East Lynne. Henry Wood

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it in readiness so that when seven strikes there may be no delay.”

      “Goodness, mamma! You know they do always have it ready. And there’s no such hurry, for papa may not be at home.” But she rose, and rang the bell with a petulant motion, and when the man answered it, told him to have tea in to its time.

      “If you knew dear, how dry my throat is, how parched my mouth, you would have more patience with me.”

      Barbara closed her book with a listless air, and turned listlessly to the window. She seemed tired, not with fatigue but with what the French express by the word ennui. “Here comes papa,” she presently said.

      “Oh, I am so glad!” cried poor Mrs. Hare. “Perhaps he will not mind having the tea in at once, if I told him how thirsty I am.”

      The justice came in. A middle sized man, with pompous features, and a pompous walk, and a flaxen wig. In his aquiline nose, compressed lips, and pointed chin, might be traced a resemblance to his daughter; though he never could have been half so good-looking as was pretty Barbara.

      “Richard,” spoke up Mrs. Hare from between her shawls, the instant he opened the door.

      “Well?”

      “Would you please let me have tea in now? Would you very much mind taking it a little earlier this evening? I am feverish again, and my tongue is so parched I don’t know how to speak.”

      “Oh, it’s near seven; you won’t have long to wait.”

      With this exceedingly gracious answer to an invalid’s request, Mr. Hare quitted the room again and banged the door. He had not spoken unkindly or roughly, simply with indifference. But ere Mrs. Hare’s meek sigh of disappointment was over, the door re-opened, and the flaxen wig was thrust in again.

      “I don’t mind if I do have it now. It will be a fine moonlight night and I am going with Pinner as far as Beauchamp’s to smoke a pipe. Order it in, Barbara.”

      The tea was made and partaken of, and the justice departed for Mr. Beauchamp’s, Squire Pinner calling for him at the gate. Mr. Beauchamp was a gentleman who farmed a great deal of land, and who was also Lord Mount Severn’s agent or steward for East Lynne. He lived higher up the road some little distance beyond East Lynne.

      “I am so cold, Barbara,” shivered Mrs. Hare, as she watched the justice down the gravel path. “I wonder if your papa would say it was foolish of me, if I told them to light a bit of fire?”

      “Have it lighted if you like,” responded Barbara, ringing the bell. “Papa will know nothing about it, one way or the other, for he won’t be home till after bedtime. Jasper, mamma is cold, and would like a fire lighted.”

      “Plenty of sticks, Jasper, that it may burn up quickly,” said Mrs. Hare, in a pleading voice, as if the sticks were Jasper’s and not hers.

      Mrs. Hare got her fire, and she drew her chair in front, and put her feet on the fender, to catch its warmth. Barbara, listless still, went into the hall, took a woolen shawl from the stand there, threw it over her shoulders, and went out. She strolled down the straight formal path, and stood at the iron gate, looking over it into the public road. Not very public in that spot, and at that hour, but as lonely as one could wish. The night was calm and pleasant, though somewhat chilly for the beginning of May, and the moon was getting high in the sky.

      “When will he come home?” she murmured, as she leaned her head upon the gate. “Oh, what would life be like without him? How miserable these few days have been! I wonder what took him there! I wonder what is detaining him! Corny said he was only gone for a day.”

      The faint echo of footsteps in the distance stole upon her ear, and Barbara drew a little back, and hid herself under the shelter of the trees, not choosing to be seen by any stray passer-by. But, as they drew near, a sudden change came over her; her eyes lighted up, her cheeks were dyed with crimson, and her veins tingled with excess of rapture—for she knew those footsteps, and loved them, only too well.

      Cautiously peeping over the gate again, she looked down the road. A tall form, whose very height and strength bore a grace of which its owner was unconscious, was advancing rapidly toward her from the direction of West Lynne. Again she shrank away; true love is ever timid; and whatever may have been Barbara Hare’s other qualities, her love at least was true and deep. But instead of the gate opening, with the firm quick motion peculiar to the hand which guided it, the footsteps seemed to pass, and not to have turned at all toward it. Barbara’s heart sank, and she stole to the gate again, and looked out with a yearning look.

      Yes, sure enough he was striding on, not thinking of her, not coming to her; and she, in the disappointment and impulse of the moment, called to him,—

      “Archibald!”

      Mr. Carlyle—it was no other—turned on his heel, and approached the gate.

      “Is it you, Barbara! Watching for thieves and poachers? How are you?”

      “How are you?” she returned, holding the gate open for him to enter, as he shook hands, and striving to calm down her agitation. “When did you return?”

      “Only now, by the eight o’clock train, which got in beyond its time, having drawled unpardonably at the stations. They little thought they had me in it, as their looks betrayed when I got out. I have not been home yet.”

      “No! What will Cornelia say?”

      “I went to the office for five minutes. But I have a few words to say to Beauchamp, and am going up at once. Thank you, I cannot come in now; I intend to do so on my return.”

      “Papa has gone up to Mr. Beauchamp’s.”

      “Mr. Hare! Has he?”

      “He and Squire Pinner,” continued Barbara. “They have gone to have a smoking bout. And if you wait there with papa, it will be too late to come in, for he is sure not to be home before eleven or twelve.”

      Mr. Carlyle bent his head in deliberation. “Then I think it is of little use my going on,” said he, “for my business with Beauchamp is private. I must defer it until to-morrow.”

      He took the gate out of her hand, closed it, and placed the hand within his own arm, to walk with her to the house. It was done in a matter-of-fact, real sort of way; nothing of romance or sentiment hallowed it; but Barbara Hare felt that she was in Eden.

      “And how have you all been, Barbara, these few days?”

      “Oh, very well. What made you start off so suddenly? You never said you were going, or came to wish us good-bye.”

      “You have just expressed it, Barbara—‘suddenly.’ A matter of business suddenly arose, and I suddenly went upon it.”

      “Cornelia said you were only gone for a day.”

      “Did she? When in London I find so many things to do! Is Mrs. Hare better?”

      “Just the same. I think mamma’s ailments are fancies, half of them; if she would rouse herself she would be better. What is in that parcel?”

      “You are not to inquire, Miss Barbara. It does not concern you. It only concerns Mrs. Hare.”

      “Is it something you have brought for mamma, Archibald?”

      “Of СКАЧАТЬ