The Spider and the Fly. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ the vicar, who had been vainly endeavoring to engage mild Mr. Dodson in a theological argument, turned, with very awkward interest.

      "Ah, Captain Murpoint, that was a most extraordinary mistake. I am curious to hear how it occurred. My old friend mourned for you very deeply – er – er – and caused a tablet to be set upon the left side of the church aisle to your memory."

      The captain smiled, then sighed.

      "It was a mistake, and an extraordinary one. The facts are very simple, though. My corporal, a worthy man, poor fellow, had, the evening before the skirmish, fallen into a water tank and spoiled his uniform, the only one he had brought with him. He came to my tent at sunset, dripping wet, and I, on the impulse of the moment, lent him one of my spare suits. Poor fellow, he promised to return it before the following morning, but Providence so willed it that the loan should become a gift. Before sunrise the Sepoys were upon us. I was wounded and taken prisoner, the poor corporal was killed and mangled to such an extent as to render his identification by features impossible. The clothes by which they imagined they could ascertain his personality, were, of course, mine, and so Captain Howard Murpoint was returned as dead and buried, and Corporal Mundy was cited as captured."

      Violet, who had been listening, with her dark eyes fixed upon the captain's face, drew a long breath.

      "And what became of you?" she asked, with that absent, abrupt way peculiar to her.

      The captain passed his hand down his thick, dark mustache, and looked at her.

      "I will tell you some day," he said, "as I threatened. Suffice it for the present that I was held captive for two years far away beyond the hills – ay, outside the pale of civilization. It was a miserable time; to look back upon it even now, in this comfortable room and with your interested face, my dear young lady, before me, gives me an unpleasant sensation. The Hindoos are the connecting link between the man and the monster!"

      And, with this figurative conclusion, the captain rose and walked to the bureau to turn over the leaves of the Battle of Prague, with which the vicar's wife was about to favor the company.

      Leicester Dodson dropped into the vacant seat, Violet drawing her skirts out of the way of his long legs.

      "And have you not played yet?" he asked.

      Violet woke from her absent fit and shook her head.

      "Not yet," she said. "I am not fond of my own music. You will play or sing, will you not?"

      "I can do neither," he said. "I have a voice that would shame a crow."

      Violet laughed her full, sweet, mirthful laugh.

      "I am so sorry, because now you will have to play whist. Look, the vicar is shuffling the cards and looking round for the victims already."

      "Shall I hide behind you?" said Leicester, in a low whisper.

      "Indeed, no; you shall do your duty!" And, catching the vicar's blinking eyes, she beckoned to him.

      "Here is Mr. Leicester for one corner. He doesn't sing or play!"

      Leicester looked fierce and nodded at his father.

      "You will have enough without me, I think," he said, and the vicar, more nervous than ever, but quite as anxious for his rubber, shuffled over to Mr. Dodson, who, with his benevolent, expressionless face well elevated, was beating time with his first finger to the "Battle."

      So the vicar seized upon him, Mrs. Dodson and Mr. Giles, and was soon in his play.

      "I've escaped, you see," said Leicester, with his grim smile.

      "Only out of one danger into another," said Violet, maliciously. "The 'Battle of Prague' will be fought out directly, and then you will have to go over the large scrapbook of Swiss views and tell Miss Tomson which of the places you have seen."

      "Thank you," said Leicester. "If that is a necessary part of the programme I am prepared to perform it without a change of audience. If you will allow me, Miss Mildmay, I'll go over the scrapbook with you."

      With two long strides, he seized the book and opened it.

      "I knew you would be very much bored," said Violet. "I told you so before you came."

      "And I assure you that you were wrong, which you are. I was never further from being bored in my life. That's a fine view. I climbed that on the coldest day in winter and had to have my fingers thawed in the shed at the top."

      "And you learned cliff climbing in Switzerland, of course?" said Violet, naïvely. "Do you know, you frightened me so this morning? I was afraid you would fall over and be killed?"

      Leicester's eyes – they were dark and deep and somewhat stern for so young a man – brightened.

      "Should you have been so sorry?" he asked.

      "Of course. How stupid a question!" laughed Violet, wickedly. "Cannot you surmise the consequences? I might have been accused of throwing you over, tried and condemned."

      "But the motive," said Leicester, entering into the jest. "What motive could they have found?"

      "Oh," said Violet, "people are always ready to find motives for other people; they would have said I resented your appearance as an interruption to a train of poetic thoughts; in fact, they would have been sure to find a motive."

      "That is a pretty plain hint that I am to avoid that favorite walk of yours for the future, and beware how I interrupt your cliff reveries."

      Violet flushed.

      "Indeed, no. It is not a favorite walk – at least, not particularly so – and I am sure you are welcome to come. What nonsense. It is as much yours as mine, and I seem to be making you a present of it," and she laughed.

      Then the "Battle of Prague" came to an end, and the captain led Mrs. Tonson to a seat with profuse compliments upon her style and touch.

      "Are you fond of music, Captain Murpoint?" asked Violet.

      "I adore it," said the captain, seating himself by her side, and looking, with a smile, at Leicester, who regarded him with his usual grim reserve. "Music is the language of women and angels. Are you not going to sing?"

      Violet shook her head at first.

      "Will you not?" said Leicester, earnestly, bending the regard of his dark eyes on her.

      Then she changed her mind, and, placing her hand upon the captain's arm, allowed him to take her to the piano.

      Leicester remained where he was, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, stretched out his long legs, and watched her beneath his dark, heavy eyebrows.

      He had seen beautiful women of all countries – Circassians with pearly skin and rosebud lips, Spanish señoras with almond eyes and passionate, low-strung voices, Italians with fire-lit laughter and lithe grace – but none whose beauty touched and warmed him as the pure, sweet, loveliness of this willful English rose did.

      Beautiful! The word was poor, tame, commonplace for such a face. Call it loveable, bewitching, which is far better than beautiful, and you were still far from a satisfactory adjective, Leicester thought; and as he sat and listened, his gaze alternating between the fair, young face and the dark, sinister one of the man by her side, he felt her heart slipping СКАЧАТЬ