The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ Butterworth,” he began, undeterred by the air of dignity I assumed, “I have been thinking that your visit here is a rebuke to my unneighborliness. But the business which has occupied the lane these last few days has put us all into such a state of unpleasantness that it was useless to attempt sociability.”

      His voice was so smooth, his eyes so small and twinkling, that if I could have thought of anything except William’s possible discoveries in the barn, I should have taken delight in measuring my wits against his egotism.

      But as it was, I said nothing, possibly because I only half heard what he was saying.

      “I am no lady’s man,”—these were the next words I heard,—“but then I judge you’re not anxious for flattery, but prefer the square thing uttered by a square man without delay or circumlocution. Madam, I am fifty-three, and I have been a widower two years. I am not fitted for a solitary life, and I am fitted for the companionship of an affectionate wife who will keep my hearth clean and my affections in good working order. Will you be that wife? You see my home,”—here his eye stole behind him with that uneasy look towards the barn which William’s presence in it certainly warranted,—“a home which I can offer you unencumbered, if you——”

      “Desire to live in Lost Man’s Lane,” I put in, subduing both my surprise and my disgust at this preposterous proposal, in order to throw all the sarcasm of which I was capable into this single sentence.

      “Oh!” he exclaimed, “you don’t like the neighborhood. Well, we could go elsewhere. I am not set against the city myself——”

      Astounded at his presumption, regarding him as a possible criminal, who was endeavoring to beguile me for purposes of his own, I could no longer repress either my indignation or the wrath with which such impromptu addresses naturally inspired me. Cutting him short with a gesture which made him open his small eyes, I exclaimed in continuation of his remark:

      “Nor, as I take it, are you set against the comfortable little income somebody has told you I possessed. I see your disinterestedness, Deacon, but I should be sorry to profit by it. Why, man, I never spoke to you before in my life, and do you think——”

      “Oh!” he suavely insinuated, with a suppressed chuckle which even his increasing uneasiness as to William could not altogether repress, “I see you are not above the flattery that pleases other women. Well, madam, I know a tremendous fine woman when I see her, and from the moment I saw you riding by the other day, I made up my mind I would have you for the second Mrs. Spear, if persistence and a proper advocacy of my cause could accomplish it. Madam, I was going to visit you with this proposal to-night, but seeing you here, the temptation was too great for my discretion, and so I have addressed you on the spot. But you need not answer me at once. I don’t need to know any more about you than what I can take in with my two eyes, but if you would like a little more acquaintance with me, why I can wait a couple of weeks till we’ve rubbed the edges off our strangeness, when——”

      “When you think I will be so charmed with Deacon Spear that I will be ready to settle down with him in Lost Man’s Lane, or if that will not do, carry him off to Gramercy Park, where he will be the admiration of all New York and Brooklyn to boot. Why, man, if I was so easily satisfied as that, I would not be in a position to-day for you to honor me with this proposal. I am not easy to suit, so I advise you to turn your attention to some one much more anxious to be married than I am. But”—and here I allowed some of my real feelings to appear—“if you value your own reputation or the happiness of the lady you propose to inveigle into an union with you, do not venture too far in the matrimonial way till the mystery is dispelled which shrouds Lost Man’s Lane in horror. If you were an honest man you would ask no one to share your fortunes whilst the least doubt rests upon your reputation.”

      “My reputation?” He had started very visibly at these words. “Madam, be careful. I admire you, but——”

      “No offence,” said I. “For a stranger I have been, perhaps, unduly frank. I only mean that any one who lives in this lane must feel himself more or less enveloped by the shadow which rests upon it. When that is lifted, each and every one of you will feel himself a man again. From indications to be seen in the lane to-day, that time may not be far distant. Mother Jane is a likely source for the mysteries that agitate us. She knows just enough to have no proper idea of the value of a human life.”

      The Deacon’s retort was instantaneous. “Madam,” said he, with a snap of his fingers, “I have not that much interest in what is going on down there. If men have been killed in this lane (which I do not believe), old Mother Jane has had no hand in it. My opinion is—and you may value it or not, just as you please—that what the people hereabout call crimes are so many coincidences, which some day or other will receive their due explanation. Every one who has disappeared in this vicinity has disappeared naturally. No one has been killed. That is my theory, and you will find it correct. On this point I have expended more than a little thought.”

      I was irate. I was also dumfounded at his audacity. Did he think I was the woman to be deceived by any such balderdash as that? But I shut my lips tightly lest I should say something, and he, not finding this agreeable, being no conversationalist himself, drew himself up with a pompously expressed hope that he would see me again after his reputation was cleared, when his attention as well as my own was diverted by seeing William’s slouching figure appear in the barn door and make slowly towards us.

      Instantly the Deacon forgot me in his interest in William’s approach, which was so slow as to be tantalizing to us both.

      When he was within speaking distance, Deacon Spear started towards him.

      “Well!” he cried; “one would think you had gone back a dozen or so years and were again robbing your neighbor’s hen-roosts. Been in the hay, eh?” he added, leaning forward and plucking a wisp or two from my companion’s clothes. “Well, what did you find there?”

      In trembling fear for what the lout might answer, I put my hand on the buggy rail and struggled anxiously to my seat. William stepped forward and loosened the horse before speaking. Then with a leer he dived into his pocket, and remarking slowly, “I found this,” brought to light a small riding-whip which we both recognized as one he often carried. “I flung it up in the hay yesterday in one of my fits of laughing, so just thought I would bring it down to-day. You know it isn’t the first time I’ve climbed about those rafters, Deacon, as you have been good enough to insinuate.”

      The Deacon, evidently taken aback, eyed the young fellow with a leer in which I saw something more serious than mere suspicion.

      “Was that all?” he began, but evidently thought better than to finish, whilst William, with a nonchalance that surprised me, blunderingly avoided his eye, and, bounding into the buggy beside me, started up the horse and drove slowly off.

      “Ta, ta, Deacon,” he called back; “if you want to see fun, come up to our end of the lane; there’s precious little here.” And thus, with a laugh, terminated an interview which, all things considered, was the most exciting as well as the most humiliating I have ever taken part in.

      “William,” I began, but stopped. The two pigeons whose departure I had watched a little while before were coming back, and, as I spoke, fluttered up to the window before mentioned, where they alighted and began picking up the crumbs which I had seen scattered for them. “See!” I suddenly exclaimed, pointing them out to William. “Was I mistaken when I thought I saw a hand drop crumbs from that window?”

      The answer was a very grave one for him.

      “No,” СКАЧАТЬ