Mehalah. Baring-Gould Sabine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and put her feet on the chair.

      "What has become of the money? I have been to the box and there are twenty pounds gone out of it, all in gold. Now I want to know what you have done with it. Where is the money? Fork it out, or I will turn all your pockets inside out, and find and retake it. You want no money, not you. I provide you with tobacco. Twenty pounds, and all in gold. I was like a shrimp in scalding water when I went to the box to-day and found the money gone. I turned that red you might have said it was erysipelas. I shruck out that they might have heard me at the City. Turn your pockets out at once."

      George was cowed by his mother.

      "I'll take the carving knife to you!" said the woman, "if you do not hand me over the cash at once."

      "Oh don't, pray don't hurt him!" cried Phoebe, interposing her arm, and beginning to cry.

      "Dear sackalive!" exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, "I am not aiming at his witals, but at his pockets. Where is the money?"

      "I have had it," said Mehalah, stepping forward and standing between De Witt and his mother. "George has behaved generously by us. You have heard how we were robbed of our money. We could not have paid our rent for the Ray had not George let us have twenty pounds. He shall not lose it."

      "You had it, you! � you!" cried Mrs. De Witt in wild and fierce astonishment. "Give it up to me at once."

      "I cannot do so. I paid the money to-day to Rebow, our landlord."

      "Elijah gets everything. My father left me without a shilling, and now he gets my hard-won earnings also."

      "It seems to me, mistress, that the earnings belong to George, and surely he has a right to do with them what he will," said Mehalah coldly.

      "That is your opinion, is it? It is not mine." Then she mused: "Twenty pounds is a fortune. One may do a great deal with such a sum as that. Mehalah; twenty pounds is twenty pounds whatever you may say; and it must be repaid. "

      "It shall be."

      "When?"

      "As soon as I can earn the money."

      Mrs. De Witt's eye now rested on Phoebe, and she assumed a milder manner. Her mood was variable as the colour of the sea. She said: "I have to maintain order in the wessel. You will stay and have something to eat?"

      "Thank you; your son has already promised us some oysters, � that is, promised me."

      "Come on deck," said George. "We have them there, and mother shall brew the liquor below."

      The mother grunted a surly acquiescence.

      When the three had re-ascended the ladder, the sun was setting. The mouth of the Blackwater glittered like gold leaf fluttered by the breath. The tide had begun to flow, and already the water had surrounded the Pandora. Phoebe and Mehalah would have to return by boat, or be carried by De Witt.

      The two girls stood side by side. The contrast between them was striking, and the young man noticed it. Mehalah was tall, lithe, and firm as a young pine, erect in her bearing, with every muscle well developed, firm of flesh, her skin a rich ripe apricot, and her eyes gloomy, but full of fire. Her hair, rich to profusion, was black, yet with coppery hues in it when seen with a side light. It was simply done up in a knot, neatly not elaborately. Her navy-blue jersey and skirt, the scarlet of her cap and kerchief, and of a petticoat that appeared below the skirt, made her a rich combination of colour, suitable to a sunny clime rather than to the misty bleak east coast. Phoebe was colourless beside her, a faded picture, faint in outline. Her complexion was delicate as the rose, her frame slender, her contour undulating and weak. She was the pattern of a trim English village maiden, with the beauty of youth, and the sweetness of ripening womanhood, sans sense, sans passion, sans character, sans everything � pretty vacuity. She seemed to feel her own inferiority beside the gorgeous Mehalah, and to be angry at it. She took off her bonnet, and the wind played with her yellow curls, and the setting sun spun them into a halo of gold about her delicate face. "Loose your hair, Mehalah," said the spiteful girl.

      "What for?"

      "I want to see how it will look in the sun."

      "Do so, Glory!" begged George. "How shining Phoebe's locks are. One might melt and coin them into guineas."

      Mehalah pulled out a pin, and let her hair fall, a flood of warm black with red gleams in it. It reached her waist, and the wind scattered it about her like a veil.

      "Black or gold, which do you most admire, George?" asked Phoebe.

      "That is not a fair question to put to me," said De Witt in reply; but he put his fingers through the dark tresses of Mehalah, and raised them to his lips. Phoebe bit her tongue.

      "George," she said sharply. "See the sun is in my hair. I am in glory. That is better than being so only in name."

      "But your glory is short-lived, Phoebe; the sun will be set in a minute, and then it is no more."

      "And hers," she said spitefully, "hers � you imply � endures eternally. I will go home."

      "Do not be angry, Phoebe; there cannot be thunder in such a golden cloud. There can be nothing worse than a rainbow."

      "What have you got there about your neck, George?" she asked, pacified by the compliment.

      "A riband."

      "Yes, and something, at the end of it � a locket containing a tuft of black horsehair.

      "No, there is not."

      "How happy we were at the Decoy, but then we were alone, and that makes all the difference."

      George did not answer. Mehalah's hot blood began to fire her cheek.

      "Tell me what you have got attached to that riband; if you love me, tell me, George. We girls are always inquisitive."

      "A keepsake, Phoebe."

      "A keepsake! Then I must see it." She snatched at the riband where it showed above De Witt's blue jersey.

      "I noticed it before, when you were so attentive at the Decoy."

      Mehalah interposed her arm, and placing her open hand on George's breast, thrust him out of the reach of the insolent flirt.

      "How dare you behave thus!" she exclaimed.

      "Oh dear!" cried Phoebe, "I see it all. Your keepsake. How sentimental! Oh, George! I shall die of laughing."

      She went into pretended convulsions of merriment. "I cannot help it this is really too ridiculous."

      Mehalah was trembling with anger. Her gipsy blood was in flame.

      Phoebe stepped up to her, and holding her delicate fingers beside the strong hand of Mehalah, whispered, "Look at these little fingers. They will pluck your love out of your rude clutch." She saw that she was stinging her rival past endurance. She went on aloud, casting a saucy side glance at De Witt, "I should like to add my contribution to the trifle that is collecting for you since you lost your money. I suppose there is a brief. Off with the red cap and pass it round. Here is a crown."

      Mehalah's passion overpowered СКАЧАТЬ