Wyllard's Weird (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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СКАЧАТЬ with myself today?” But Dora was not dependent on her garden for occupation. Exacting as the roses and lilies were, manifold as were the cares of the hothouses and ferneries and wildernesses, Mrs. Wyllard’s husband was more exacting still. When Julian was at home she could give but little time to her garden. He could hardly bear his wife to be out of his sight for half an hour. She had to be interested in all his schemes, all his letters, even to the driest business details. She rode and drove with him, and, as he had no taste for field sports, neither his guns nor his hunters took him away from her. He was a studious man, a man of artistic temperament, a lover of curious books and fine bindings, a lover of pictures and statues, and porcelain and enamels—a worshipper of the beautiful in every form. His tastes were such as a woman could easily and naturally share with him. This made their union all the more complete. Other wives wondered at beholding such domestic sympathy. There were some whose husbands could not sit by the domestic hearth ten minutes without dismal yawnings, men who depended upon newspapers for all their delight, men whose minds were always in the stable. Julian Wyllard was an ideal husband, who never yawned in a tête-à-tête with his wife, who shared every joy and every thought with the woman of his choice.

      To-night, when they two sat down to the half-past, nine o’clock meal, with Bothwell, who was not much worse than a Newfoundland dog, for their sole companion, the wife’s first question showed her familiarity with the business that had taken her husband to London.

      “Well, Julian, did you get the Raffaelle?” she asked.

      “No, dear. The picture went for just three times the value I had put upon it.”

      “And you did not care to give such a price?”

      “Well, no. There are limits, even for a monomaniac like me. I had allowed myself a margin. I was prepared to give a hundred or two over the thousand which I had put down as the price of the picture; but when it went up to fifteen hundred I retired from the contest, and it was finally knocked down to Lamb, the dealer, for two thousand guineas. A single figure—a half-length figure of Christ bearing the cross, against a background of vivid blue sky. But such divinity in the countenance, such pathetic eyes! I saw women turn away with tears after they had looked at that picture.”

      “You ought to have bought it,” said Dora, who knew that her husband had a great deal more money than he could spend, and who thought that he had a right to indulge his own caprices.

      “My dearest, as I said before, there are limits,” he answered, smiling at her enthusiasm.

      “Then you had your journey, and I had to endure the loss of your society for three dreary days, all for nothing?” said Dora.

      “Not quite for nothing. There was the pleasure of seeing a very fine collection of pictures, and some magnificent Limoges enamels. I succeeded in buying you a little Greuze. I am told by French art-critics that it is a low thing to admire Greuze, the sign of a vulgar mind. He is the painter of the bourgeois, the épicier. But, for all that, you and I have agreed to like Greuze; so I bought this little picture for your morning-room. I got it for five hundred and fifty, and I believe it is a genuine bit in the painter’s best manner.”

      “How good you are to me!” exclaimed Dora, getting up and going over to her husband.

      She bent down to kiss him as he sat at the table. They had dismissed the servants from this informal meal, so Mrs. Wyllard was not afraid of being considered eccentric, if she showed that she was grateful. She did not mind Bothwell. Five hundred and fifty! How freely this rich man talked of his hundreds, as it seemed to Bothwell, pinched by the consciousness of debts which the cost of that picture would have covered—little seedlings of debts, scattered long ago by the wayside, and putting forth perennial flowers in the shape of unpleasant letters from creditors, which made him hate the sight of the postman.

      Neither Wyllard nor Grahame ate a hearty meal. That picture of the dead face was too vividly present in the minds of both. Meat and drink and pleasant talk were out of harmony with that horror which both had looked upon three hours ago. They took more wine than usual, and hardly ate anything.

      “Will you come for a stroll in the garden, Julian?” asked Dora, as they rose from the table.

      It was half-past ten o’clock, a lovely summer night. A great golden moon was shining low down in the purple sky, just above the bank of foliage: not that far-off moon which belongs to all the world, but a big yellow lamp lighting one’s own garden.

      “Do come,” she said, “it is such a delicious night.”

      “I dare not indulge myself, dear; I have my letters to open before I go to bed. I was just going to order a fire in the library.”

      “A fire, on such a night as this! I’m afraid you have caught cold.”

      “I think it not unlikely,” answered her husband, as he rang the bell.

      “Don’t you think your letters might keep till tomorrow morning, Julian?” pleaded Dora. “We could have a fire in the morning-room, and sit and talk.”

      “That would be delightful, but I must not allow myself to be tempted. I should not rest to-night with the idea of a pile of unopened letters.”

      He gave his orders to the servant. His letters and papers were all on the library table. A fire was to be lighted there immediately.

      “You will be late, I am afraid,” said Dora.

      “I may be a little late. Don’t wait up for me on any account, dearest. Goodnight!”

      He kissed her; and she said good-night, but reserved her liberty to sit up for him all the same. There is no use in a husband saying to a wife of Mrs. Wyllard’s temperament, “Don’t sit up for me, and don’t worry yourself!” Sleep was impossible to Dora until she knew that her husband was at rest; just as happiness was impossible to her when parted from him. She had made herself a part of his being, had merged her very existence in his; she had no value, hardly any individuality, apart from him.

      “Julian looks tired and anxious,” she said to her cousin, who stood smoking a cigarette just outside the window.

      “You can’t be surprised at that,” answered Bothwell. “That business on the railway was enough to make any man feel queer. I shall not forget it for a long time.”

      “It must have been an awful shock. And men with strong features and powerful frames are sometimes more sensitive than your fragile beings with nervous temperaments,” said Dora. “I have often been struck with Julian’s morbid feeling about things which a strong man might be supposed to regard with indifference.”

      “He is a deuced good fellow,” said Bothwell, who had been more generously treated by his cousin’s husband than by any of his own clan. “Won’t you come for a turn in the garden? I won’t start another cigarette, if you object.”

      “You know I don’t mind smoke,” she answered, joining him. “Why, how your hand shakes, Bothwell! You can hardly light your cigarette.”

      “Didn’t I say that I was upset by that business? I don’t suppose I shall sleep a wink to-night.”

      They walked in the rose-garden for more than an hour. Garden and night were both alike ideal. An Italian garden, with formal terraces, and beds of roses, and a fountain in the centre, a bold and plenteous jet that rose from a massive marble basin. Roses, magnolia, jasmine, and Mary-lilies filled the air with perfume. The moon had changed from gold to silver, and СКАЧАТЬ