Ailsa Paige. Chambers Robert William

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ informal and pretty—What is the matter, Curt?"

      "Nothing, dear. . . . Only I wouldn't plan anything just yet—I mean for the present—not for a few days, anyway–"

      He shrugged, removed his glasses, polished them on his handkerchief, and sat holding them, his short-sighted eyes lost in reverie.

      His wife endured it to the limit of patience:

      "Curt," she began in a lower voice, "you and I gen'ally avoid certain matters, dear—but—ev'ything is sure to come right in the end—isn't it? The No'th is going to be sensible."

      "In the—end," he admitted quietly. And between them the ocean sprang into view again.

      "I wonder—" She stopped, and an inexplicable uneasiness stirred in her breast. She looked around at her son, her left hand fell protectingly upon his shoulder, her right, groping, touched her husband's sleeve.

      "I am—well cared for—in the world," she sighed happily to herself. "It shall not come nigh me."

      Stephen was saying to Ailsa:

      "There's a piece of up-town property that came into the office to-day which seems to me significant of the future. It would be a good investment for you, Cousin Ailsa. Some day Fifth Avenue will be built up solidly with brown-stone mansions as far as the Central Park. It is all going to be wonderfully attractive when they finish it."

      Ailsa mused for a moment. Then:

      "I walked down this street to Fort Greene this afternoon," she began, "and the little rocky park was so sweet and fragrant with dogwood and Forsythia and new buds everywhere. And I looked out over the rivers and the bay and over the two cities and, Steve, somehow—I don't know why—I found my eyes filling with tears. I don't know why, Steve–"

      "Feminine sentiment," observed her cousin, smoking.

      Mrs. Craig's fingers became restless on her husband's sleeve; she spoke at moments in soft, wistful tones, watching her younger daughters and their friends grouped under the trees in the dusk. And all the time, whatever it was that had brought a new unease into her breast was still there, latent. She had no name to give it, no reason, no excuse; it was too shadowy to bear analysis, too impalpable to be defined, yet it remained there; she was perfectly conscious of it, as she held her husband's sleeve the tighter.

      "Curt, is business so plaguey poor because of all these politics?"

      "My business is not very flourishing. Many men feel the uncertainty; not everybody, dear."

      "When this—matter—is settled, everything will be easier for you, won't it? You look so white and tired, dear."

      Stephen overheard her.

      "The matter, as you call it, won't be settled without a row, mother—if you mean the rebellion."

      "Such a wise boy with his new cigar," she smiled through a sudden resurgence of uneasiness.

      The boy said calmly: "Mother, you don't understand; and all the rest of the South is like you."

      "Does anybody understand, Steve?" asked his father, slightly ironical.

      "Some people understand there's going to be a big fight," said the boy.

      "Oh. Do you?"

      "Yes," he said, with the conviction of youth. "And I'm wondering who's going to be in it."

      "The militia, of course," observed Ailsa scornfully. "Camilla is forever sewing buttons on Jimmy's dress uniform. He wears them off dancing."

      Mr. Craig said, unsmiling: "We are not a military nation, Steve; we are not only non-military but we are unmilitary—if you know what that means."

      "We once managed to catch Cornwallis," suggested his son, still proudly smoking.

      "I wonder how we did it?" mused his father.

      "They were another race—those catchers of Cornwallis—those fellows in, blue-and-buff and powdered hair."

      "You and Celia are their grandchildren," observed Ailsa, "and you are a West Point graduate."

      Her brother-in-law looked at her with a strange sort of humour in his handsome, near-sighted eyes:

      "Yes, too blind to serve the country that educated me. And now it's too late; the desire is gone; I have no inclination to fight, Ailsa. Drums always annoyed me. I don't particularly like a gun. I don't care for a fuss. I don't wish to be a soldier."

      Ailsa said: "I rather like the noise of drums. I think I'd like—war."

      "Molly Pitcher! Molly Pitcher! Of what are you babbling," whispered Celia, laughing down the flashes of pain that ran through her heart. "Wars are ended in our Western World. Didn't you know it, grandchild of Vikings? There are to be no more Lake Champlains, only debates—n'est ce pas, Curt?—very grand debates between gentlemen of the South and gentlemen of the North in Congress assembled–"

      "Two congresses assembled," said Ailsa calmly, "and the debates will be at long range–"

      "By magnetic telegraph if you wish, Honey-bell," conceded Celia hastily. "Oh, we must not begin disputin' about matters that nobody can possibly he'p. It will all come right; you know it will, don't you, Curt?"

      "Yes, I know it, somehow."

      Silence, fragrance, and darkness, through which rang the distant laugh of a young girl. And, very, very far away sounds arose in the city, dull, indistinct, lost for moments at a time, then audible again, and always the same sounds, the same monotony, and distant persistence.

      "I do believe they're calling an extra," said Ailsa, lifting her head to listen.

      Celia listened, too.

      "Children shouting at play," she said.

      "They are calling an extra, Celia!"

      "No, little Cassandra, it's only boys skylarking."

      For a while they remained listening and silent. The voices still persisted, but they sounded so distant that the light laughter from their neighbour's stoop drowned the echoes.

      Later, Jimmy Lent drifted into the family circle.

      "They say that there's an extra out about Fort Sumter," he said.

      "Do you think he's given up, Mr. Craig?"

      "If there's an extra out the fort is probably safe enough, Jim," said the elder man carelessly. He rose and went toward the group of girls and youths under the trees.

      "Come, children," he said to his two daughters; and was patient amid indignant protests which preceded the youthful interchange of reluctant good-nights.

      When he returned to the stoop Ailsa had gone indoors with her cousin. His wife rose to greet him as though he had been away on a long journey, and then, passing her arms around her schoolgirl daughters, and nodding a mischievous dismissal to Jimmy Lent, walked slowly into the house. Bolts were shot, keys turned; from the lighted front parlour came the notes of the sweet-toned square piano, and Ailsa's voice:

      —"Dear are her charms to me,

      Dearest СКАЧАТЬ