The Greatest Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (65+ Novels & Short Stories in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le FanuЧитать онлайн книгу.
I would place you very well; and even as it is we must try my dear.”
So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica entered, leading us both by the hands.
By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room dependent on the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumination usual before dinner.
“Here are my two cousins,” began Lady Knollys; “this is Miss Ruthyn, of Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud; and this is Miss Millicent Ruthyn, Silas’s daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Milly; and they are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light, and they know it very well themselves.”
And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so tall as I, but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and, smiling, took our hands.
She was by no means young, as I then counted youth — past thirty, I suppose — and with an air that was very quiet, and friendly, and engaging. She had never been a mere fashionable woman plainly; but she had the ease and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both in Milly and me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly. That was all I knew of her for the present.
So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell rang, and we ran away to our room.
“Did I say something very bad?” asked poor Milly, standing exactly before me, so soon as the door was shut.
“Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.”
“And I do look a great fool, don’t I?” she demanded.
“You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.”
“I watch everything. I think I’ll learn it at last; but it comes a little troublesome at first; and they do talk different from what I used — you were quite right there.”
When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party already assembled, and chatting, evidently with spirit.
The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey, with shrewd grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration extended to his rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was conversing, no doubt agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her guest.
Over my shoulder, Milly whispered —
“Mr. Carysbroke.”
And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with Lady Knollys, his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was, indeed, our acquaintance of the Windmill Wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his pleased and intelligent smile.
“I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming scenery of the Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance, Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful county I know of nothing prettier.”
Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words.
“What a sweet scene!” said Cousin Monica: “only think of her never bringing me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adventures; and you, I know, are very benevolent, Ilbury, and all that kind of thing; but I am not quite certain that you would have walked along that narrow parapet, over a river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see two very pretty demoiselles on the other side.”
“What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for disinterested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does such infinite credit to my taste,” exclaimed Mr. Carysbroke. “I think a charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his virtuous, but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly rewarded by a vision of angels.”
“And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have been devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and returned without having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his worthy sister with poetic babblings about wood-nymphs and such pagan impieties,” rejoined Lady Knollys.
“Well, be just,” he replied, laughing; “did not I go next day and see the patient?”
“Yes; next day you went by the same route — in quest of the dryads, I am afraid — and were rewarded by the spectacle of Mother Hubbard.”
“Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?” Mr. Carysbroke appealed.
“I do believe,” said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary, “that every word that Monica says is perfectly true.”
“And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I’m most cruelly persecuted.”
At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper little clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted down the middle, whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow.
This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me, and I know not how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them.
That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant repast. Everyone talked — it was impossible that conversation should flag where Lady Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke was very agreeable and amusing. At the other side of the table, the little pink curate, I was happy to see, was prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an under-tone to Milly, who was following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking in so low a key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side one word she was saying.
That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire in our room; and I told her —
“I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has made. The pretty little clergyman — il en est épris — he has evidently quite lost his heart to her. I dare say he’ll preach next Sunday on some of King Solomon’s wise sayings about the irresistible strength of women.”
“Yes,” said Lady Knollys, “or maybe on the sensible text, ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour,’ and so forth. At all events, I may say, Milly, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a tolerably tood thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, besides his church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don’t think a more harmless and docile little husband could be found anywhere; and I think, Miss Maud, you seemed a good deal interested, too.”
I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping after her wont to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way —
“And how has Silas been? — not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering to India, Milly, or somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usual. And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now — your poor father’s will, Maud. Surely he doesn’t mean to go on lounging and smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters, and worse people. He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a fortune — a great fortune — and coming home again. That’s what your brother Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he won’t — too long abandoned to idleness and low company — and he’ll not have a shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen hundred pounds of poor Austin’s legacy to him, and saying that he has paid debts of the young man, and holds his acknowledgments to that amount? He won’t have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I’d give fifty pounds he was in Van Diemen’s Land — not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than you do; but I really don’t see any honest business he has in England.”
Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.
“You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go home to Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he thought I spoke so freely; but I can’t help it: so you must promise to be more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to be pressed against