Mary of Marion Isle. Генри Райдер Хаггард
no doubt, but now of a faded grey, and remarkable for a beautiful Adam mantelpiece, carved pine cornices, and a moulded ceiling of the period. It was well furnished, too, in its way, for furniture, when he could pick it up cheap, was Dr. Watson’s one extravagance. Thus there were some good Queen Anne pieces; also a really fine Elizabethan refectory table, untouched and with the true bulbous legs (Sister Angelica hated that table because it took so much polishing). Lastly, there were a few excellent pictures also picked up by Dr. Watson, and over the whole place brooded a kind of peaceful charm as is sometimes observable in Queen Anne or Georgian rooms.
Noting to his disappointment that the place was empty, Andrew walked up and down casually examining the pictures and wondering whether Miss Rose had told him to come at five, or half-past. For ten minutes or more he continued to wonder, till at length that young lady appeared. Certainly she was a charming sight as she glided into the room wearing a white dress which, though simple, fitted her tall and rather stately figure well enough. Anywhere Rose Watson would have been reckoned a beautiful woman, one among ten thousand. She had all the points of beauty; an exquisitely tinted face, large blue eyes, a shapely head on which her plentiful golden hair was coiled like a crown, a sweet mouth, a well-cut nose not too sharp, and long, delicate hands and feet. Also her voice was low and gentle and her movements were full of native grace. In short, she was lovely, a perfect type of the Eternal Feminine.
«How do you do, Mr. West?» she said, colouring slightly, perhaps because of the evident admiration that was written in his eyes, or perhaps because it was her weakness, or her gift, so to do when she addressed a man. «Forgive me if I do not call you Brother after our silly fashion here, but really I can’t.»
«The last thing in the world I wish is that you should call me Brother,» he answered in a rather shy way, adding, «About whatever others I may be indefinite, upon that point I am quite clear.»
«I am sorry to have kept you waiting,» she went on hurriedly, dropping the blue eyes, «but that silly old Angelica has made some frightful mess with the gas stove and nearly blew us all up. I found her covered with blacks and with a lock of her hair on fire.»
«I dare say,» replied Andrew. «Tow burns easily, doesn’t it?»
She laughed a little and remarked good-naturedly:
«Well, it is rather like tow now you mention it. Then I hear that Dr. Somerville Black is coming into tea and I had to find the best things. I wish he wouldn’t.»
«So do I,» murmured Andrew.
«Oh!» she continued with an outburst of genuine feeling, «how horrible it is to be poor and have only one servant, or rather none at all, for Angelica is a kind of cousin, you know, not a servant.»
«I’m not sure,» said Andrew. «Poverty has its advantages. You, I understand, would like to be rich.»
«Of course I should. I will be quite honest about it. I should like to have carriages and jewels and proper dresses and a fine house with lots of people to wait on me. Then I should be quite happy,» and she laughed again in her charming, rather childish fashion.
«Perhaps you wouldn’t be happy after all, Miss Watson. I have just come from seeing some people who have all these things in abundance and they are not happy – except perhaps Clara,» he mused aloud.
She looked up quickly as though she would like to ask who Clara was, but if so, she refrained and only said:
«Wouldn’t you like to be rich, Mr. West? But perhaps you will one day.»
«I don’t think so,» he answered, shrugging his shoulders, «unless I should become a successful man like Somerville Black, which is most improbable, and I don’t know that I want to.»
She considered him for a little while in an innocent way, playing with the red rose she wore in the bosom of her white dress, but said nothing.
«What’s the use of riches?» he went on, suddenly taking fire. «At best they are only an addition. I’d rather have health, or happiness, or ability, or the power to do good to others, than any amount of riches. At the present moment,» he added slowly, «to take a concrete example, I’d rather have that rose than a cheque for a thousand pounds.»
Again she laughed gently, looking at him doubtfully, but not without a certain amount of admiration, as she answered:
«When it has faded, say by to-morrow morning, you may think that you would rather have had the thousand pounds. However, if you believe it worth so much, you can have it for nothing, because, because – I have a prettier one upstairs.»
«I am content with that because you have worn it,» he answered, stretching out his hand.
She began to unfasten the rose, which seemed to be an intricate and lengthy operation, and Andrew apparently thought it an act of common kindness to try to help her, with the result that he pricked his finger rather badly. However, it was out at last and in his hand. Then something happened to him. His heart began to beat violently, a mist swam before his eyes, he lost his reason, his judgment, everything that distinguished him in ordinary moments, as, in short, Nature for her own purposes decrees that most men and some women must occasionally do. The issue was that quite undesignedly and without the smallest premeditation he kissed that lovely girl full upon the lips.
«Oh!» she said, turning the exact colour of the red rose in his hand and looking first as though she were going to cry and then to laugh; for to tell the truth at that instant laughter was nearer to her than were tears. «Oh! you know you oughtn’t to do that.»
«I don’t care,» said Andrew defiantly. «I love you.»
What else he would have said or done remains dark, for at that moment footsteps were heard in the passage and a big genial voice saying:
«In all my professional experience, which is fairly extended, I do not think I ever met such a case. Of course, we are aware that a woman is never what she seems to be, except when she is in a rage, but you don’t often find one who announces herself to be three people and without any histrionic training plays all the parts so well.»
«No,» answered another rather dreamy voice, that of Dr. Watson. «It suggests all sorts of queer things, doesn’t it? For example, reincarnation and the imprisonment of sundry entities in one corporeal shape.»
«Ah! Doctor,» said the big voice of Somerville Black, «there you are getting into mysticism, which personally I find it safer always to put out of court. To me, therefore, at present it suggests an unusual and most complicated case of nerves, resulting probably from suppressed instincts.»
Then came a crash, followed by:
«Hullo! Ma’am, I didn’t see you coming.»
«Oh!» exclaimed Rose, «that idiot Angelica has run into him with the tea-tray in the dark passage,» and promptly she sped like a swallow towards the door.
As she reached it, it opened, and behold! there was a second collision, this time between Rose and the large advancing shape of Dr. Somerville Black.
With another «Oh!» she recoiled, as a bird might that had unexpectedly come into contact with a bull, and would have fallen had not the advancing Andrew caught her.
«I begin to think,» went on the big voice, «that I have been reincarnated as a shunting railway truck. However, young lady,» he added, suddenly realizing the kind of person with whom he had to do, «if you like to come out of that friendly shelter and charge again, I am sure I don’t mind.»
Then followed explanations, in the midst of which Dr. Watson, who had stayed behind in the passage to assist with the overset crockery, arrived upon the scene. He was a tall, thin, nervous-looking man, with dark eyes and a clean- shaved, ascetic face that would have become a mediæval saint, on which from time to time appeared a smile of singular sweetness. Idealist was written all over him, especially in his eyes which had the dreaming look of the typical visionary. Curiously enough, there was a considerable resemblance between him and Andrew; indeed, they might easily have passed for father and son. Nor did this cease with their physical characteristics, since their mental fibre and attitude were very similar. Both of them were dreamers, both were somewhat impracticable, neither of them