THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF WILKIE COLLINS. Уилки КоллинзЧитать онлайн книгу.
by regular gradations, from one climax of upholstery to another, warning visions of his bill disclosed themselves in the remote background of the scene of luxury and magnificence which my friend was conjuring up. Certain sharp professional instincts of bygone times resumed their influence over me; I began to start doubts and ask questions; and as a necessary consequence the interview between us soon assumed something like a practical form.
Having ascertained what the probable expense of furnishing would amount to and having discovered that the process of transforming the lean-to (allowing for the time required to procure certain articles of rarity from Bristol) would occupy nearly a fortnight, I dismissed the upholsterer with the understanding that I should take a day or two for consideration, and let him know the result. It was then the fifth of September, and our Queen of Hearts was to arrive on the twentieth. The work, therefore, if it was begun on the seventh or eighth, would be begun in time.
In making all my calculations with a reference to the twentieth of September, I relied implicitly, it will be observed, on a young lady’s punctuality in keeping an appointment which she had herself made. I can only account for such extraordinary simplicity on my part on the supposition that my wits had become sadly rusted by long seclusion from society. Whether it was referable to this cause or not, my innocent trustfulness was at any rate destined to be practically rebuked before long in the most surprising manner. Little did I suspect, when I parted from the upholsterer on the fifth of the month, what the tenth of the month had in store for me.
On the seventh I made up my mind to have the bedroom furnished at once, and to postpone the question of the sitting-room for a few days longer. Having dispatched the necessary order to that effect, I next wrote to hire the piano and to order the box of novels. This done, I congratulated myself on the forward state of the preparations, and sat down to repose in the atmosphere of my own happy delusions.
On the ninth the wagon arrived with the furniture, and the men set to work on the bedroom. From this moment Morgan retired definitely to the top of the tower, and Owen became too nervous to lay the necessary amount of paint on the Earthquake at Lisbon.
On the tenth the work was proceeding bravely. Toward noon Owen and I strolled to the door to enjoy the fine autumn sunshine. We were sitting lazily on our favorite bench in front of the tower when we were startled by a shout from above us. Looking up directly, we saw Morgan half in and half out of his narrow window In the seventh story, gesticulating violently with the stem of his long meerschaum pipe in the direction of the road below us.
We gazed eagerly in the quarter thus indicated, but our low position prevented us for some time from seeing anything. At last we both discerned an old yellow postchaise distinctly and indisputably approaching us.
Owen and I looked at one another in panic-stricken silence. It was coming to us — and what did it contain? Do pianos travel in chaises? Are boxes of novels conveyed to their destination by a postilion? We expected the piano and expected the novels, but nothing else — unquestionably nothing else.
The chaise took the turn in the road, passed through the gateless gap in our rough inclosure-wall of loose stone, and rapidly approached us. A bonnet appeared at the window and a hand gayly waved a white handkerchief.
Powers of caprice, confusion, and dismay! It was Jessie Yelverton herself — arriving, without a word of warning, exactly ten days before her time.
Chapter III.
OUR QUEEN OF’ HEARTS
The chaise stopped in front of us, and before we had recovered from our bewilderment the gardener had opened the door and let down the steps.
A bright, laughing face, prettily framed round by a black veil passed over the head and tied under the chin — a traveling-dress of a nankeen colour, studded with blue buttons and trimmed with white braid — a light brown cloak over it — little neatly-gloved hands, which seized in an instant on one of mine and on one of Owen’s — two dark blue eyes, which seemed to look us both through and through in a moment — a clear, full, merrily confident voice — a look and manner gayly and gracefully self-possessed — such were the characteristics of our fair guest which first struck me at the moment when she left the postchaise and possessed herself of my hand.
“Don’t begin by scolding me,” she said, before I could utter a word of welcome. “There will be time enough for that in the course of the next six weeks. I beg pardon, with all possible humility, for the offense of coming ten days before my time. Don’t ask me to account for it, please; if you do, I shall be obliged to confess the truth. My dear sir, the fact is, this is an act of impulse.”
She paused, and looked us both in the face with a bright confidence in her own flow of nonsense that was perfectly irresistible.
“I must tell you all about it,” she ran on, leading the way to the bench, and inviting us, by a little mock gesture of supplication, to seat ourselves on either side of her. “I feel so guilty till I’ve told you. Dear me! how nice this is! Here I am quite at home already. Isn’t it odd? Well, and how do you think it happened? The morning before yesterday Matilda — there is Matilda, picking up my bonnet from the bottom of that remarkably musty carriage — Matilda came and woke me as usual, and I hadn’t an idea in my head, I assure you, till she began to brush my hair. Can you account for it? — I can’t — but she seemed, somehow, to brush a sudden fancy for coming here into my head. When I went down to breakfast, I said to my aunt, ‘Darling, I have an irresistible impulse to go to Wales at once, instead of waiting till the twentieth.’ She made all the necessary objections, poor dear, and my impulse got stronger and stronger with every one of them. ‘I’m quite certain,’ I said, ‘I shall never go at all if I don’t go now.’ ‘In that case,’ says my aunt, ‘ring the bell, and have your trunks packed. Your whole future depends on your going; and you terrify me so inexpressibly that I shall be glad to get rid of you.’ You may not think it, to look at her — but Matilda is a treasure; and in three hours more I was on the Great Western Railway. I have not the least idea how I got here — except that the men helped me everywhere. They are always such delightful creatures! I have been casting myself, and my maid, and my trunks on their tender mercies at every point in the journey, and their polite attentions exceed all belief. I slept at your horrid little county town last night; and the night before I missed a steamer or a train, I forget which, and slept at Bristol; and that’s how I got here. And, now I am here, I ought to give my guardian a kiss — oughtn’t I? Shall I call you papa? I think I will. And shall I call you uncle, sir, and give you a kiss too? We shall come to it sooner or later — shan’t we? — and we may as well begin at once, I suppose.”
Her fresh young lips touched my old withered cheek first, and then Owen’s; a soft, momentary shadow of tenderness, that was very pretty and becoming, passing quickly over the sunshine and gayety of her face as she saluted us. The next moment she was on her feet again, inquiring “who the wonderful man was who built The Glen Tower,” and wanting to go all over it immediately from top to bottom.
As we took her into the house, I made the necessary apologies for the miserable condition of the lean-to, and assured her that, ten days later, she would have found it perfectly ready to receive her. She whisked into the rooms — looked all round them — whisked out again — declared she had come to live in the old Tower, and not in any modern addition to it, and flatly declined to inhabit the lean-to on any terms whatever. I opened my lips to state certain objections, but she slipped away in an instant and made straight for the Tower staircase.
“Who lives here?” she asked, calling down to us, eagerly, from the first-floor landing.
“I do,” said Owen; “but, if you would like me to move out — ”
She was away up the second flight before he could say any more. The next sound we heard, as we slowly followed her, was a peremptory drumming against the room door of the second story.
“Anybody here?” we heard her ask through the door.
I