink chalk and water in London, grandma!"

      "Bless my soul!" exclaimed the old lady.

      "They carry it round in cans and call it milk, but it is chalk and water all the same," she said, laughingly. "And now, dear, you must tell me all about yourself – why, we have done nothing but talk about foolish me since I came! Are you quite happy, grandma, and do you like being housekeeper to a grand earl?"

      "Very much, my dear," said the old lady, with a touch of dignity. "It is a most important and responsible post," and she stroked the smooth white hand she still held.

      "I should think so," said Margaret, with quick sympathy. "Keeping any kind of house must be a tremendous affair, but keeping such an enormous place as this – why, grandma, it is like a town, there seems no end to it!"

      The old lady nodded proudly.

      "Yes. Leyton Court is a very grand place, my dear," she assented. "I suppose it's one of the grandest, if not the grandest, in the country. You shall go over it some day when the earl is away."

      "The earl, yes," said Margaret. "It was very kind of him to let me come."

      Mrs. Hale tossed her head.

      "Oh, my dear, he knows nothing about it!" she said. "Bless me, the earl is too great a person to know anything about the goings on of such humble individuals as you and me. I am my own mistress in my own apartments, my dear, and am quite at liberty to have my own granddaughter stay with me."

      "Of course," said the girl quickly. "And is he nice? – the earl, I mean."

      "Nice!" repeated the old lady, as if there were something disrespectful in the word. "Well, 'nice' is scarcely the word – I've only seen him half a dozen times since I came, so I can't say what he's like; but he was very pleasant then – in his way, my dear."

      Margaret opened her eyes.

      "Not half-a-dozen times in five years? Then he doesn't live here always?"

      "Not always. He is in Spain or Ireland some parts of the year, but he lives at the Court during most of the summer. You see, my dear, great folks like the Earl of Ferrers keep to themselves more than humble people. The earl has his own apartments – you can see them from the drive; they run along the terrace – and his own particular servants. Excepting Mr. Stibbings, the butler, and Mr. Larkhall, his valet, and the footmen, none of us see anything of his lordship."

      "He is quite like a king, then?" said the girl musingly.

      "Quite," assented the old lady approvingly; "quite like a king, as you say; and everybody in Leyton Ferrers regards him as one. Why, the queen herself couldn't be more looked up to or feared!"

      The girl pondered over this. You don't meet many earls and dukes in the National Art Schools, and this one possessed an atmosphere of novelty for Margaret.

      "And does he live here all alone?" she asked.

      "All alone; yes."

      "In this great place? How lonely he must be!"

      "No, my dear," said the old lady. "Great people are never lonely; they are quite – quite different to us humble folks."

      Margaret smiled to herself at the naive assertion.

      "I thought he would have had some relations to live with him. Hasn't he any sons – children?"

      Mrs. Hale shook her head.

      "No, no children! There was a son, but he died. There is a nephew, Lord Blair Leyton, but he and the earl don't agree, and he has never been here, though, of course, he will come into the property when the earl dies, which won't be for many a long year, I hope."

      "Blair Leyton! and he's a lord too – "

      "A viscount," said the old lady. "I don't like to speak ill of a gentleman, especially one I don't know, but I am afraid his young lordship is – is" – she looked round for a word – "is a very wicked young man, my dear."

      "How do you know?" asked Margaret, nestling into the comfortable chair to listen at her ease.

      "Well, Mr. Stibbings has spoken of him. Mr. Stibbings – a perfect gentleman, my dear – is good enough to drop in and take a cup of tea sometimes, and he has told me about young Lord Blair! You see, he has been in the family a great many years, and knows all its history. He says that the earl and the young nephew never did get on together, and that the young man is, oh, very wild indeed, my dear! The earl and he have only met two or three times, and then they quarreled – quarreled dreadfully. I daresay the earl feels the loss of his son, and that makes it hard for him to get on with Lord Blair. But he is really a very wicked young man, I am sorry to say."

      "What does he do?" asked Margaret.

      The old lady looked rather puzzled how to describe a young man's wickedness to an innocent girl.

      "Well, my dear, it would be easier, perhaps, to say what he doesn't do!" she said at last.

      Margaret laughed softly.

      "Poor young man," she said gently. "It must be bad to be so wicked!"

      The old lady shook her head severely.

      "I don't know why you pity him, my dear," she said.

      "Oh, I don't know," said the girl, slowly. "Perhaps some people can't help being bad, you know, grandma! Oh, here are my things coming! now I can show you one of my pictures!" and she jumped up gleefully, and commenced unfastening the brown-paper parcel. "I did think of carrying it, but I am glad I didn't, for it was warm, and I met with an unpleasant adventure on the road, when the parcel might have been in the way. Oh, I didn't tell you, grandma! I saw such a terrible fight – a fight! think of it – as I came here."

      "A fight, my dear?" exclaimed the old lady.

      "Yes," nodded Margaret; "between two men; and what made it worse, one was a gentleman."

      "A gentleman, Margaret! Gentlemen don't fight, my dear."

      "So I thought," she said, naively; "but this one does anyway, and fights very well," she added. "At least, he knocked the other СКАЧАТЬ