.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and bluntly bent her head as she was driven by. Potts was unacquainted with the maid. But he knew the lady well, or well enough for her inattention to be the bigger puzzle. She gazed at the Black Forest hills in the steadiest manner, with eyes betraying more than they saw; which solved part of the puzzle, of course. Her reasons for declining to see him were exposed by the presence of the gentleman beside her. At the same time, in so highly bred a girl, a defenceless exposure was unaccountable. Half a nod and the shade of a smile would have been the proper course; and her going along on the road to the valley seemed to say it might easily have been taken; except that there had evidently been a bit of a scene.

      Potts ranked Henrietta’s beauty far above her cousin Livia’s. He was therefore personally offended by her disregard of him, and her bit of a scene with the fellow carrying her off did him injury on behalf of his friend Fleetwood. He dismissed Woodseer curtly. Thirsting more to gossip than to drink, he took a moody draught of beer at the inn, and by the aid of a conveyance, hastily built of rotten planks to serve his needs, and drawn by a horse of the old wars,’ as he reported on his arrival at Baden,—reached that home of the maltreated innocents twenty minutes before the countess and her party were to start for lunch up the Lichtenthal. Naturally, he was abused for letting his bird fly: but as he was shaven, refreshed, and in clean linen, he could pull his shirt-cuffs and take seat at his breakfast-table with equanimity while Abrane denounced him.

      ‘I’ll bet you the fellow’s luck has gone,’ said Potts. ‘He ‘s no new hand and you don’t think him so either, Fleet. I’ve looked into the fellow’s eye and seen a leery old badger at the bottom of it. Talks vile stuff. However, ‘perhaps I didn’t drive out on that sweltering Carlsruhe road for nothing.’

      He screwed a look at the earl, who sent Abrane to carry a message and heard the story Potts had to tell.

      ‘Henrietta Fakenham! no mistake about her; driving out from a pothouse; man beside her, military man; might be a German. And, if you please, quite unacquainted with your humble servant, though we were as close as you to me. Something went wrong in that pothouse. Red eyes. There had been a scene, one could swear. Behind the lady another carriage, and her maid. Never saw the girl before, and sets to bowing and smirking at me, as if I was the-fellow of all others! Comical. I made sure they were bound for this place. They were on the Strasburg road. No sign of them?’

      ‘You speak to me?’ said Fleetwood.

      Potts muttered. He had put his foot into it.

      ‘You have a bad habit of speaking to yourself,’ Fleetwood remarked, and left him. He suffered from the rustics he had to deal with among his class, and it was not needed that he should thunder at them to make his wrath felt.

      Livia swam in, asking: ‘What has come to Russett? He passed me in one of his black fits.’

      The tale of the Carlsruhe road was repeated by Potts. She reproved him. ‘How could you choose Russett for such a report as that! The admiral was on the road behind. Henrietta—you’re sure it was she? German girls have much the same colouring. The gentleman with her must have been one of the Court equerries. They were driving to some chateau or battlefield the admiral wanted to inspect. Good-looking man? Military man?’

      ‘Oh! the man! pretty fair, I dare say,’ Potts rejoined. ‘If it wasn’t Henrietta Fakenham, I see with the back of my head. German girl! The maid was a German girl.’

      ‘That may well be,’ said Livia.

      She conceived the news to be of sufficient importance for her to countermand the drive up the Lichtenthal, and take the Carlsruhe road instead; for Henrietta was weak, and Chillon Kirby an arch-plotter, and pleader too, one of the desperate lovers. He was outstaying his leave of absence already, she believed; he had to be in England. If he feared to lose Henrietta, he would not hesitate to carry her off. Livia knew him, and knew the power of his pleading with a firmer woman than Henrietta.

      CHAPTER XI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD

      Nothing to rouse alarm was discovered at Carlsruhe. Livia’s fair cousin was there with the red-haired gaunt girl of the mountains; and it was frankly stated by Henrietta, that she had accompanied the girl a certain distance along the Strasburg road, for her to see the last of her brother Chillon on his way to England. Livia was not the woman to push inquiries. On that subject, she merely said, as soon as they were alone together:

      ‘You seem to have had the lion’s share of the parting.’

      ‘Yes, we passed Mr. Chumley Potts,’ was Henrietta’s immediate answer; and her reference to him disarmed Livia.

      They smiled at his name transiently, but in agreement: the tattler-spout of their set was, a fatal person to encounter, and each deemed the sudden apparition of him in the very early morning along the Carlsruhe road rather magical.

      ‘You place particular confidence in Russett’s fidelity to his word, Riette—as you have been hearing yourself called. You should be serious by this time. Russett won’t bear much more. I counted on the night of the Ball for the grand effect. You will extinguish every woman there—and if he is absent?’

      ‘I shall excuse him.’

      ‘You are not in a position to be so charitable. You ought to know your position, and yourself too, a little better than you do. How could you endure poverty? Chillon Kirby stands in his uniform, and all’s told. He can manoeuvre, we know. He got the admiral away to take him to those reviews cleverly. But is he thinking of your interests when he does it? He requires twenty years of active service to give you a roof to your head. I hate such allusions. But look for a moment at your character: you must have ordinary luxuries and pleasures, and if you were to find yourself grinding against common necessities—imagine it! Russett is quite manageable. He is, trust me! He is a gentleman; he has more ability than most young men: he can do anything he sets his mind to do. He has his great estates and fortune all in his own hands. We call him eccentric. He is only young, with a lot of power. Add, he’s in love, and some one distracts him. Not love, do you say?—you look it. He worships. He has no chance given him to show himself at his best. Perhaps he is off again now. Will you bet me he is not?’

      ‘I should incline to make the bet, if I betted,’ said Henrietta. ‘His pride is in his word, and supposing he’s in love, it’s with his pride, which never quits him.’

      ‘There’s firmness in a man who has pride of that kind. You must let me take you back to Baden. I hold to having you with me to-day. You must make an appearance there. The admiral will bring us his Miss Kirby to-morrow, if he is bound to remain here to-night. There’s no harm in his bachelor dinners. I suspect his twinges of gout come of the prospect of affairs when he lands in England. Remember our bill with Madame Clemence. There won’t be the ghost of a bank-note for me if Russett quits the field; we shall all be stranded.’

      Henrietta inquired: ‘Does it depend on my going with you to-day?’

      ‘Consider, that he is now fancying a thousand things. We won’t talk of the road to Paris.’

      A shot of colour swept over Henrietta.

      ‘I will speak to papa:—if he can let me go. He has taken to Miss Kirby.’

      ‘Does she taste well?’

      Henrietta debated. ‘It’s impossible to dislike her. Oh! she is wild! She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything we can’t—or don’t dare to try.—Men would like her. Papa’s beginning to doat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears blood as little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell rather badly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in СКАЧАТЬ