Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood
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Название: Court Netherleigh

Автор: Mrs. Henry Wood

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 4064066230951

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СКАЧАТЬ He thought Robert had no business to be "led away," and he felt little tolerance for him. Reuben had told all he knew, and Oscar wished him good-night and departed, full of painful thought touching Robert.

      The night passed. In the morning Oscar went to South Audley Street to breakfast. Robert was looking ill and anxious.

      "Been making a night of it?" said Oscar, lightly. "You look as though you had."

      "Yes, I was late. Pour out the coffee, will you, Oscar?"

      His own hands were shaking. Oscar saw it as Robert opened his letters. One of them bore the Netherleigh postmark, and was from Farmer Lee. Oscar hardly knew how to open the ball, or what to say for the best.

      "I'm sure something is disturbing you, Robert. You have had no sleep; that's easy to be seen. What pursuit can you have that it should keep you up all night!"

      "One is never at a loss to kill time in London."

      "I suppose not, if it has to be killed. But I did not know it was necessary to kill that which ought to be spent in sleep. One would think you passed your nights at the gaming-table, Robert."

      The words startled him, and a flush rose to his pallid features. Oscar was gazing at him steadily.

      "Robert, you look conscious. Have you learnt to gamble?"

      "Oh, it's nothing," said Robert, confusedly. "I may play a little now and then."

      "Do not shirk the question. Have you taken to play?"

      "A little, I tell you. Never mind. It's my own affair."

      "You were playing last night?"

      "Well—yes, I was. Very little."

      "Lose or win?" asked Oscar, carelessly.

      "Oh, I lost," answered Robert. "The luck was against me."

      "Now, my good fellow, do you know what you had best do? Go home to Moat Grange, and get out of this set; I know what gamesters are; they never let a pigeon off till he is stripped of his last feather. Leave with me for the Grange today, and cheat them; and stop there until the mania for play shall have left you, though it should be years to come."

      Ah, how heartily Robert Dalrymple wished in his heart that he could do it!—that he could break through the net in which he was involved, in more ways than one! "I cannot go to Moat Grange," he answered.

      "Your reasons."

      "Because I must stay where I am. I wish I had never come—never set up these chambers; I do wish that. But, as I did so, here I am fixed."

      "I cannot think why you did come—flying from your home as soon as your father was under ground. Had you succeeded to twenty thousand a-year, you could but have made hot haste to launch out in the metropolis."

      "I did not come to launch out," returned Robert, angrily. "I came to get rid of myself. It was so wretched down there."

      Oscar stared. "What made it so?"

      "The remembrance of my father. Every face I met, every stick and stone about the place seemed to reproach me with his death. And justly. But for my carelessness he would not have died."

      "Well, that is all past and gone, Robert. You shall come back to the Grange with me. You will be safe there."

      "No. It is too late."

      "It is not too late. What do you mean? If——"

      "I tell you it is too late," burst out Robert, in a sharp tone: and Oscar thought it was full of anguish.

      He tried persuasion, he tried anger; and no impression whatever could he make on Robert Dalrymple. He thought Robert was wilfully, wickedly obstinate; the secret truth being that Robert was ruined. Oscar told him he "washed his hands" of him, and departed.

      It chanced that same afternoon that Robert was passing through Grosvenor Square and met Mr. Grubb close to his house. Looking at him casually, reader, he has not changed; he has the same noble presence, the same gracious manner; nevertheless, the fifteen or sixteen months that have elapsed since his marriage, have brought a look of care to his refined and thoughtful face, a line of pain to his brow. They shook hands.

      "Will you come in, Robert?"

      "I don't mind if I do," was the answer—for in good truth Robert Dalrymple was too wretched not to seize on anything that might serve to divert him from his own thoughts. But Mr. Grubb paused in sudden remembrance.

      "Mary is here today. Have you any objection to meet her?"

      "Objection! I shall like it," answered Robert, with a flush of emotion, for Mary Lynn was still inexpressibly dear to him. "I wish with my whole heart that she was my wife—that we had never parted! It was all my foolish doing."

      "I thought at the time you were rather chivalrous: I must say that," observed Mr. Grubb, regarding him attentively. "I suppose, in point of fact, you are both waiting for one another now."

      "Why do you say that?" asked the young man, in evident agitation.

      "Step in here, Robert," said Mr. Grubb, drawing him through the hall to his own room, the library. "Mary persistently refuses to accept good offers: she has had two during the past year; therefore, I conclude that she and you have some private understanding upon the point. I told her so one day, and all the answer I received consisted of a laugh and a blush."

      It could have been nothing to the blush that rose to Robert's face now; brow, ears, neck, all were dyed blood-red. The terrible consciousness of how untrue this was, how untrue it was obliged to be, was smiting him with reproachful sting. Mr. Grubb mistook the signs.

      "I think," he said, "that former parting was a mistake. It was perfectly right and just that Mrs. Dalrymple should have been well provided for, but——"

      "You think I should have taken Moat Grange myself, and procured another home for my mother," interrupted Robert. "Most people do think so. But, if you knew how I hated the sight of the Grange!—never a single room of it but my poor dead father's face seemed to rise up to confront me."

      "It might have been best that you should remain in your own home; we will not discuss it now. What I want to say is this—that if you and Mary have been really living upon hope, I don't see why you need live upon it any longer. A portion of your own revenues you may surely claim, a few hundreds yearly; and Mary shall bring as much grist to the mill on her side."

      "You are very kind, very thoughtful," murmured Robert.

      "But there must be a proviso to that," continued Mr. Grubb. "Reports have reached me that Robert Dalrymple is going headlong to the bad—pardon me if I speak out the whispers freely—that he is becoming reckless, a gamester, I know not what all. I do not believe this, Robert; I do not wish to believe it. I have seen nothing to confirm it, myself; you are in one set of London men, I am in another. In a young man situated as you are, alone, without home-ties, some latitude of conduct may be pardoned if he be a good man and true, he will soon pull himself straight again. If you can assure me on your honour it is nothing more than this, well and good. If it be more—if the worst of the whispers but indicate the truth, you cannot СКАЧАТЬ