Desperate Remedies, The Hand of Ethelberta & A Laodicean: Complete Illustrated Trilogy. Томас Харди

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ paused, and looked around. A man who had seen her from the window of the workshops behind, came out and respectfully lifted his hat to her. It was the first time she had been seen walking outside the house since her father’s death.

      ‘Strooden, could the Old House be made a decent residence of, without much trouble?’ she inquired.

      The mechanic considered, and spoke as each consideration completed itself.

      ‘You don’t forget, ma’am, that two-thirds of the place is already pulled down, or gone to ruin?’

      ‘Yes; I know.’

      ‘And that what’s left may almost as well be, ma’am.’

      ‘Why may it?’

      ”Twas so cut up inside when they made it into cottages, that the whole carcase is full of cracks.’

      ‘Still by pulling down the inserted partitions, and adding a little outside, it could be made to answer the purpose of an ordinary six or eight-roomed house?’

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’

      ‘About what would it cost?’ was the question which had invariably come next in every communication of this kind to which the superintending workman had been a party during his whole experience. To his surprise, Miss Aldclyffe did not put it. The man thought her object in altering an old house must have been an unusually absorbing one not to prompt what was so instinctive in owners as hardly to require any prompting at all.

      ‘Thank you: that’s sufficient, Strooden,’ she said. ‘You will understand that it is not unlikely some alteration may be made here in a short time, with reference to the management of the affairs.’

      Strooden said ‘Yes,’ in a complex voice, and looked uneasy.

      ‘During the life of Captain Aldclyffe, with you as the foreman of works, and he himself as his own steward, everything worked well. But now it may be necessary to have a steward, whose management will encroach further upon things which have hitherto been left in your hands than did your late master’s. What I mean is, that he will directly and in detail superintend all.’

      ‘Then — I shall not be wanted, ma’am?’ he faltered.

      ‘O yes; if you like to stay on as foreman in the yard and workshops only. I should be sorry to lose you. However, you had better consider. I will send for you in a few days.’

      Leaving him to suspense, and all the ills that came in its train — distracted application to his duties, and an undefined number of sleepless nights and untasted dinners, Miss Aldclyffe looked at her watch and returned to the House. She was about to keep an appointment with her solicitor, Mr. Nyttleton, who had been to Budmouth, and was coming to Knapwater on his way back to London.

      2. August the Twentieth

      On the Saturday subsequent to Mr. Nyttleton’s visit to Knapwater House, the subjoined advertisement appeared in the Field and the Builder newspapers:—

      ‘LAND STEWARD.

      ‘A gentleman of integrity and professional skill is required immediately for the MANAGEMENT of an ESTATE, containing about 1000 acres, upon which agricultural improvements and the erection of buildings are contemplated. He must be a man of superior education, unmarried, and not more than thirty years of age. Considerable preference will be shown for one who possesses an artistic as well as a practical knowledge of planning and laying out. The remuneration will consist of a salary of 220 pounds, with the old manor-house as a residence — Address Messrs. Nyttleton and Tayling, solicitors, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’

      A copy of each paper was sent to Miss Aldclyffe on the day of publication. The same evening she told Cytherea that she was advertising for a steward, who would live at the old manor-house, showing her the papers containing the announcement.

      What was the drift of that remark? thought the maiden; or was it merely made to her in confidential intercourse, as other arrangements were told her daily. Yet it seemed to have more meaning than common. She remembered the conversation about architects and surveyors, and her brother Owen. Miss Aldclyffe knew that his situation was precarious, that he was well educated and practical, and was applying himself heart and soul to the details of the profession and all connected with it. Miss Aldclyffe might be ready to take him if he could compete successfully with others who would reply. She hazarded a question:

      ‘Would it be desirable for Owen to answer it?’

      ‘Not at all,’ said Miss Aldclyffe peremptorily.

      A flat answer of this kind had ceased to alarm Cytherea. Miss Aldclyffe’s blunt mood was not her worst. Cytherea thought of another man, whose name, in spite of resolves, tears, renunciations and injured pride, lingered in her ears like an old familiar strain. That man was qualified for a stewardship under a king.

      ‘Would it be of any use if Edward Springrove were to answer it?’ she said, resolutely enunciating the name.

      ‘None whatever,’ replied Miss Aldclyffe, again in the same decided tone.

      ‘You are very unkind to speak in that way.’

      ‘Now don’t pout like a goosie, as you are. I don’t want men like either of them, for, of course, I must look to the good of the estate rather than to that of any individual. The man I want must have been more specially educated. I have told you that we are going to London next week; it is mostly on this account.’

      Cytherea found that she had mistaken the drift of Miss Aldclyffe’s peculiar explicitness on the subject of advertising, and wrote to tell her brother that if he saw the notice it would be useless to reply.

      3. August the Twenty-fifth

      Five days after the above-mentioned dialogue took place they went to London, and, with scarcely a minute’s pause, to the solicitors’ offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

      They alighted opposite one of the characteristic entrances about the place — a gate which was never, and could never be, closed, flanked by lamp-standards carrying no lamp. Rust was the only active agent to be seen there at this time of the day and year. The palings along the front were rusted away at their base to the thinness of wires, and the successive coats of paint, with which they were overlaid in bygone days, had been completely undermined by the same insidious canker, which lifted off the paint in flakes, leaving the raw surface of the iron on palings, standards, and gate hinges, of a staring blood-red.

      But once inside the railings the picture changed. The court and offices were a complete contrast to the grand ruin of the outwork which enclosed them. Well-painted respectability extended over, within, and around the doorstep; and in the carefully swept yard not a particle of dust was visible.

      Mr. Nyttleton, who had just come up from Margate, where he was staying with his family, was standing at the top of his own staircase as the pair ascended. He politely took them inside.

      ‘Is there a comfortable room in which this young lady can sit during our interview?’ said Miss Aldclyffe.

      It was rather a favourite habit of hers to make much of Cytherea when they were out, and snub her for it afterwards СКАЧАТЬ