The Second Macabre MEGAPACK®. Эдит Несбит

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ far from lively: the Catafalques went nowhere; they seemed to know nobody; at least no visitors ever called or dined there while I was with them, and the time dragged slowly on in a terrible monotony in that dim tomb of a house, which I was not expected to leave except for very brief periods, for Sir Paul would grow uneasy if I walked out alone—even to Putney.

      There was something, indeed, about the attitude of both the old people towards myself which I could only consider as extremely puzzling. They would follow me about with a jealous care, blended with anxious alarm, and their faces as they looked at me wore an expression of tearful admiration, touched with something of pity, as for some youthful martyr; at times, too, they spoke of the gratitude they felt, and professed a determined hopefulness as to my ultimate success.

      Now I was well aware that this is not the ordinary bearing of the parents of an heiress to a suitor who, however deserving in other respects, is both obscure and penniless, and the only way in which I could account for it was by the supposition that there was some latent defect in Chlorine’s temper or constitution, which entitled the man who won her to commiseration, and which would also explain their evident anxiety to get her off their hands.

      But although anything of this kind would be, of course, a drawback, I felt that forty or fifty thousand pounds would be a fair set-off—and I could not expect everything.

      When the time came at which I felt that I could safely speak to Chlorine of what lay nearest my heart, I found an unforeseen difficulty in bringing her to confess that she reciprocated my passion.

      She seemed to shrink unaccountably from speaking the word which gave me the right to claim her, confessing that she dreaded it not for her own sake, but for mine alone, which struck me as an unpleasantly morbid trait in so young a girl.

      Again and again I protested that I was willing to run all risks—as I was—and again and again she resisted, though always more faintly, until at last my efforts were successful, and I forced from her lips the assent which was of so much importance to me.

      But it cost her a great effort, and I believe she even swooned immediately afterwards; but this is only conjecture, as I lost no time in seeking Sir Paul and clenching the matter before Chlorine had time to retract.

      He heard what I had to tell him with a strange light of triumph and relief in his weary eyes. “You have made an old man very happy and hopeful,” he said. “I ought, even now to deter you, but I am too selfish for that. And you are young and brave and ardent; why need we despair? I suppose,” he added, looking keenly at me, “you would prefer as little delay as possible?”

      “I should indeed,” I replied. I was pleased, for I had not expected to find him so sensible as that.

      “Then leave all preliminaries to me; when the day and time have been settled, I will let you know. As you are aware, it will be necessary to have your signature to this document; and here, my boy, I must in conscience warn you solemnly that by signing you make your decision irrevocable—irrevocable, you understand?”

      When I had heard this, I need scarcely say that I was all eagerness to sign; so great was my haste that I did not even try to decipher the somewhat crabbed and antiquated writing in which the terms of the agreement were set out.

      I was anxious to impress the baronet with a sense of my gentlemanly feeling and the confidence I had in him, while I naturally presumed that, since the contract was binding upon me, the baronet would, as a man of honour, hold it equally conclusive on his own side.

      As I look back upon it now, it seems simply extraordinary that I should have been so easily satisfied, have taken so little pains to find out the exact position in which I was placing myself; but, with the ingenuous confidence of youth, I fell an easy victim, as I was to realise later with terrible enlightenment.

      “Say nothing of this to Chlorine,” said Sir Paul, as I handed him the document signed, “until the final arrangements are made; it will only distress her unnecessarily.”

      I wondered why at the time, but I promised to obey, supposing that he knew best, and for some days after that I made no mention to Chlorine of the approaching day which was to witness our union.

      As we were continually together, I began to regard her with an esteem which I had not thought possible at first. Her looks improved considerably under the influence of happiness, and I found she could converse intelligently enough upon several topics, and did not bore me nearly as much as I was fully prepared for.

      And so the time passed less heavily, until one afternoon the baronet took me aside mysteriously. “Prepare yourself, Augustus” (they had all learned to call me Augustus), he said; “all is arranged. The event upon which our dearest hopes depend is fixed for tomorrow—in the Grey Chamber of course, and at midnight.”

      I thought this a curious time and place for the ceremony, but I had divined his eccentric passion for privacy and retirement, and only imagined that he had procured some very special form of licence.

      “But you do not know the Grey Chamber,” he added. “Come with me, and I will show you where it is.” And he led me up the broad staircase, and, stopping at the end of a passage before an immense door covered with black baize and studded with brass nails, which gave it a hideous resemblance to a gigantic coffin lid, he pressed a spring, and it fell slowly back.

      I saw a long dim gallery, whose very existence nothing in the external appearance of the mansion had led me to suspect; it led to a heavy oaken door with cumbrous plates and fastenings of metal.

      “Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve, as you are doubtless aware,” he said in a hushed voice. “At twelve, then, you will present yourself at yonder door—the door of the Grey Chamber—where you must fulfil the engagement you have made.”

      I was surprised at his choosing such a place for the ceremony; it would have been more cheerful in the long drawing room; but it was evidently a whim of his, and I was too happy to think of opposing it. I hastened at once to Chlorine, with her father’s sanction, and told her that the crowning moment of both our lives was fixed at last.

      The effect of my announcement was astonishing: she fainted, for which I remonstrated with her as soon as she came to herself. “Such extreme sensitiveness, my love,” I could not help saying, “may be highly creditable to your sense of maidenly propriety, but allow me to say that I can scarcely regard it as a compliment.”

      “Augustus,” she said, “you must not think I doubt you; and yet—and yet—the ordeal will be a severe one for you.”

      “I will steel my nerves,” I said grimly (for I was annoyed with her); “and, after all, Chlorine, the ceremony is not invariably fatal; I have heard of the victim surviving it—occasionally.”

      “How brave you are!” she said earnestly. “I will imitate you, Augustus; I too will hope.”

      I really thought her insane, which alarmed me for the validity of the marriage. “Yes, I am weak, foolish, I know,” she continued; “but oh, I shudder so when I think of you, away in that gloomy Grey Chamber, going through it all alone!”

      This confirmed my worst fears. No wonder her parents felt grateful to me for relieving them of such a responsibility! “May I ask where you intend to be at the time?” I inquired very quietly.

      “You will not think us unfeeling,” she replied, “but dear papa considered that such anxiety as ours would be scarcely endurable did we not seek some distraction from it; and so, as a special favour, he has procured evening orders for Sir John Soane’s Museum СКАЧАТЬ