Mr. Trelawney's Proposal. Mary Brendan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ eyes roved the dirty, whitewashed building.

      The seedy-looking Jacobean hostelry was nevertheless a hive of activity. Well situated along the coastal road to refresh those travelling from the west country towards the fashionable gathering place of Brighton, it attracted the patronage of both farmer and gentleman alike.

      Luke glanced around in cursory fashion. A coach, displaying an Earl’s coat of arms, protected its glossy paintwork beneath the shade of a massive spreading oak on the perimeter of the courtyard.

      Two young ladies, elegantly and coolly dressed in pastel muslin, sat, with parasols twirling, beneath the shielding canopy of boughs on a spread tartan travelling rug. Their coy attention was with Ross and himself. Aware of his observation, their daintily coiffured heads collided as they chattered and giggled, parasols whirling faster. He glanced away, feeling unaccountably irritated. The fact that Ross was now torn between giving them or the flame-haired serving girl the benefit of his hazel-eyed silent charm irked him further.

      Not that he was unused to female interest: all Trelawney males had the tall, dark good looks women seemed to find hard to resist. He knew without particular conceit or satisfaction that due to his superior height, and the classical set of his features, framed by a mass of thick, jet-black hair, he, more than any, was most sought after. His looks, coupled with his status and wealth, ensured a limitless supply of eager women. Thus the need for charm or seduction was rarely required for amorous conquests. When the mood or need took him, therefore, he seldom bothered with either, exploiting his attractiveness and willing partners to the full. Occasionally, acknowledging this callousness made him uneasy. Why the sight of two simpering debutantes at a strange tavern on a blazing afternoon should induce one of those conscience-ridden moments he had no idea, and it only served to needle him further.

      He kicked at the parched, powdery gravel beneath one dusty Hessian boot and looked down the two or more inches at the top of Ross’s sun-glossed chestnut head. He smiled slowly, consciously lightening his exasperation which he knew had much to do with the unwanted responsibility that brought him to this neck of the woods. He inwardly cursed all the Ramsdens to perdition as his businessman’s brain sorted through all he’d left in abeyance at Melrose and all that awaited him at Brighton. He clicked his fingers in front of Ross’s line of vision, redrawing his brother’s attention to himself.

      ‘I’ll visit the stables and see what sort of horseflesh they’ve got on offer. I’d sooner ride a farm hack the remaining miles to Westbrook than set foot back in that boneshaking contraption.’

      ‘If she dunt wanta move then she dunt and she wunt,’ the old man announced morosely, nodding sagely, yet eying the horse with what seemed to Rebecca like any amount of satisfaction.

      ‘Can’t you coax her a bit?’ Rebecca suggested with a wheedling smile at the squint-eyed old groom, as her lacy scrap of handkerchief again found its way to her perspiring brow.

      ‘Just beat the stupid animal,’ was Lucy Mayhew’s heartless instruction to the granite-faced old retainer, who served as a stablehand for her stepfather now that advancing years had numbered his farm-labouring days. Bert Morris stared straight ahead not deigning to react at all to this outrageous proposal of treatment for his old Bessy. He fished in his shirt pocket, removed a clay pipe and began to stuff the bowl of it with some foul-looking dried grass extracted from the same source.

      Rebecca alighted nimbly from the one-axle carriage and immediately flexed her cramped limbs. The worn benchseat was barely wide enough for two people travelling in comfort. For three packed close together in this stifling early afternoon heat, it was unbearable. The fact that Bert Morris smelled as though he not only groomed but slept amongst his treasured horses had largely added to the discomfort.

      Rebecca bestowed a sympathetic look on the exhausted elderly mare who refused to travel up the steep wooded incline towards the Summer House Lodge in the hamlet of Graveley. As though aware of observation, the animal swayed her head round. Such solemn, apologetic eyes, Rebecca thought, before she lifted her face towards the breeze, closed her eyes and, momentarily, savoured the wonderfully refreshing sensation. Soft cooling air disturbed honey-gold hair clinging in damp tendrils to her slender, graceful neck. Then she gazed up into the carriage where the old man smoked stoically, apparently undisturbed either by circumstances or the heat. Lucy Mayhew returned her a sullen look, swiping a careless hand across her forehead to remove beading perspiration.

      ‘We can walk from here,’ Rebecca encouraged her with a smile. ‘It’s barely a quarter of a mile and mostly through woodland. The shade will be delightfully cool and most welcome.’ She anticipated objection but Lucy had gathered up her cotton floral gown in eager hands and jumped from the carriage in a trice.

      Rebecca reached up behind the benchseat, grasping her own and Lucy’s travelling carpet bags. Old Bert Morris stirred himself enough then to aid her attempts at unwedging them, dropping them carelessly to the dusty ground.

      ‘You will ensure that the trunks are delivered as soon as possible?’ Rebecca enquired of the old man. He grunted some unintelligible noise past the pipe clenched in stained teeth which she took to be an affirmative.

      Rupert Mayhew had testily decreed that a carpet bag of essentials must suffice today and the trunks be forwarded later in the week. Had they travelled in a sturdier carriage pulled by an energetic pair they could have brought all with them and would now be alighting at the familiar white-boarded doorway of her Summer House Lodge.

      Without another word, Bert Morris clicked encouragement at the tired mare to back step along the narrow path. The animal did so with amazing briskness, considering its previous lethargy. Soon the small trap had turned in the clearing and was making good progress back towards the village of Crosby.

      With a smile at her new charge, Rebecca directed brightly, ‘Now you take one of the handles to your bag, Lucy, and I shall take the other. Thus we can share the load as we walk, for the woodland path is a little on an incline.’

      ‘What of your bag?’ Lucy asked doubtfully. ‘Will you manage that too?’

      ‘There’s little in it,’ Rebecca reassured her with a smile, surprised and heartened by the girl’s concern. Lucy had hitherto on the hour-long journey from Crosby displayed nothing apart from a scowling profile and a great reluctance to be drawn into any light conversation. Uncomfortable silence had been the prevailing feature of the journey: the blistering heat and her travelling companions equally to blame.

      Rebecca stole a quick glance at her new pupil, trying to ascertain her mood. Lucy’s small hand was fastened on the crown of her poke bonnet, shielding her face from the sun’s fierce rays as she dragged her bag across shrivelled yellow grass. Rebecca took the same sensible precaution, settling her own straw headgear firmly on her golden head.

      With an encouraging smile, Rebecca lead the way towards the cool, inviting wooded pathway.

      Rebecca sensed that the girl now might chat, but her attention was sidetracked by the painful-looking bruising shadowing one of Lucy’s eyes. An aged yellowing could be glimpsed amongst the fresh purple and Rebecca’s heart went out to the young girl.

      Lucy informed her abruptly, ‘He did it…but you know that, don’t you.’

      ‘I guessed…yes, that your stepfather must have chastised you.’

      ‘Chastised me?’ Lucy repeated with a sneer coarsening her voice. ‘I don’t mind it when he hits me,’ she muttered vehemently before changing the subject abruptly. ‘Do you always collect your new pupils from their homes? I would have imagined you to be too busy. Where are the other pupils? Who’s looking after them?’ she ran СКАЧАТЬ