The Tale of Triona. William John Locke

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СКАЧАТЬ prince. If such a speculation was that of a hussy, why then, she argued, all women are hussies from birth. As for being a fool for defying advice on the proper investment of her money—well, perhaps she was not quite such a fool as Mr. Trivett imagined. If she did not spend her capital, it would be just as safe lying on deposit at the bank as invested in stocks and shares; safer, for she had lately had wearisome experience of the depreciation of securities. She would not be senselessly extravagant; in fact, with the sanguineness of youth she hoped to be able to live on the interest on her deposit and the rent of the furnished house. But behind her, definite, tangible, uninfluenced by Stock Exchange fluctuations, would be her fortune. And then—a contingency which she did not put before Mr. Trivett and Mr. Fenmarch, for a woman seldom discloses her main argument to a male adversary—there might come a glorious moment in some now unconjecturable adventure when it might be essential for her to draw cheques for dazzling sums which she could put in her pocket and go over mysterious hills and far away. She stood on the edge of her dull tableland and gazed wide-eyed at the rolling Land of Romance veiled by gold and purple mist. And in that Land, from immemorial time, people carried their money in bags, into which they dipped their hands, as occasion required, and cast the unmeaning counters at the feet of poverty or into the lap of greed.

      When she sat down to her solitary supper, she had decided that she was neither hussy nor fool. She held baffling discourse with Myra, who could not be enticed into enthusiasm over the immediate future. Teasing Myra had been her joy from infancy. She sketched their career—that of female Don Quixote and Sancho Panza—that of knights of old in quest of glorious adventure. She quoted, mock heroically:

      “The ride abroad redressing human wrong.”

      “Better redress the young London women which I see the pictures of in the illustrated papers,” said Myra.

      Olivia laughed. “You are a dear old blessing, you know.”

      “I’m sure of it,” said Myra, with an expressionless face. “Anyways, you’re not going to buy one of them things when you get to London.”

      “I am,” replied Olivia. “And you’ll have to help me put it on.”

      “You can’t help folks put on nothing,” said Myra.

      “What do you think you’ll do when you’re really shocked?” asked Olivia.

      “I never think what I’ll do,” replied Myra. “It’s waste of time.”

      Olivia enjoyed her supper.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      IT was only when she waited the next morning for her possible tenant, the Major Olifant of whom Mr. Trivett had spoken, and went through the familiar rooms to see that they were fit for alien inspection, that she realized the sacrilege which she was about to commit. Every room was sacred, inhabited by some beloved ghost. The very furniture bore landmarks of the wear and tear of those that were dead. To say nothing of the beds on which they had slept, the chairs in which they had sat, which still seemed to retain the impress of their forms, there persisted a hundred exquisitely memorable trivialities. The arm of the oak settle in the hall still showed the ravages of the teeth of Barabbas, the mongrel bull-terrier pup introduced, fifteen years ago, into the house, by Charles her elder brother; an animal who, from being cursed by the whole family for a pestilential cur, wriggled his way, thanks to his adoration of Charles, into the hearts of them all, and died from old age and perhaps doggy anxiety a few months after Charles had sailed for France. In her father’s study, a small room heterogeneously adorned with hunting crops and car accessories and stuffed trout and a large scale map of Medlow and neighbourhood and suggestive in no way of a studious habit, the surface of the knee-hole writing table and the mahogany mantelpiece were scored with fluted little burns from cigarette-ends, he having been a careless smoker. There was a legend that the family cradle, for many years mouldering in an outhouse, bore the same stigmata. The very bathroom was not free of intimate history. In the midst of the blue and red stained panes on the lower sash stared one of plain ground glass—the record of her brother Bobby aged twelve, who, vowing vengeance against an unsympathetic visiting aunt (soon afterwards deceased), had the brilliant idea of catapulting her through the closed window while she was having her bath. And there was her mother’s room. …

      She could not let all this pass into vulgar hands. The vague plan of letting the house furnished, which had hitherto not been unattractive, now became monstrously definite. She hated the sacrilegious and intrusive Major Olifant. He would bring down a dowdy wife and a cartload of children to the profanation of these her household gods. She went in search of Myra and found her dusting her own prim little bedroom.

      “I’m going out. When Major Olifant calls, tell him I’ve changed my mind and the house is not to let.”

      Then she put on hat and coat and went downstairs to take the air of the sleepy midday High Street. But as she opened the front door she ran into a man getting out of a two-seater car driven by a chauffeur. He raised his hat.

      “I beg your pardon,” said he, “but is this ‘The Towers’?”

      “It is,” she replied. “I suppose you’ve—you’ve come with an order to view from Messrs. Trivett and Gale.”

      “Quite so,” said he pleasantly. “I have an appointment with Miss Gale.”

      “I’m Miss Gale,” said Olivia.

      She noticed an involuntary twitch of surprise, at once suppressed, pass over his face.

      “And my name’s Olifant. Major Olifant.”

      She had pictured quite a different would-be intruder, a red-faced, obese, and pushing fellow. Instead, she saw a well-bred, spare man of medium height wearing a stained service Burberry the empty left sleeve of which was pinned in front; a man in his middle thirties, with crisp light brown hair, long, broad forehead characterized by curious bumps over the brows, a very long, straight nose and attractive dark blue eyes which keenly and smilingly held hers without touch of offence.

      “I’ve decided not to let the house,” said Olivia.

      The smile vanished from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” said he stiffly. “I was given to understand——”

      “Yes, I know,” she said quickly. Her conscience getting hold of the missing arm smote her. “Where have you come from?”

      “Oxford.”

      She gasped. “Why, that’s a hundred miles!”

      “Ninety-four.”

      “But you must be perishing with cold,” she cried. “Do come in and get warm, at any rate. Perhaps I can explain. And your man, too.” She pointed. “Round that way you’ll find a garage. I’ll send the maid. Please come in, Major Olifant. Oh—but you must!”

      She entered the house, leaving him no option but to follow. To divest himself of his Burberry he made curious writhing movements with his shoulders, and swerved aside politely when she offered assistance.

      “Please don’t worry. I’m all right. I’ve all kinds of little stunts of my own invention.”

      And, as he said it, he got clear and threw the mackintosh on the oak СКАЧАТЬ