The Greatest Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (65+ Novels & Short Stories in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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СКАЧАТЬ venerable person who went by the name of Giblets had by this time opened the carriage door, and our courier, our “boots”— he looked more like the latter functionary — had lowered the steps, and in greater trepidation than I experienced when in after-days I was presented to my sovereign, I glided down, to offer myself to the greeting and inspection of the plain-spoken young lady who stood at the top of the steps to receive me.

      She welcomed me with a hug and a hearty buss, as she called that salutation, on each cheek, and pulled me into the hall, and was evidently glad to see me.

      “And you’re tired a bit, I warrant; and who’s the old ’un, who?” she asked eagerly, in a stage whisper, which made my ear numb for five minutes later. “Oh, oh, the maid! and a precious old ’un — ha, ha, ha! But lawk! how grand she is, with her black silk, cloak and crape, and I only in twilled cotton, and rotten old Coburg for Sundays. Odds! it’s a shame; but you’ll be tired, you will. It’s a smartish pull, they do say, from Knowl. I know a spell of it, only so far as the ‘Cat and Fiddle,’ near the Lunnon-road. Come up, will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit wi’ the governor? Father, you know, he’s a bit silly, he is, this while.” I found that the phrase meant only bodily infirmity. “He took a pain o’ Friday, newralgie — something or other he calls it — rheumatics it is when it takes old ‘Giblets’ there; and he’s sitting in his own room; or maybe you’d like better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work travelling, they do say.”

      Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was standing behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each ample time and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and she made no scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for she stared me full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and thumb, and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and picked up my hand as she might a glove, to con over my rings.

      I can’t say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produce don her. But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her years, plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She had an odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.

      If I was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have thought of her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black twilled cotton expressive of her affliction; but it was made almost as short in the skirt as that of the prints of the Bavarian broom girls. She had white cotton stockings, and a pair of black leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for a lady, prodigiously thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I had so often admired in Punch. I must add that the hands with which she assisted her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much sunburnt indeed.

      “And what’s her name?” she demanded, nodding to Mary Quince, who was gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as an inland spinster might upon a whale beheld for the first time.

      Mary courtesied, and I answered.

      “Mary Quince,” she repeated. “You’re welcome, Quince. What shall I call her? I’ve a name for all o’ them. Old Giles there, is Giblets. He did not like it first, but he answers quick enough now; and Old Lucy Wyat there,” nodding toward the old woman, “is Lucia de l’Amour,” A slightly erroneous reading of Lammermoor, for my cousin sometimes made mistakes, and was not much versed in the Italian opera. “You know it’s a play, and I call her L’Amour for shortness;” and she laughed hilariously, and I could not forbear joining; and, winking at me, she called aloud, “L’Amour.”

      To which the crone, with a high-cauled cap, resembling Mother Hubbard, responded with a courtesy and “Yes’m.”

      “Are all the trunks and boxes took up?”

      They were.

      “Well, we’ll come now; and what shall I call you, Quince? Let me see.”

      “According to your pleasure, Miss,” answered Mary, with dignity, and a dry courtesy.

      “Why, you’re as hoarse as a frog, Quince. We’ll call you Quinzy for the present. That’ll do. Come along Quinzy.”

      So my Cousin Milly took me under the arm, and pulled me forward; but as we ascended, she let me go, leaning back to make inspection of my attire from a new point of view.

      “Hallo, cousin,” she cried, giving my dress a smack with her open hand. “What a plague to you want of all that bustle; you’ll leave it behind, lass, the first bush you jump over.”

      I was a good deal astounded. I was also very near laughing, for there was a sort of importance in her plump countenance, and an indescribable grotesqueness in the fashion of her garments, which heightened the outlandishness of her talk, in a way which I cannot at all describe.

      What palatial wide stairs those were which we ascended, with their prodigious carved banisters of oak, and each huge pillar on the landing-place crowned with a shield and carved heraldic supporters; florid oak panelling covered the walls. But of the house I could form no estimate, for Uncle Silas’s housekeeping did not provide light for hall and passages, and we were dependent on the glimmer of a single candle; but there would be quite enough for this kind of exploration in the daylight.

      So along dark oak flooring we advanced to my room, and I had now an opportunity of admiring, at my leisure, the lordly proportions of the building. Two great windows, with dark and tarnished curtains, rose half as high again as the windows of Knowl; and yet Knowl, in its own style, is a fine house. The door-frames, like the window-frames, were richly carved; the fireplace was in the same massive style, and the mantelpiece projected with a mass of very rich carving. On the whole I was surprised. I had never slept in so noble a room before.

      The furniture, I must confess, was by no means on a par with the architectural pretensions of the apartment. A French bed, a piece of carpet about three yards square, a small table, two chairs, a toilet table — no wardrobe — no chest of drawers. The furniture painted white, and of the light and diminutive kind, was particularly ill adapted to the scale and style of the apartment, one end only of which it occupied, and that but sparsely, leaving the rest of the chamber in the nakedness of a stately desolation. My cousin Milly ran away to report progress to “the Governor,” as she termed Uncle Silas.

      “Well, Miss Maud, I never did expect to see the like o’ that!” exclaimed honest Mary Quince. “Did you ever see such a young lady? She’s no more like one o’ the family than I am. Law bless us! and what’s she dressed like? Well, well, well!” And Mary, with a rueful shake of her head, clicked her tongue pathetically to the back of her teeth, while I could not forbear laughing.

      “And such a scrap o’ furniture! Well, well, well!” and the same clicking of the tongue followed.

      But, in a few minutes, back came Cousin Milly, and, with a barbarous sort of curiosity, assisted in unpacking my trunks, and stowing away the treasures, on which she ventured a variety of admiring criticisms, in the presses which, like cupboards, filled recesses in the walls, with great oak doors, the keys of which were in them.

      As I was making my hurried toilet, she entertained me now and then with more strictly personal criticisms.

      “Your hair’s a shade darker than mine — it’s none the better o’ that though — is it? Mine’s said to be the right shade. I don’t know — what do you say?”

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