The Wonderful Year. William John Locke

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ would sun yourselves in his wisdom,” replied Fortinbras, “and convey my love to my little daughter Félise.”

      If Fortinbras had alluded to his possession of a steam-yacht Corinna could not have been more astonished. To her he was merely the Marchand de Bonheur, eccentric Bohemian, half charlatan, half good-fellow, without private life or kindred. She sat bolt upright.

      “You have a daughter?”

      “Why not? Am I not a man? Haven’t I lived my life? Haven’t I had my share of its joys and sorrows? Why should it surprise you that I have a daughter?”

      Corinna reddened. “You haven’t told me about her before.”

      “When do I have the occasion, in this world of students, to speak of things precious to me? I tell you now. I am sending you to her—she is twenty—and to my excellent brother-in-law Bigourdin, because I think you are good children, and I should like to give you a bit of my heart for my ten francs.”

      “Fortinbras,” said Corinna, with a quick outstretch of her arm, “I’m a beast. Tell me, what is she like?”

      “To me,” smiled Fortinbras, “she is like one of the wild flowers from which Alpine honey is made. To other people she is doubtless a well-mannered commonplace young person. You will see her and judge for yourselves.”

      “How far is it from Paris to Brantôme?” asked Martin.

      “Roughly about five hundred kilometres—under three hundred miles. Take your time. You have sixty pounds’ worth of sunny hours before you—and there is much to be learned in three hundred miles of France. In a few weeks’ time I will join you at Brantôme—journeying by train as befits my soberer age—I go there a certain number of times a year to see Félise. Then, if you will continue to favour me with your patronage, we shall have another consultation.”

      There was a brief silence. Fortinbras looked from one young face to the other. Then he brought his hands down with a soft thump on the table.

      “You hesitate?” he cried indignantly. “You’re afraid to take your poor, little lives in your hands even for a few weeks?” He pushed back his chair and rose and swept a banning gesture, “I have nothing more to do with you. For profitless advice my conscience allows me to charge nothing.” He tore open his frock coat and his fingers diving into his waistcoat pocket brought forth and threw down the two five-franc pieces. “Go your ways,” said he.

      At this dramatic moment both the young people sprang protesting to their feet.

      “What are you talking about? We’re going to Brantôme,” cried Corinna, gripping the lapels of his coat.

      “Of course we are,” exclaimed Martin, scared at the prospect of losing the inspired counsellor.

      “Then why aren’t you more enthusiastic?” asked Fortinbras.

      “But we are enthusiastic,” Corinna declared.

      “We’ll start to-morrow,” said Martin.

      “At six o’clock in the morning,” said Corinna.

      “At five, if you like,” said Martin.

      Fortinbras embraced them both in a capacious smile, as he deliberately repocketed the coins.

      “That is well, my children. But don’t do too many unaccustomed things at once. In the Dordogne you can rise at five—with enjoyment and impunity. In Paris, your meeting at that hour would be fraught with mutual antipathy, and you would not find a shop open where you could hire or buy your bicycles.”

      “I’ve got one,” said Corinna.

      “So have I,” said Martin; “but it’s in London.”

      Fortinbras extracted from his person a dim, chainless watch.

      “It is now a quarter past one. Time for honest folk to be abed. Meet me here at eleven o’clock to-morrow, booted and spurred, with but a scrip at the back of your bicycles, and I will hand you letters to Félise and the poetic and philosophic Bigourdin, and now,” said he, “with your permission, I will ring for Auguste.”

      Auguste appeared and Martin, waving aside the protests of Corinna, paid the modest bill. In the airless street Fortinbras bade them an impressive good night and disappeared in the byways of the sultry city. Martin accompanied Corinna to the gaunt neighbouring building wherein her eyrie was situate. Both were tongue-tied, shy, embarrassed by the prospect of the intimate adventure to which they had pledged themselves. When the great door, swung open by the hidden concierge, at Corinna’s ring, invited her entrance, they shook hands perfunctorily.

      “At a quarter to eleven,” said Martin.

      “I shall be ready,” said Corinna.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      THE bicycle journey of two young people through a mere three hundred miles of France is, on the face of it, an Odyssey of no importance. The only interest that could attach itself to such a humdrum affair would centre in the development of tender feelings reciprocated or otherwise in the breasts of both or one of the young people. But when the two of them proceed dustily and unemotionally along the endless, straight, poplar-bordered roads, with the heart of each at the end of the day as untroubled by the other as at the beginning, a detailed account of their wanderings would resolve itself into a commonplace itinerary.

      “My children,” said Fortinbras, when, after having lunched with them at the Petit Cornichon and given them letters of introduction and his blessing, he had accompanied them to the pavement whence they were preparing to start, “I advise you, until you reach Brantôme to call yourself brother and sister, so that your idyllic companionship shall not be misinterpreted.”

      “Pooh!”—or some such vocable of scorn—Corinna remarked. “We’re not in narrow-minded England.”

      “In narrow-minded England,” Fortinbras replied, “without a wedding ring, and without the confessed brother-and-sisterly relation, inns would close their virtuous doors against you. In France, where a pair of lovers is universally regarded as an object of romantic interest, innkeepers would confuse you with zealous attentions. Thus in either country, though for opposite reasons, you would be bound to encounter impossible embarrassment.”

      “I don’t think there would be any danger of that,” laughed Corinna lightly, “unless Martin went mad. But perhaps it would be just as well to play the comedy. I’ll stick up my cheek to be kissed every night in the presence of the landlady. ‘Bon soir, mon frère.’—Do you think you can go through the performance, Martin?”

      Martin, very uncomfortable, already experiencing at the suggestion of misconstrued relations, the embarrassment foreshadowed by Fortinbras, flushed deeply and took refuge in an examination of his bicycle. The celibate dreamer was shocked by her cool bravado. Since the episode of Gwendoline he had lived remote from the opposite sex; the only woman he had known intimately was his mother and from that knowledge he had formed the profound conviction that women were entirely futile and utterly holy. Corinna kept on knocking СКАЧАТЬ