Wild Margaret. Garvice Charles

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ – as if he had been shot."

      "Bless my heart! where was this?"

      "Oh, just in the village here. The man – he was an ill-tempered fellow, I'm sure, with such a dreadful face – kicked a poor dog, and the gentleman, who was near, fought him for it."

      "Good gracious me! And, of course, you ran away?"

      The girl laughed rather strangely.

      "No, I didn't, grandma. I ought to have done so, I meant to do so, but – well, I didn't. I wish I had, for the creature had the impudence to speak to me!"

      "What – the man?" aghast.

      "The gentleman. He came across the road and begged my pardon. I'd got the poor dog in my arms, you see, and I suppose – well I don't know why he spoke, but perhaps it was because, being a gentleman, he felt ashamed of himself. If he didn't at first, I think he did when he went away," she added, with a laugh and a blush, as she remembered the words that had flown like darts of fire from her lips. "Oh, it was shameful! His face was cut, and there was blood" – she shuddered – "on his collar! He was a very handsome young man, too. I wonder who he was. Did I tell you he came down by the same train as I did?"

      Mrs. Hale shook her head.

      "No one I know, my dear," she said. "None of the gentry hereabouts would fight with any one, least of all a common man. A tall man, with an ugly face – "

      "Oh, very ugly and evil-looking – I think they called him Pyke."

      "Pyke – Jem Pyke!" said Mrs. Hale. "Oh, I know him; a dreadful bad character, my dear. I'm not surprised at his kicking a dog, or fighting either. He's one of our worst men – a poacher and a thief, so they say. I wonder he didn't get the best of it!"

      "He got the very possible worst of it," said Margaret, with an unconscious tone of satisfaction. "There's the picture, grandma! And where will you hang it?"

      It was a clever little picture; a bit of a London street, faithfully and carefully painted, and instinct with grace and feeling.

      The old lady of course did not see all the good points, but she was none the less proud and delighted, and stood regarding it with admiring awe that rendered her speechless.

      "You dear, clever girl," she said, kissing her, "and it is for me, really for me? Oh, Margaret, if your poor father – "

      Margaret sighed.

      "Get me a hammer and a nail, grandma," she said, after a moment, "and I'll put it in a good light; the light is everything, you know."

      A hammer and nail were brought, and the picture hung, and the two went out into the garden, and presently the girl was singing like a nightingale from her over-brimming heart. But suddenly she stopped and looked in at the window of the room where the old lady had returned to see the unpacking and uncreasing of the clothes which had traveled in the unpretending Gladstone bag.

      "Oh, grandma, I beg your pardon! I forgot! Perhaps the earl won't like my singing?"

      Mrs. Hale laughed.

      "The earl! My dear, he is right at the other end of the building and could scarcely hear a brass band from here! But come in now, Margaret, and have some supper. You must go to bed early after your long journey, or you won't sow the seed for those roses I want to see in your cheeks!"

      When she woke in the morning with the scent of the honeysuckle wafting across her face, Margaret could almost have persuaded herself that Leyton Court was a vision of a dream, and that she should find herself presently on her way to the art school at Kensington amidst all the London noise and smoke. To most Londoners the country in June is a dream of Paradise; what must it have been to this young girl, with the soul of an artist, with every nerve throbbing in sympathy with the sky, the flowers, the songs of the birds?

      Like a vision herself, her plainly made morning dress of a soft, dove color and fitting her slim young shape with the grace of a well-made garment that can afford to be plain, she ran down the oak stairs into the parlor. But Mrs. Hale was not there, and Mary, who glanced with shy admiration at the lovely face and pretty dress, said that she had gone to see the butler.

      "You will find her in the pantry, miss, if you like. It is at the end of this passage, to the right. You can't miss it, miss."

      But Margaret did miss it, for her idea of a pantry was a small place in the nature of a cupboard, whereas the pantry at the Court was a large and spacious room, and Margaret, seeing nothing to answer to her idea, opened a door, entered, found herself before another door, opened that, discovered that she was in a round kind of a lobby surrounded, like Blue Beard's chamber, with other doors, and all at once learned that she had lost herself.

      It was a ridiculous position to be placed in, and an annoying one, for she felt that her grandmother would be vexed by Margaret's venturing out of their own apartments.

      But she did not know what to do; it was impossible, having turned round in the circular lobby and lost count of the door, to regain it again, and in a semi-comic despair, she opened the door opposite her, intending to walk on until she met a servant of whom she could ask her way back to Mrs. Hale's wing.

      She found herself presently and quite suddenly in a short corridor, at the end of which a stream of varicolored light poured from a stained window; there was the reflection also of gilt carving and velvet hangings, and rather awed, Margaret was for turning back, when she saw a footman pass with noiseless footsteps across the thick Oriental carpet at the end of the corridor.

      She called to him, and hurried after him, but before she could reach him he had disappeared as if by magic, evidently without hearing her suppressed voice, and she found herself standing at the entrance to a magnificent picture gallery, which seemed to run an interminable length and lose itself in a distant vista of ferns and statuary.

      Margaret literally held her breath as she peered in through the velvet curtains.

      There, line upon line, hung what was no doubt one of the collections of the kingdom – and she within the threshold of it.

      Her mouth, metaphorically, began to water; her large dark eyes grew humid with wistfulness.

      What cream is to a cat, water to a duck, pate de foie gras to a gourmet, an Elziver to a bookworm, that is a picture gallery to an artist.

      She could resist the temptation no longer. The place was crowned, as it were, with silence and solitude: no one would see her or know that she had been there, and she would only stay five – ten minutes.

      Eve could not resist temptation – being doubtless fond of apples; Margaret could not resist, being fond of pictures. And yet, if she had known what was to follow upon this visit to Leyton Court, if there had only been some kind guardian angel to whisper:

      "Fly, Margaret, my child! Fly this spot, where peril and destruction await thee!"

      But, alas! our guardian angels always seem to be taking bank holiday just on the days when we most need them, and Margaret's angel was silent as the tomb.

      Pushing the heavily-bullioned curtain aside she entered the gallery, and an exclamation of surprise and delight broke from her lips.

      It was a priceless collection: Rubens, Vandyke, Titians, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Cuyp, Jan Steen; all the masters were here, and at their best.

      The soul of the girl went into her eyes, her face grew pale, and her СКАЧАТЬ