Man and Wife. Уилки КоллинзЧитать онлайн книгу.
"I'll go back to the merchant-service," he said, "if I have made you angry with me."
Blanche administered another dose of encouragement.
"Anger, Mr. Brinkworth, is one of the bad passions," she answered, demurely. "A young lady who has been properly brought up has no bad passions."
There was a sudden cry from the players on the lawn—a cry for "Mr. Brinkworth." Blanche tried to push him out. Arnold was immovable.
"Say something to encourage me before I go," he pleaded. "One word will do. Say, Yes."
Blanche shook her head. Now she had got him, the temptation to tease him was irresistible.
"Quite impossible!" she rejoined. "If you want any more encouragement, you must speak to my uncle."
"I'll speak to him," returned Arnold, "before I leave the house."
There was another cry for "Mr. Brinkworth." Blanche made another effort to push him out.
"Go!" she said. "And mind you get through the hoop!"
She had both hands on his shoulders—her face was close to his—she was simply irresistible. Arnold caught her round the waist and kissed her. Needless to tell him to get through the hoop. He had surely got through it already! Blanche was speechless. Arnold's last effort in the art of courtship had taken away her breath. Before she could recover herself a sound of approaching footsteps became plainly audible. Arnold gave her a last squeeze, and ran out.
She sank on the nearest chair, and closed her eyes in a flutter of delicious confusion.
The footsteps ascending to the summer-house came nearer. Blanche opened her eyes, and saw Anne Silvester, standing alone, looking at her. She sprang to her feet, and threw her arms impulsively round Anne's neck.
"You don't know what has happened," she whispered. "Wish me joy, darling. He has said the words. He is mine for life!"
All the sisterly love and sisterly confidence of many years was expressed in that embrace, and in the tone in which the words were spoken. The hearts of the mothers, in the past time, could hardly have been closer to each other—as it seemed—than the hearts of the daughters were now. And yet, if Blanche had looked up in Anne's face at that moment, she must have seen that Anne's mind was far away from her little love-story.
"You know who it is?" she went on, after waiting for a reply.
"Mr. Brinkworth?"
"Of course! Who else should it be?"
"And you are really happy, my love?"
"Happy?" repeated Blanche "Mind! this is strictly between ourselves. I am ready to jump out of my skin for joy. I love him! I love him! I love him!" she cried, with a childish pleasure in repeating the words. They were echoed by a heavy sigh. Blanche instantly looked up into Anne's face. "What's the matter?" she asked, with a sudden change of voice and manner.
"Nothing."
Blanche's observation saw too plainly to be blinded in that way.
"There is something the matter," she said. "Is it money?" she added, after a moment's consideration. "Bills to pay? I have got plenty of money, Anne. I'll lend you what you like."
"No, no, my dear!"
Blanche drew back, a little hurt. Anne was keeping her at a distance for the first time in Blanche's experience of her.
"I tell you all my secrets," she said. "Why are you keeping a secret from me? Do you know that you have been looking anxious and out of spirits for some time past? Perhaps you don't like Mr. Brinkworth? No? you do like him? Is it my marrying, then? I believe it is! You fancy we shall be parted, you goose? As if I could do without you! Of course, when I am married to Arnold, you will come and live with us. That's quite understood between us—isn't it?"
Anne drew herself suddenly, almost roughly, away from Blanche, and pointed out to the steps.
"There is somebody coming," she said. "Look!"
The person coming was Arnold. It was Blanche's turn to play, and he had volunteered to fetch her.
Blanche's attention—easily enough distracted on other occasions—remained steadily fixed on Anne.
"You are not yourself," she said, "and I must know the reason of it. I will wait till to-night; and then you will tell me, when you come into my room. Don't look like that! You shall tell me. And there's a kiss for you in the mean time!"
She joined Arnold, and recovered her gayety the moment she looked at him.
"Well? Have you got through the hoops?"
"Never mind the hoops. I have broken the ice with Sir Patrick."
"What! before all the company!"
"Of course not! I have made an appointment to speak to him here."
They went laughing down the steps, and joined the game.
Left alone, Anne Silvester walked slowly to the inner and darker part of the summer-house. A glass, in a carved wooden frame, was fixed against one of the side walls. She stopped and looked into it—looked, shuddering, at the reflection of herself.
"Is the time coming," she said, "when even Blanche will see what I am in my face?"
She turned aside from the glass. With a sudden cry of despair she flung up her arms and laid them heavily against the wall, and rested her head on them with her back to the light. At the same moment a man's figure appeared—standing dark in the flood of sunshine at the entrance to the summer-house. The man was Geoffrey Delamayn.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
THE TWO.
He advanced a few steps, and stopped. Absorbed in herself, Anne failed to hear him. She never moved.
"I have come, as you made a point of it," he said, sullenly. "But, mind you, it isn't safe."
At the sound of his voice, Anne turned toward him. A change of expression appeared in her face, as she slowly advanced from the back of the summer-house, which revealed a likeness to her moth er, not perceivable at other times. As the mother had looked, in by-gone days, at the man who had disowned her, so the daughter looked at Geoffrey Delamayn—with the same terrible composure, and the same terrible contempt.
"Well?" he asked. "What have you got to say to me?"
"Mr. Delamayn," she answered, "you are one of the fortunate people of this world. You are a nobleman's son. You are a handsome man. You are popular at your college. You are free of the best houses in England. Are you something besides all this? Are you a coward and a scoundrel as well?"
He started—opened his lips to speak—checked himself—and made an uneasy attempt to laugh it off. "Come!" he said, "keep your temper."
The suppressed passion in her began to force its way to the surface.
"Keep my temper?" she repeated. "Do you of all men expect me to control myself? What a memory yours must be! Have you forgotten the time when I was fool enough to think you were fond of me? and mad enough to believe you could keep a promise?"
He persisted in trying to laugh it off. "Mad is a strongish word to use, Miss Silvester!"
"Mad is the right word! I look back at my own infatuation—and I can't account for it; I can't understand myself. What was there in you," she asked, with an outbreak of contemptuous surprise, "to attract such a woman as I am?"
His inexhaustible good-nature was proof even against this. He put his hands in his pockets, and said, "I'm sure I don't know."
She turned away from him. The frank brutality of the answer had