The Spider and the Fly. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ ever restless and sportful, like herself; turning landward there jutted far a fair stretch of well-wooded scenery, with Mildmay House in the foreground, and the sparkling Tivor, where it ran in a semicircle toward the sea as a belt to inclose the whole.

      On a part of this there stood another house, larger even and more pretentious than Mildmay's. This was the Cedars, a modern residence of yellow brick and stucco erected at enormous cost by a certain Jabez Dodson, who had amassed a large fortune by the melting and manufacturing of tallow.

      The Cedars and its inhabitants were the objects of Mrs. Mildmay's supreme detestation. Loving good birth and high breeding as she did, it was only natural that tallow should be detestable to her, and that the large and altogether hideous house which the retired tradesman had erected should be a perpetual eyesore to her.

      Often, as the sunset lit up the yellow edifice, bringing out all its ugly points with unmerciful distinctness, the good old lady had spoken from her heart, and, with a sigh that shook the bugles in her cap, she had regretted that Providence had not been kind or considerate enough to allure Mr. Dodson's fancy to a more distant spot.

      "That house spoils the view and gives me the horrors, my dear," she would often say, but never meeting with any further sympathy from Violet than expressed by a laugh.

      "It is ugly, I'll admit," she would remark, "but you need not look at it so often."

      "I can't help it, my dear," the old lady would avow, "I am fascinated by it. I am so glad that the dreadful man did not build his monstrosity during your poor father's lifetime. It would have been a cruel blow to him. I can't think why he didn't secure all the land around. Then you would have been safe from such a visitation. Fancy a tallow chandler or melter, or whatever he calls himself, setting up a habitation within a stone's throw of your drawing-room window."

      Violet would laugh again, with pleasant enjoyment of her aunt's pet aversion.

      "It doesn't very much matter, that I can see, aunt, after all," she had once urged. "Of course, it would be better without the Cedars, but, to give Mr. Dodson his due, the family have never annoyed us. I have never seen them, even. I scarcely know how many there are of them; do you?"

      Mrs. Mildmay shook her head in the negative, but a nod in the affirmative showed she was doubtful.

      "I think there are only the father, mother, and one son. But I have never seen them, at least, I think not."

      "Nor I," said Violet. "So, you see, they are not such dreadful characters, after all. Poor people, I dare say, they are as constantly deploring the nearness of the Park, and declaring that we spoil their view – which we certainly do."

      "How absurd!" said Mrs. Mildmay. "Violet, I really believe you do not dislike them half so much as one would expect."

      "Wicked as I am, I can't hate people I have never seen," Violet here laughingly replied.

      And in like manner she always turned her aunt's disparagement of the Cedars aside, and contrived to say a word for the obnoxious individuals whom she had never seen.

      This morning as she stood on the edge of the cliff, looking first out to sea and then at the sweet landscape, a smile rested for a moment upon her face, and her lips murmured:

      "Poor auntie, if she could see the Cedars now! It looks as if the tallow which built it had caught fire. It makes me hotter than ever to look at it!"

      And, with a little flutter of her dainty handkerchief, she seated herself upon the dried-up grass and turned her eyes seaward again.

      As she sat thus she formed a picture beautiful enough to gladden the eyes of a Veronese in her glorious youth and loveliness, standing out in its cloud of airy muslin against the vividness of the summer sky.

      Perhaps an individual slowly climbing the steep path behind her was of the same opinion, for he stopped in his laborious ascent, and, baring his well-shaped head to the slight breeze, stood, lost in an admiring reverie.

      How long he would have indulged in his admiring observations it would be difficult to say, but his reverie was suddenly disturbed and his fixed regard turned aside in some confusion by the movement of Violet's head.

      She had been watching a seagull, and following the bird's progress with her eyes, and had suddenly become aware of the proximity of the stranger and of the fixed and admiring regard of his two dark eyes.

      Almost too suddenly, for, with something that nearly approached a start, she half rose.

      Regretting the movement before it was complete, she reseated herself, and in so doing loosened her hold of the sunshade, which, with the perversity of such things, instantly took advantage of its freedom to sail over the cliff.

      Violet sprang to her feet, and thoughtlessly was about to peer over the precipice in search of it, but before she had reached the extreme edge she felt a strong hand upon her arm, and, turning with some astonishment, found herself face to face with the observant stranger.

      For a moment they regarded each other in silence. It is worthy of notice how much and how acutely the eye can comprehend in so short a time.

      Violet saw a handsome face, tanned and mustached, a tall, lithe figure, to whose strength the grasp upon her arm bore witness, a pair of earnest, fearless eyes, and a mouth which might have been grave but for the smile which made it remarkably pleasant.

      "Pray, forgive me!" said the gentleman, removing his hat with his disengaged hand. "But have you fully considered the danger which attends a downward glance from this height?"

      The tone was respectful, almost reverently so, but there was a dignity and a nameless music in it also that carried it even further in one's liking.

      Violet blushed like a schoolgirl, as she would have expressed it and, without a word, stepped back from the danger which she certainly had not considered, and which, by the light of the gentleman's question, was now fully revealed.

      "I thank you very much," she said, as his strong hand dropped from her arm, and the stranger's face allowed itself to relax into a smile. "It was foolish and thoughtless, I," and she shuddered, "I might have fallen over. People have been known to, have they not?"

      "Yes, a great many," he replied. "The strongest brain might be excused a sudden dizziness on the edge of such a precipice as this."

      "Of course," assented Violet, laughing, but very quietly. "I am so much obliged; I thought only of my stupid sunshade."

      "Ah!" he said, quietly, "I had forgotten that. Perhaps it has lodged on one of the jutting bushes; if it has, I may recover it for you," and he approached the edge.

      Violet, who had not quite recovered from the shock which the sudden sense of her peril had produced, uttered a slight cry of warning and rebuke.

      "Oh, please do not look over! It is of no consequence, not the slightest in the world."

      The gentleman looked back at her alarmed face, then up at the blazing sun, and smiled significantly.

      "It is of great consequence," he said, and before Violet could say another word to prevent him, he had gained the edge and was upon his knees, looking over.

      "I can see it," he said, "and I think I can get it. The danger was not so great, after all; there are one or two ledges here which will bear a man's weight, I should think, and below them is your sunshade."

      While he was speaking, he was cautiously, but fearlessly, СКАЧАТЬ